The Tragedy of Barack Obama

Just a few short months ago Barack Obama stood on the verge of accomplishing what no man or woman before him had been able to. He was about to become the first African-American candidate for president from a major political party. Obama had transcended race to such an extent that the question of whether or not America was ready to elect a black president was seldom even asked. No, the question on people’s lips as this campaign began was:

Is Barack Obama black enough?

Remember that? It certainly seems like a long time ago now, doesn’t it?

Obama was too clean cut, too articulate, too suave, and too elite to really galvanize the black community behind him. That was the conventional wisdom. We soon learned that Barack was a better candidate than Jesse Jackson had ever been, and a better man than Al Sharpton ever would be. He had that special something, something more than just the beautiful speeches, something that made you not only like the guy but want to believe in him as well. He drew comparisons to John Kennedy while borrowing from Jay Z. He was black enough for the black community—and suave enough to win over the white community. He was so much more than just a “black candidate.”

This is no easy feat and, as we’ve seen, it is even harder to maintain than it is to achieve. But Barack Hussein Obama, a child of a mixed marriage who was raised by his white grandparents and dogged with a middle name that many conservatives now compare to Hitler, has been fighting this battle his whole life. Questions about whether he was black enough were nothing new to him. It was this fight, when he decided to get involved in politics on Chicago’s south side, which led Obama to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ.

Barack Obama cannot tell you the truth—that he joined the church because he badly needed the “street cred” that came with it—but this is exactly what happened. Trinity is as much a part of Chicago city politics as the Catholic Church is for the Irish who have ruled Boston for generations. And with Trinity comes Wright.

Jeremiah Wright is a relic, a champion of victim politics whose position would in fact be weakened if a black man was able to rise to the highest office in this land. Al Sharpton threatens to close down NYC while Wright claims the government is responsible for unleashing the AIDS virus. These are the leaders who have not only failed the black community for decades but done far more harm than good along the way.

Barack Obama had a chance to change that, to install new leadership and bridge the gap between black and white in ways that Wright and Sharpton will never be able to understand. It is tragic that it all may be slipping away. Beyond the tragedy lies irony. He now faces the very real possibility of losing this nomination to Hillary Clinton, herself a caricature of victim politics. Obama has never tried to play the victim card, not in this race and not in his life, no matter how easy it would have been for him to do so. Now he is being beaten down by those who have made a living of it.

Shut Up Already!

In case anyone is unclear, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a jackass. And a racist. And a big douche.

But most importantly, he is a huge problem for Barack Obama.

Good Reads Addendum

Not sure how this one got by me this morning. Please accept my deepest and sincere apologies.

The Boston Globe, owned and operated by The New York Times, slams Hillary Clinton for her promise to annihilate Iran in defense of Israel. This should have become a bigger story than it was. A promise to protect Israel with nuclear weapons is crazier than McCain's vow to stay in Iraq for a hundred years. At least he has a thought process behind it. Clinton is really just throwing shit against the wall at this point and hoping it sticks.

The sad part is that in many parts of this country it is working. And we're not just talking about Ohio and Pennsylvania. If there was a one-night, national primary held between the two Democrats this week there is a very real likelihood she would defeat Obama by close to the same final margin we saw on Tuesday. This is not to say she would be successful in a general election, because she certainly would not. The Republicans would most definitely crush her. But the Democrats do have a problem on their hands, and it isn't going to get better any time soon.

Good Reads

If it's Sunday, it's Good Reads.

Colbert King tells the interesting story of Pennsylvania Governor and unabashed Clintonista Ed Rendell’s connection to Louis Farrakhan.

Here is a very rational take on the point my man Hank Steinbrenner tried to make last week about Joba “Scared of Bugs” Chamberlain. It isn’t that Hank is wrong, because he isn’t. Joba is far too bright a prospect to be allowed to wallow in middle relief. It’s just that Hank has the exact amount of tact one would expect from a legacy son who inherited something as valuable and lucrative as the New York Yankees. (Have I told you how much I love that this guy is in charge in the Bronx? Seriously, I couldn’t be happier. This is going to end badly for everyone west of the Connecticut River.)

From Huffington, the often evoked George McGovern chimes in. He’s still backing Hillary, but he refuses to spout her talking points.

One of my favorite things about the internet is the ease with which one can discover a new writer, or a new publication, or a new point of view with a few simple keystrokes. Case in point, the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg. Is Hillary correct when she claims to have survived the worst of the GOP attack machine? Certainly not a new point of view for me, but Hendrik does make an interesting case for why, as usual, the Clintons are wrong. (Thanks Andrew.)

It’s amazing what you can find once you go down the rabbit hole that is the blogosphere. The Hertzberg piece links to this little gem from The New Republic. Why, exactly, did The New York Times endorse Hillary?

After jerking the Green Bay Packers around for years regarding his retirement, and then signaling that he may be planning on coming back again after finally announcing last month that he was all done, the team has had enough and says “no mas” to Brett Favre.

Let there be no doubt: This story makes me sick to my stomach. It will always be there, lurking, ready to be regurgitated by jealous players and fans from other cities. I don’t know yet what Matt Walsh is up to, but I know it is no good.

Fellow Framingham High alum Mike Reiss analyzes the thought process behind the New England Patriots decision to trade down from 7 to 10 before picking University of Tennessee ILB Jerod Mayo in yesterday’s first round of the NFL Draft.

ESPN’s John Clayton declares the day one winners and losers. With rounds 3-7 still to come later today, this list is subject to change. And it will change, if for no other reason than the Pats have not one, not two, but three picks in the third round.

If you’ve been paying attention, this Washington Post story on the very real and growing divide in the Democratic Party should come as no surprise.

Frank Rich disagrees and says, “Not so fast.”

And finally, George Will shows us the dark reality of McCain-Feingold. Full disclosure: I thought it was a good idea at the time and still think it can work. Just not like this.

A Better Day

If the New England Patriots were defending Super Bowl champions, rather than Super Bowl runners-up, this would be a better day.

If they still had two picks in the first round, rather than one, this would be a better day.

If “spygate” was not once again looming, this would be a better day.

If “spygate” had in fact never happened, this would be a better day.

If Roger Goodell was no longer the commissioner of the NFL, this would be a better day.

If we had never been introduced to Matt Walsh, this would be a better day.

If the draft still started at noon, rather than three, this would be a better day.

If a quarterback from Boston College was not about to be drafted in the top 5, this would be a better day.

And if the Brothers Manning were not both now Super Bowl winners, this would be a better day.

The Battle of Actium

The Battle of Actium…the television event 2000 years in the making.

Well, no, not really. On HBO’s Rome, which wraps up it’s second and final season tonight at 9, the battles are not nearly as important as the men (and women) who controlled the city at the end of the Republic. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Pompey Magnus, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Cleopatra, and Octavian (Augustus) Caesar are famous names still, more than two millennia later. There is good reason for that, and this show’s greatest strength is that it doesn’t have to stray very far from the historical record to tell a fantastically compelling story. Ciaran Hinds as Caesar and James Purefoy as Mark Antony, his right hand, are two of the most riveting characters to be found on TV today. Gladiator this is not.

There are always two different stories being told on this show, one of historical fact and one of dramatized fiction. The fiction features Roman legionnaires Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, their wives, and their children. Their stories are woven into the ebb and flow of events that have fascinated playwrights, artists and historians for centuries. There is very little poetic license taken to include them in events. (With one notable exception, which may be pivotal to tonight’s finale.) They are the glue that holds the show together and they are lead characters, but at the same time they are portrayed as common soldiers existing in an uncommon time. You laugh with them, you cry with them, and with a total of only 22 episodes you never get sick of them. Vorenus and Pullo are spared limping to the finish line the way Tony Soprano will, or losing their way like John Locke may have.

The dramatic side of Rome is well worth watching, either through On Demand or on DVD, so I will not spoil it for you here. However, if a nuts and bolts and somewhat long-winded explanation of the history involved interests you, then read on. If not, no worries, but do yourself a favor and check this show out while you still can.

As our story begins:

Pompey Magus and Caesar are uneasy friends and co-Consuls, the former the head of the Roman Senate and the latter in charge of its army. Jealousy between the two soon turns to rivalry, and rivalry quickly becomes civil war. Beaten, Pompey flees to Egypt where he believes he still has allies. Unfortunately for him, the boy-king, Ptolemy XVIII, who rules Egypt is eager to score points with the much younger Julius Caesar and orders Pompey beheaded.

In one of the greatest strategic blunders in history, Ptolemy and his advisors present Caesar with his Pompey’s severed head upon his arrival in Alexandria. To the Romans, the Egyptians at this time were little more than half-Greek, half-African savages, and that they would dare to not only murder a Roman Consul but to disrespect his body in this way is an offense that cannot go unpunished. Soon enough Ptolemy is floating face down in the Nile, his advisors heads are on stakes outside the royal palace, and Cleopatra sits on the Egyptian throne. (She is also mother to Caesar’s child, because nothing solidified a political alliance in the ancient world better than a baby.)

Caesar had the support of the people, but Pompey had the power of the Senate behind him. Returning to Rome Caesar is named Dictator for life, but makes the fatal mistake of granting amnesty to many Senators who had opposed him. Among them are the great orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Marcus Junius Brutus, a descendent of the mythical Brutus who legend has it rid Rome of its last king. The relationship between Caesar and Brutus is complex. They are friends but also political rivals, and the friendship is put under further strain by a longstanding affair between Caesar and Servilia, Brutus’s mother.

The relationship between Caesar and Servilia, and the aftermath of their breakup, is indicative of the behind the scenes but powerful role women played in Roman politics. Caesar originally delays pursuing Pompey at the urging of his lover. When their affair becomes an embarrassing public scandal, Caesar ends the relationship. Servilia swears revenge and it is her influence that pushes Brutus towards a final break with his friend and fateful partnership with Gaius Cassius Longinus. The political and the personal collide, plots abound, and season one ends with Gaius Julius Caesar laying dead on the floor of the Roman Senate, victim of the most famous murder in world history.

Season two picks up exactly where the first season left off, with Mark Antony swearing revenge on Brutus and the other senators involved in the conspiracy. He forms an alliance with young Octavian, son of his mistress, Atia, and Caesar’s nephew, adopted son, and sole heir. It is Octavian, now one of the richest men in Rome thanks to his uncle’s will and holder of the name Caesar, who realizes the conspirators have backed themselves into a corner. If Julius Caesar was indeed a tyrant who needed to die, as the Senate would argue, then all of his acts are null and void. Elections will need to be called to fill all offices appointed by the Dictator in his final days. Tyrant or not, Caesar was loved by the people, and any elections held in the immediate aftermath of his murder will propel Antony to power.

Instead of holding elections and rather than going to war with each other, Antony and Octavian form an uneasy peace with Brutus and Cassius. The conspirators leave the city and head to Greece, and Antony in essence assumes the same role and power anyway that Caesar enjoyed before his death. This arrangement lasts only briefly, as Octavian is growing up and has ambitions of his own. Soon he and Antony are feuding. Atia, when faced with a choice between lover and son, chooses Mark Antony. Crushed, young Caesar leaves Rome to join his friend Marcus Agrippa and gain the military experience needed to realistically challenge Antony.

Time passes. Brutus and Cassius gather forces and strength in Greece while Octavian and Agrippa raise an army to go to war with Antony. Octavian reaches out to Cicero, the Senate’s most powerful speaker and longtime thorn in the side of Antony. He and Antony have formed an uncomfortable peace of their own, but it is one that Cicero has grown tired of and he eagerly turns on Antony in a letter read on the Senate floor. With his control of the Senate on the line Antony is forced to leave Rome and meet Octavian in battle. His forces are routed and Octavian Caesar returns to Rome victorious.

Victory, however, has left his own army weakened. Cicero, realizing that life under Octavian will be only slightly better than life under Antony, reaches out to Brutus and Cassius. This Caesar is weak, he tells them, and can be taken down at anytime. Realizing that his forces alone cannot beat the army gathered in Greece, Octavian swallows his pride and reconciles with Antony. They merge their forces. Needing a quick influx of cash to pay for yet another military campaign, they make a list of the richest men left in Rome still loyal to the conspirators. These men are murdered and their property seized. Among them is Cicero. He is not only killed, but Antony orders his hands chopped off and nailed to the door of the Senate as well.

The battle in Greece is quick and final. Both Cassius and Brutus are killed. Returning to Rome, Antony, Octavian and another (lesser) Roman general, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, form a Triumvirate. They divide the empire into three spheres, with Octavian in charge of Rome, Antony in charge of Egypt and the east, and Lepidus in control of Africa. To seal their new alliance Octavian marries off his sister, Octavia, to Antony, despite the fact that Antony has been bedding her mother for years.

The arrangement quickly falls apart and Antony departs for Alexandria and a fateful encounter with Cleopatra. The Egyptian Queen’s greatest desire is that her son by Julius Caesar, Caesarion, will be legitimized and given the same control of Rome his father sought. Seducing Antony is easy, as is getting him to promise her just that in his own will. When word of the will reaches Octavian it is exactly what he needs to break from Antony once and for all. The Senate labels Antony a traitor to Rome and declares war on Cleopatra. Octavian and Agrippa sail for Egypt, where they will meet Mark Antony one more time, tonight, at Actium.

(Original Post Date: 3/25/2007)

True Story

It was the smell of oranges that first alerted me to something being amiss.

I'd had a long day, and finding a seat at the front of a crowded rush-hour train had been one of its highlights. I was near the door in one of those seats that faces neither the front nor the back of the train, but is rather pointed inward toward the aisle. I never choose those seats, but I was cold and tired and sat down in the first empty spot I encountered, in between a heavyset gentleman and a soccer mom, both of whom would have rather seen me move on and leave the elbow room between them empty.

News had broken earlier in the day of divorce papers filed by longtime whipping boy and one-time Boston Celtic nemesis Jason Kidd and his wife, Joumana. He is a wife-beater and she is a fool, and so when the story came out that he had filed for divorce on charges of mental and physical abuse, I found the irony quite amusing. As did my buddy Reese, and at the moment when it all began I was answering his latest text message on the topic. It isn't everyday that a professional athlete, one with a history of domestic violence, claims that his wife beat him up. This was a story to be discussed.

The conductor appeared looking for tickets. He was new. You get to know your conductors. Not always their names, but their faces, and your chances of looking inconspicuous enough that they walk by without punching your ticket. (A penny saved is a penny earned, and it costs 475 of those pennies to go one way between Boston and Newton these days.) I knew right away that new guy wasn't going to let anyone get off easy. He planted himself directly in front of me, looked me in the eye, and bellowed, "All tickets please."

There was the trace of an accent I couldn't quite place, and he stunk of oranges. It wasn't cologne. It was like he had bathed in orange peels and not gotten them all off. It seemed to me he took a little too long to punch my ticket, but chalked it up to my just being tired and irritable.

The soccer mom got off in Newtonville and I slid over into her seat. My heavyset neighbor spread out as well. The conductor reappeared just as we started to move and, despite the train now being far from full, he again chose to stand directly in front of me. He was too close, and the smell wasn't natural. My phone went off again and I looked down, but I never looked at the message because it was then that I realized what was so wrong about him.

He was a ninja.

I knew they had been watching me. One tails me up Auburn Street every morning, and another lurks behind the counter at Café Rebecca in Back Bay. I would see others out of the corner of me eye wherever I went. At first I walked on eggshells, but it had been going on so long that I almost didn't notice anymore. But they hadn't forgotten. They had watched and waited, and now they had chosen to strike. It was payback for the woman, the one from Tangiers. She had loved oranges.

The sword was in his hand in an instant, a Hanzo sword straight out of Kill Bill. His first strike sliced open the seat next to me. I was on my feet and moving faster than he could bring his blade up again, but he shot out his right leg and clipped my knee. I grabbed his leg and spun as I went down, sending him hard into the door of the car. The latch gave and the door slid open. He tried to turn towards me but I lurched forward from my knees and put my shoulder into the small of his back. The sword fell and clattered back up the aisle, and my force carried us out into the outer passage between cars. I hit the latch with my foot and the door slid shut. No one was going to help me, and prying eyes have always pissed me off. The last thing I saw was the fat guy picking up the sword wearing a look that told me it would be on eBay in a matter of hours.

The ninja had recovered and lashed out with a flurry of kicks and chops, the majority of which I managed to deflect with my trusty backpack. I thought about going for my umbrella but knew there was no time. Instead I curled my fingers into a claw and went after his throat, just like Patrick Swayze in Road House. Unfortunately, I am no Swayze, and he brushed me aside and sent me tumbling towards the edge of the train.

My hand shot out on instinct and caught hold of a fire extinguisher hanging against the rear outer wall of the car we had just left. I broke my fall and yanked hard on its handle, pulling it free and into my hands. I could sense, rather than see, him behind me, and I swung that fire extinguisher around like I was Mark McGwire on the juice back in 1998. It hit him square on the side of the head and made a sound like a champagne cork, only squishier. He crumbled to his knees, and fell forward. This time there was no instinctual grab of anything, and he fell out the door and into the night. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I braced myself for another assault, expecting ninjas to come from all directions at once. None did. He had been alone, and this had only been a warning. They knew where I was, and they could come after me at anytime. They had made their point. I knew their next attack, whenever and wherever it came, wouldn't be then and there.

I stood up, took a deep breath, and moved on into the next car. This one was almost empty. I flopped down into an empty seat a picked up a sports page from that day's Globe that had been left behind. There was a picture of Jason Kidd and the headline, "SHE HIT ME!" I smiled. My night was finally looking up.

(Original Post Date: 1/10/2007)

Sense out of Nonsense

I enjoyed this story in Newsweek because even the Clinton campaign is having trouble keeping their bullshit straight.

And then I threw up.

Thoughts and Observations, Pennsylvania Edition

Not only would Pennsylvania be better off is the Amish were in charge, but Florida just might be as well. (Remind me sometime to tell you the story of my Nana buying Amish strawberries in New Port Richey.)

MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell is more beautiful after two kids than she ever was before.

These NBA playoffs are so good that Bill Simmons could actually forget Suns vs. Lakers in his list of top ten potential series.

That not a single precinct, not one, was able to report anything for more than a half-hour after the polls closed tells you all you need to know about Pennsylvania.

“Too early to call” may just be the most asinine phrase in politics. If you know, call it. If you don’t, it’s because it is too close to call, not too early. Can we all agree on this?

Apparently there are UFO’s in Arizona.

8:49 PM: Hillary Clinton wins. Ugh.

My Mom thinks Celtics’ Renaissance man Kevin Garnett is “not a bad looking guy at all.” Um…let’s just move on.

At 8:58 PM, with 4% in and Hillary enjoying a 57-43 lead, I begin to wonder if John McCain is going to send her champagne.

Alright now, who are these people who honestly believe Obama is unelectable but Hillary somehow isn’t? I have never been happier to be an independent.

9:08 PM: Clinton associate Terry McAuliffe appears for an interview with Matthews and Olbermann. Thanks, I needed to check the score anyway. New Orleans is routing Dallas to the point where that game has been replaced on TNT with bonus coverage of Orlando and Toronto. I’m unsure if this is better or worse than McAuliffe.

I might be a day late and way more than a dollar short with this statement, but Magic big man Dwight Howard is good.

Um, just to warn you, when Brian Urlacher is wearing a Patriot uniform come September 7th I am going to do a victory dance.

And the numbers continue to trickle in. Deep down inside of me in a place I don’t like to think about there does reside just the tiniest sliver of hope that Hillary will successfully steal this nomination. Let her be the one that gets to run a doomed general election campaign amongst the wreckage she and Bill have so carelessly caused.

9:40 PM: The Spurs and the Suns tip off game two in San Antonio. Thank God…I couldn’t take much more.

After the strawberry story, remind me to explain how Obama vs. Clinton 2008 has become Red Sox vs. Yankees circa 2001.

Is it possible the New York Times is turning on the carpetbagger they so eagerly supported in 2000 and endorsed for this nomination? Too little too late from the Empire State.

For all Clinton’s talk about his not being qualified, Obama knows enough to come out to speak right as they went to halftime in San Antonio. You can’t teach that.

He’s talking about it being close but ten points is not in any way close. The Democrats have a problem.

Alright, I’m calling it a night. I officially cannot take anymore of this.

271 more days until we inaugurate John McCain.

Hill-Rod, Mac, and the Barack Bottom

Many times during these last few weeks of this campaign I've wondered whether we were witnessing the lowest point of not only our electoral process, but of democracy as a whole.

Last night we hit rock bottom.

Full and embarrassing disclosure: I watched the whole thing unfold live and as it happened. It was hypnotic, and I just couldn't turn away.

On Pennsylvania

By Tuesday it will have been 42 days since the polls closed in Mississippi. A six week intermission during which the candidates have marched on, the media has piled on, and the mood has soured. There have been real controversies, phony controversies, and non-controversies. There have been charges and counter charges, allegations and counter allegations. But there has been no voting. On the morning of April 22nd, in Pennsylvania, the Democratic primary will resume. For the first time in more than a month, there will be an actual and for real result to report.

And when the polls have closed and the votes have been counted, the outcome will be that Senator Hillary Clinton has won.

That result will be analyzed, broken down, evaluated, and over-analyzed by a pundit class desperate to fill the minutes of a 24-hour news cycle. Common sense will be the big loser. Because it will be the first contest in six weeks, Pennsylvania has been elevated in a way that is usually reserved for the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. It is an unfortunate and poor choice for that honor, because the fact is that far too much attention has already been paid to the residents of the Keystone State.

Barack Obama was right when he described the population there as bitter. They are clinging both to their guns and their religion, and to a worldview that is terribly outdated. Longtime Clinton associate James Carville once famously quipped, “Pennsylvania is Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in between.” Or maybe it was Paoli in the east and Penn Hills in the west. Does it really matter? Isn’t the more important question why it is that this is an accurate description of a major northeastern state, one that all involved expect to be blue in the fall?

And make no mistake—it is accurate.

In November of 1994, during the so-called “Republican Revolution” that saw the GOP beat back the Democrats and take control of both houses of congress for the first time in forty years, a majority of Pennsylvanians voted to send a young, fresh-faced rising star of the Republican Party to the United States Senate. At the time he was a two-term congressman from the Commonwealth’s 18th district. His name was Rick Santorum, and today he is best remembered for comparing homosexual acts to what he called “man on dog sex.”

Rural and conservative, the Pennsylvania 18th borders West Virginia to the west and has been firmly in the hands of the GOP for the vast majority of the last hundred years. That Santorum could win there in the fall of 1990 is no real surprise. That he could win statewide only four years later is. Reelection in 2000 was not a problem, nor would it have been in 2006 if the homosexual comments had not come to light. Santorum was defeated that year by Democrat Bob Casey, himself most notable on the national stage because he is that rarest of rare being in the Democratic Party—a pro-lifer.

This is Pennsylvania.

Adlai Stevenson gave us what I believe to be one of the most important quotes of the 20th century when he said, “In a democracy, people usually get the kind of government that they deserve.” On election night in 2004, when the fools in Ohio reacted to their irrational fear of gay marriage by rewarding George W. Bush with an undeserved second term, Stevenson’s words never rang truer. Despite what some polls are indicating, I fear the residents of Pennsylvania are about to make the same mistake.

There are no good reasons left to vote for Senator Clinton, only bad ones, but on Tuesday in the Keystone State it will not matter. Anyone who argues they are voting against Barack Obama because he offended them with his comments on guns and religion is a liar. Theirs is a vote he was never going to get. Sometimes the most blatant lies are the ones we tell ourselves. When we tell them in the privacy of the voting booth, we make them that much worse. The truth is this: If you vote for Clinton now then you have no one left to blame but yourself. These next four years will be your fault.

Democrats in Pennsylvania have a choice to make. I wish I could believe they were going to get it right.

The pick: Hillary Clinton by 10%

Sunday Good Reads

Maureen Dowd tells the story of Barack Obama bringing Jay Z into the race. God help us all.

ESPN’s John Hollinger gives us his own NBA playoff preview, and in the process predicts another championship for my beloved Boston Celtics.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell gives us a he said/he said piece on who is the stronger general election candidate.

Jay Mariotti tells us the strange tale of the apparently imminent breakup between Brian Urlacher and the Chicago Bears. The Red Sox went through almost the same scenario with local hero Nomar Garciaparra a few years back. My solution? Trade Urlacher to the Patriots while we in New England pray his career continues on better than Nomar’s did.

Here we have the audience reacting to Gibson and Stephanopoulos at the conclusion of Wednesday’s debate on ABC.

The best female sportswriter in America, Jackie MacMullan, brings to life Boston slugger Manny Ramirez’s recent terrorizing of New York Yankee pitching. She gets some help from Manny himself, who chimes in with quotes like, “I don’t think much.”

Camille Paglia describes what it is like to be both female and an Obama supporter in Philadelphia on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. And then she rips Hillary’s phony feminism.

NBA Playoff Predictions

My Celtics are back, my interest in the NBA is rekindled, and my faith in Wellesley neighbor and Celtics GM Danny Ainge has been restored. The 2008 playoffs begin on Saturday afternoon. You can find keen analysis backed up by facts and hard data elsewhere. Fortunately, we don’t believe in that shit here. Quick and dirty, here are the picks:

Round 1:

In the east, Boston takes out the hapless and helpless Atlanta Hawks in four quick and easy games. The Washington Wizards pull off the minor upset and send LeBron James and the Cavaliers packing in six. Orlando beats Toronto in five games of a series I will watch not a single minute of. The Philadelphia 76ers will push the Detroit Pistons to the edge, teasing their fans before finally losing a close and heartbreaking game 7.

Out west, the Lakers beat Denver in five. (It will take longer for LA to eliminate the Nuggets than it will for Denver management to begin shopping Carmelo Anthony for 30 cents on the dollar following his recent DWI. I blame Marcus Camby.) The Utah Jazz over the Houston Rockets in five. New Orleans will edge out the Dallas Mavericks in seven wild games. In any other year, without question, this would be the best series of the opening round. In any other year it would be, but not this one. Because…

Shaquille O’Neil and the Phoenix suns will defeat Tim Duncan and the defending world champion San Antonio Spurs in seven classic games. You simply cannot overstate how fantastic this series is. I would argue that there are five teams with a legitimate chance to win it all, and these are two of them. And they meet in the first round?!?! The Suns pulled the trigger on the Shaq trade for one reason: to get past Duncan, Popovich, and the Spurs. I think it’ll be enough. We’ll know before the second round begins.

Round 2:

The Celtics will be challenged by the Wizards. Washington is one of only a handful of teams to beat Boston more than once in the regular season, and the only team in the NBA to do it three times. The returning Gilbert Arenas will make the Wizards that much better. This series scares me, much more so than it would if it were LeBron and the Cavs on the other side. But the fact is I just don’t see KG and Paul steamrolling to 66 wins in the regular season and then being taken out by a team that once had to change its name because of the amount of violent crime in our nation’s capitol. It goes six, but the C’s pull it out in the end.

We interrupt this preview to bring you breaking news…Isiah Thomas has been fired as head coach by the New York Knicks. The long-running comedy that has been the Isiah era at Madison Square Garden has finally come to an end. A sad day this is for everyone outside of Manhattan. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Orlando and Detroit is going to be a battle. The Magic are tough, and if their shots are dropping then they are a dangerous team to meet up with in the playoffs. Detroit, to me, just doesn’t seem to have the fire they had a few years ago. They lost two out of three to the Celtics during the regular season with the one win coming as a result of Chauncey Billups showing veteran savvy by drawing a foul and sinking game-winning free throws with mere seconds left on the clock. That will be enough to get them out of the first round but not the second. Almost everyone has been expecting a Boston/Detroit matchup in the Eastern Conference Finals all season long. Almost everyone, but not me. The Magic beat the Pistons in seven. This Pistons team as we know it never gets close again.

In the west, the Lakers beat the Utah Jazz in seven games. Utah is ridiculous at home, but only slightly better than mediocre on the road. Say what you will about the Mormons, but they are rabid inside a sports venue and (dumb name alert) EnergySolutions Arena is one of the best home court advantages in the league. Unfortunately for the Jazz (and their fans) they don’t have the home court edge in this series. They’ll be able to push it to a game seven but they won’t be able to stop Kobe when they get there.

New Orleans had a great regular season. They deserve a lot of praise, and they’ll deserve even more after they finish off Dallas in about two weeks. But then it ends. Phoenix is going to go through them with ease. I say five games. Chris Paul may be an MVP candidate, but he isn’t at the point yet where he can carry a team on his back through the playoffs. It might be a different story if they could draw Atlanta or Toronto, but they won’t be able to escape this tough Western Conference. And with that, for the second time in these playoffs, we have a dream series…

Western Conference Finals

Shaq. Kobe. They don’t like each other. Together they won three titles under Phil Jackson, but (Kobe’s) ego got in the way and Jerry Buss decided to back youth and shipped O’Neil off to Miami. While Kobe brooded and the Lakers slid, Shaq brought his third separate franchise to the NBA Finals and won his fourth championship. Now O’Neil is back in the west and Kobe has backup in Andrew Bynum and Pao Gasol. Everyone involved has made nice as far as the public knows, but deep down these two want to beat the other in the worst way. If Shaq wins that will be four teams he has brought to the finals. If Kobe wins then he can finally make the case that he is the man in his own right and wasn’t just a very good backup man during the Lakers last championship run. This could be epic. At gunpoint I would go with the Lakers in seven, but this could easily go either way.

Eastern Conference Finals

Orlando’s run comes to an end. There is no way they take four out of seven from these Celtics. Their only hope is a catastrophic injury to either Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce and maybe both. Boston in five. And so for the third time in the 2008 playoffs we have a dream series, not only for the fans but for the league and ABC as well.

NBA Finals

The Boston Celtics, winners of 16 NBA Championships versus the Los Angeles Lakers, winners of 14 NBA Championships. The league’s best rivalry rekindled to cap off what has been an amazing season. Who wins?

Let’s get there first and then we’ll discuss it.

A Debacle of a Debate?

I’m kicking myself for not tuning into the ABC debate last night now that it has erupted in controversy, but I just cannot quite believe that the network deserves the amount of venom that is being spewed at it this morning. It just doesn't seem possible that it could have been as bad as the blogosphere is portraying it to be. Am I wrong? Like I said, I didn’t see it so I can’t tell you for sure.

But that said, if ABC really did spend the entire first hour asking questions about Bosnia, lapel pins, the Rev. Wright, and the Weathermen, and completely shifting the economy and Iraq to the backburner, then there is some explaining to do today.

And if this charge is true, and George Stephanopoulos really did ask the Weathermen question at the behest of Sean fucking Hannity...well, that is between him, his bosses, and his conscience. But ABC News as a whole will be paying the price for a long time to come.

Sanity Prevails

My congressman, Barney Frank, may just be slowly regaining my faith. First he calls for a "decriminalization" of marijuana, and now this.

Good Reads

A few good reads for those who need help passing the time. Assembled for no other reason than that I was bored yesterday on my lunch break. Peruse at your leisure and enjoy…

The Boston Phoenix uses the Supreme General Court of Massachusetts as an example of the dangers of absolute power. This serves as a good reminder that Democrats can be just as bad as the GOP.

USA Today provides an interesting interpretation of where Hillary Clinton went wrong. The argument is that she has inadvertently become the incumbent.

Bill Simmons, who I blatantly stole the idea of a links column from, recommends that we all visit a rebuilding New Orleans. And then he discusses the NBA.

Lawrence O’Donnell shows us what a contested Democratic National Convention in Denver may look like. Everyone should read this. Writers, politicos, theatre people…everyone. I hope this movie gets made someday.

One positive result of this fiasco of a primary is my discovering, rediscovering, and finally appreciating Andrew Sullivan, Maureen Dowd, and Peggy Noonan. Here each gives their own account of why there is no good reason left to vote for Hillary.

And finally, the New York Post shares the story of a Red Sox fan having some fun at the expense of the new Yankee Stadium.

The Jesse Jackson Test

Buried Friday beneath a mountain of reports on “monster” comments and John McCain’s temper, and hidden deep within a story about comments Hillary Clinton made about the state of Mississippi way, way back before the caucuses of Iowa, was this little gem of a quote from the senator:

“You know, a few months ago, I was quoted as saying that Iowa and Mississippi had never elected a woman statewide. Now I know that you’ve had two women lieutenant governors, but electing a woman on your own, I was the first woman elected on my own in New York. And I know one way we can make a statement for Mississippi, and that is for Mississippi to vote for a woman for president on Tuesday!”

Wow. Where is the outrage? This is a major candidate in a campaign for the highest office in this land, shouting from the stump that we should vote for her because she is a woman…and no one calls her on it. Can you imagine the firestorm if John McCain got up there and said something like, “Well, folks, we’ve got some diversity in this race. There’s white and there’s black. There’s male and there’s female. And when Mississippi looks at me, they see white and male. So vote for me, the white guy.” He would be slaughtered for that, and rightfully so.

But Hillary Clinton is not, and such rhetoric has become such a characteristic of her campaign that few even notice anymore. It is insulting to women that Hillary thinks these kinds of tactics will work—and embarrassing to women when they do.
On the same day the Chicago Tribune debunked the myth of her 35 years of experience, Senator Clinton went back to what has been her bread and butter throughout this campaign: the gender card. Why? Because the longer this campaign goes the clearer it becomes that she doesn’t have a whole lot else to fall back on.

In South Carolina, husband Bill Clinton so famously compared Barack Obama to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who won the state both in 1984 and 1988. President Clinton was deservedly lampooned for those comments—but there is a candidate in this race who does deserve the comparison to Jesse Jackson. His wife.

None of Jackson’s presidential runs had any real chance to succeed nationally. He carried blacks with ease but was never going to be able to sell himself to white America. And you could argue that he never really intended to. His reasons for running were his own, and winning may not have been the ultimate goal. He had a niche audience to reach, and he not only succeeded at that but also in introducing himself to an entire new generation of Americans. We can’t call his defeats failures, because the end result was that Jesse Jackson remains a national figure to this very day.

Senator Clinton most definitely did get into this race in order to win it, but she has repeatedly failed what we can call the “Jesse Jackson Test”. It isn’t enough to run to be the first woman, or first black, or first Latino, president. The candidate must transcend that and become just another contender running for the office of President of the United States. Any “first” candidate needs to pass that test to have any real shot at victory in the general election.

This is where Obama has excelled and Clinton has stumbled. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has provided the Obama campaign with more than just the occasional sound byte. Patrick’s successful 2006 campaign to become this state’s first black governor provided a blueprint on how to pass the Jesse Jackson Test.

On the campaign trail, Patrick never brought up the possibility of being the first black governor, and rarely responded to questions about the issue. It would occasionally arise in media reports, more often as a historical footnote than anything else. Patrick constantly stayed on his message. He smartly chose to let the very obvious fact that he was a black man speak for itself as he marched on to victory. In January of 2007, Deval Patrick was inaugurated as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the steps of the State House in Boston, the same city NBA legend Bill Russell once called “the most racist in America.”

When you hear it said that Barack Obama transcends race, he is doing so in the exact same way as Deval Patrick. Obama is running for President of the United States, not to be the first black anything. He doesn’t try to hammer into his audience the idea that a vote for him may very well also be a vote for history. That message sells itself.

Senator Clinton, meanwhile, flatly refuses to transcend gender. It is an unfortunate truth that in the America of the early 21st century, there are voters out there unwilling to vote either for a black man or a white woman, and that, deep down, there only rationale is racism or sexism. And it is also just as unfortunate that there are large blocs of voters who will vote for an African American or a woman simply to do just that. I would argue that any voter who does that is also guilty of racism or sexism, and while no candidate would or should ever be expected to turn down such votes, we have only one candidate in this race who is openly advocating for them.

It is with regularity now that Senator Clinton reminds audiences that even a vote for her opponent would be historic. And while that may seem like a classy and selfless sentiment when taken at face value, nothing in modern politics can be interpreted that way. This is the candidate’s way of reminding voters that Obama is black—necessary, from her point of view, because his passing of the Jesse Jackson Test has made her own failure that much more damaging. Obama refuses to remind voters that he is black, and it makes Clinton look even worse every time she reminds us that she is a woman.

Don’t let her get away with it. Mississippi should send a message on Tuesday, as Wyoming has this weekend and Pennsylvania should on April 22nd. Hillary Rodham Clinton does not deserve your vote, this nomination, or a spot on the ticket in 2008.

(Original Post Date: 3/9/2008)

My Dad's Vote

Growing up, we always watched the evening news over dinner in my house. First came Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson, “Chet and Nat”, the married anchors of local News Center 5. They were an institution in Boston during the 80’s. Dick Albert did the weather, which was shorter than it is now, and Mike Lynch covered sports, which got much more airtime before ESPN came along. They were followed up by World News Tonight and Peter Jennings, who my grandfather had nicknamed “Blinky” for his rapid eye movements, and who years later, after two separate planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, would do more to comfort and reassure me than my President did.

I had friends who were absolutely forbidden to watch television at the table. Dinner was a time for quiet family conversation, when parents would ask how school was and children would lie and say it was great, when brothers would harass sisters and would tattle on brothers, and when fathers would inhale their food and head to the living room because first pitch at Fenway was at 7:05. Not in my house.

In my house we watched the NEWS, all the news, and the news is what stimulated conversation. This was before the internet, before cable news (although CNN was around but nobody would really discover it until the Gulf War), and before the 24-hour news circle. Those hours before primetime were all you had to get you caught up on what happened since the morning paper, and to hold you over until tomorrow’s paper thumped against the front door.

My Dad was a Democrat, a Union member, and a life long resident of the bluest state in the country. His politics were easy to figure—and they naturally shaped my own. We didn’t like Ronald Reagan, even though most of the country did, and by 1986 we were reasonably sure that he had gone senile. We did like Michael Dukakis, even after 1988. Oliver North was a villain from the very beginning of the Iran/Contra scandal, the judges Reagan nominated for the Supreme Court were hacks, and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neil was a “straight shooter” who we could trust. I didn’t quite know where the Middle East was but I did know that nothing good ever seemed to happen there. (Some of my views changed over time, maybe even most, but not that last one.)

Those dinners helped me to develop a love of politics, and of history, at a young age. I was fascinated by voting, by elections, and I couldn’t wait to get old enough to take part myself. I didn’t understand (and still don’t understand) how anyone could choose not to vote. It just never made sense. I’d often hear adults claim that they had been busy, or too tired, or a myriad of other reasons why they had skipped out on voting. My Dad had to be work at 5am and he was rarely home before 5pm, and he always managed to make it to the polls. People who said they couldn’t find the time, to me, seemed soft. Voting was history as it happened. How could anyone sit it out?

My fascination with the political grew stronger as I grew older. In January of 2004, I had just finished up at UMass and was living within shouting distance of my parents for the first time in a few years. I was also looking for a job, any job, and was as dirt poor as I had ever been. My Mother lives in constant fear that I’m not eating enough—mortal, constant fear, a fear handed down to her from her mother, my Nana, who herself lives in constant fear of the very same thing. Knowing that I was living up the street and suspecting that I wasn’t eating enough, the dinner invitations from my parents came often that winter.

One such night I spent with them was the night of the New Hampshire primary. There was little drama that night. John Kerry won big, as he already had in Iowa. Howard Dean had fizzled out even before the scream. John Edwards had failed to materialize into the contender he always had the potential to be. (Four years and another failed candidacy later and we are still waiting.)

My Dad was happy. He had settled on Kerry as his guy. I was still unsure. As I had grown up, my politics had diverged somewhat from his. When I registered to vote for the first time, I did so as an Independent. I’ve never looked back or been registered as anything but. I liked Kerry then and still like him now, but that night I was still unsure of him as a Presidential candidate. He lacked that certain gravitas that I’ve always believed a Democrat needs to win the White House. This, more than anything else, killed Kerry in the end and sentenced us all to another four years of George W. Bush.

We ate, chatted, and watched the results come in. It was a good night, and when the invite came again the following Tuesday I jumped at it. Pretty soon it became our routine on primary nights. It was fun, even during what amounted to a dull campaign. As this election season drew closer I had begun to really look forward to doing it all again. The last few years it had been harder and harder to find the time to get over and see my parents. Or maybe the truth is that had become easier and easier to find a reason not go. The elections were going to provide a ready-made reason to go.

Life, of course, intervened, and we won’t have the chance.

I’ve found myself thinking often these last few weeks about who my father would have voted for in a campaign that was so wide open. The day he got sick, after he had been sent home from work and my Mother and I had rushed over to check on him, I sat with him at the kitchen table, making light conversation and trying to gauge what was wrong. He was confused, sometimes having trouble finding the right words and sometimes just using the wrong words and not knowing it. He told me that the Celtics were the best team in football, and that he had just seen the new George Washington movie. It took hearing several renditions of the story for me to understand that George’s first name was actually Denzel.

Dad thought he was making perfect sense, and maybe sometimes he was. We live in strange times, and when the topic of politics comes up, maybe it is best to expect strange answers.

He asked if I had a candidate yet and I replied that I didn’t. I was leaning towards Joe Biden at the time, but it was far from a done deal in my mind. I asked him the same question, and even knowing full well that his faculties were diminished, his answer still shocked me.

“Rudy Giuliani.”

Now, if my Dad had failed to find a winner in what was a large but underwhelming crop of Democrats, he wouldn’t have been alone. It’s even possible that he looked at the GOP. After all, Hillary was still the presumptive nominee at that point, and Dad was no fan. There were many reasons why. The factory job that used to get him up at 5am had disappeared in 1999—one more blue-collar casualty in the age of NAFTA. Universal healthcare had recently become a reality in Massachusetts, and very quickly it had proven to be an idea that looked better on paper than it did in practice. Plus, I think Dad had begun to sour on the machine that is the Democratic Party in the Commonwealth, and that machine is firmly under Hillary Clinton’s control this time around.

But at the same time, I have a hard time believing he would have necessarily embraced Barack Obama. That Obama is black wouldn’t have bothered my Dad, but name might have. Names were never his strong suit, and the prospect of struggling to remember “Barack Obama” for the next four years may have proven a task Dad just wasn’t up for. But by Super Tuesday there weren’t too many other choices out there.

So, yes, it is possible that he looked across the aisle for a candidate—but I don’t think it’s very probable. It would have required a reappraisal at middle age of certain long-held beliefs that I just don’t think Dad made. And even if he did, I can’t see him landing on Giuliani. “The Mayor” is a lot of things, not the least of which is a Yankees fan that evokes 9/11 the way phony Catholics evoke the name of God. Maybe a Republican was going to win over my father, but a slick New Yorker never was.

When he told me he was thinking of voting for Rudy Giuliani, in an afternoon filled with all the wrong words, I knew he was in worse shape than he did. In the moment it was almost funny—but only because there was no reason to believe that it was the last real conversation he and I would ever have.

Now I’m left wondering what he really meant.

(Original Post Date: 2/15/2008)