Monday, March 02, 2009

Random Monday Musings

The best hitter in Major League Baseball right now is Manny Ramirez. The man is a menace when he attempts to field the ball and behaves in a positively childish fashion most of the time and is unsigned. He turned down $45,000,000.00 from the Los Angeles Dodgers for two years as ‘not enough.’ Need I say more?

Ray Lewis spoke badly about the Ravens and looked to move on and make big money in free-agency. The only team that expressed any significant interest in him was his own team, the Ravens. Methinks he spoke too much...

Bobby Jindal’s best piece of luck this week was that Saturday Night Live was a repeat. He is, I suspect, hoping and praying someone else does something soon to get him off the first five minutes of the show. His speech was pretty awful both in delivery and content. Then he wasn’t even being honest with his little story about the boats. And referencing Katrina, a George W. Bush debacle, was not a particularly astute thing to do. Please recall, however, the nominating speech for Michael Dukakis was one of the all time worst speeches ever at that Democratic Convention. It was given by a ‘promising young Governor’ who was a ‘rising star’ for the Democrats. It was endless and incoherent. Four years later, the speaker, Bill Clinton, was elected President. Jindal is being lumped in there with Sarah Palin which is a huge mistake. Palin gives a great speech but is busily blaming everyone except herself for her own cluelessness; Jindal is a bright guy who we will be hearing more from in the future. He appears to be a very effective Governor in Louisiana and that will prove to be more important than one speech.

Lots can be said and has been said by Rush Limbaugh’s speech at CPAC. There is only one thing to note. He wants President Obama to fail. It is a bad time right now, and very few people are arguing that. A failed Presidency, right now, hurts us badly, very badly. Rush wants Obama to fail because to Limbaugh, ideology is more important than country. If Obama is successful than Limbaugh’s ideology, at the moment, is, at very least, put in the back burner. Limbaugh values ideological purity over good of country. People who put party or ideology over country, no matter what party or ideology they have, are people who have NOTHING of value to say. And that is all that needs to be said about Rush Limbaugh at the moment. He has nothing of value to add to our national conversation.

Roland Burris is still holding on to his Illinois Senate seat. He is avoiding meetings where President Obama is as Burris feels it would be ‘awkward’ to be with the President at this time. You think?

In watching about and reading about the current economic crisis, the word ‘meltdown’ actually does seem to be an accurate word. There literally is a financial meltdown in our banking/investment system, our real estate market, the automobile industry, as well as in other arenas. I have heard ‘experts’ speak about the stimulus money as being everything from too much and wasteful, to not nearly enough. It is difficult to fathom that this crisis is anywhere close to over and close to being resolved. It is frightening indeed.

Lastly, New York Giants Hall of Fame Linebacker, Lawrence Taylor is going to be on “Dancing with the Stars.” LT once hit Joe Theisman, the then QB of the Redskins with such devastating force that as the two of them got tangled up, literally snapped Theisman’s leg, ending his career. One can only hope LT remembers to dance and not tackle his partner...

2 comments:

RR said...

Whether you like him or not, the only way to get any sense of objective news is to listen to Rush and his kindred spirits and then try to piece together the truth by taking their views with those views espoused so openly by the liberal media, that being CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR, and most obviously NBC/MSNBC.

Never in my 50+ years have I heard the media so openly biased to one side. It frankly is one of the scariest trends I have seen. If the liberals think the right wing is going to set back and let it continue, well I don't think that will happen.

Then if the right wing reacts by throwing millions into their media outlets, wherever will we find the truth?

I personally believe there should be a Congressional investigation of the media coverage of the election. Of course, that is never going to happen.

John Manzo said...

My bias with Rush is that provides nothing of value to any sort of civil discourse. I would recommend that people listen to people like George Will and utilize some of the credible conservative voices and contrast them with the liberal voices to discern differences. Interesting to note that MSNBC, at night, is very openly biased to the left but their morning show with Joe Scarborough is one of the most balanced shows on television with a variety of perspectives. Joe and Mika obviously disagree but they do so in a very positive fashion---which is beneficial. Their guests do run all perspectives and no one is ever shouted down.

As for the media coverage in the election, one cannot exclude talk radio from media coverage. As for the networks, I think you give them too much credit for successfully pushing a candidate. They did not like Nixon and he was elected twice. They did not like Reagan and he was elected twice. There were three Bush terms with two different Bushes and Republican control of the Congress for a long stretch.

The biggest whiner of the media coverage has been Sarah Palin and here is what I think.

I think that Sarah Palin's launch was well done and her speech at the convention was delivered well. The woman can flat out give a great speech. I found her to be a formidable candidate with a major future.

I know longer think that. Her ability to articulate well thought out answers to people during interviews was bad. I thought that the media was actually pretty kind to her after her interview with Charlie Gibson which wasn't very good. Her interview with Katie Couric was awful----and Couric's questions weren't really that hard. Frankly, Couric didn't push long and hard enough on her. Palin was truly not well versed in a whole lot.

During the debate I was floored with her flippant response about not answering the questions asked as much as giving her own little speeches. I was astounded afterward when Chris Matthews liked her performance---a lot. The media buzz, immediately after the debate was pretty positive for her. The problem was that people, at home, in the face of a positive buzz by the talking heads were livid at her non-answers.

Frankly, Sarah Palin should quit whining and start studying. The media didn't do her in. She did herself in. I used to teach and she reminded me of students who wouldn't study and complain that the teacher asked them unfair questions. I told one kid that studying works a whole lot better than whining.