Friday, February 24, 2006

Resurrection of Al?

In an article that appeared on The Hill, it appears that Al Gore might be ready to make a Nixon like run at the White House. In 1960, John Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in a controversial election. Nixon was exiled where he became even more of a joke after being defeated in his run for Governor of California in 1962. However, after the more conservative Barry Goldwater was destroyed by LBJ in 1964, Republicans started having second thoughts about Nixon. Nixon, in turn, started glad-handing the party faithful, positioning himself for a run at the nomination in 1968. He locked it up and then narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 election.

This could be a potential mirror for Al Gore in 2008. Gore was narrowly defeated in the 2000 election that had its share of controversy. Bush was blamed, but Gore received a great deal of scorn as well for not putting things out of reach by either winning Tennessee or New Hampshire. Gore was exiled to the political wilderness and was even see as the kiss of death after he endorsed Howard Dean in 2004 and Dean suddenly collapsed. But the more liberal John Kerry’s worse-than-Gore defeat to Bush kept shifting more of the 2000 election anger on Bush and the Democratic establishment rather than on Gore himself.

Gore has also been endearing himself more and more to the moveon.org portion of the Democratic base with his consistent attacks on Bush policies and complete opposition to the war in Iraq. In addition, Gore’s consistent position on global warming and energy policy are a bit more in favor following the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina and the gas price spikes of last year.

With these as tools, as well as a couple of political favors that Howard Dean still owes him, Gore might be able to score a win in Iowa and a first or second finish in New Hampshire. This might be able to give him traction and generate more money to his campaign. Senator Clinton is already on the outs with the more liberal base because of her mixed position on the war and there are growing fears that she might not be electable. If Gore out-greens her, he might steal enough of her support in the party machinery to overcome the neck-and-neck race he’ll have to deal with from Mark Warner (former governor of Virginia). This is where the mood of the party will come into play as to see if they’ll be ready to embrace a more moderate candidate in the mold of former President Clinton.

Now, could Gore win the election? I doubt it. He’s made himself too extreme with his cries in the wilderness and all those SNL caricatures are hard to overcome. I’m also not completely sure that Gore could beat Warner in a head-to-head match up. But, if he does defeat Warner, he might be able to capture enough momentum to seize the middle and take out the Republican candidate, especially if the nominee is a hard righter like Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan). Still, I’d keep an eye on Al in the near future.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Iraq Dissolved?

Mrs. X, her mom, and I have had several discussions regarding the recent war in Iraq. Generally, Mrs. X’s mom is a little more conservative, but in this she is quite of the mind that an Iraqi civil war is inevitable and that we should just leave now and let them get it over with. I’m not ready to buy into complete civil war such as we had, but I think I will honestly be surprised if I look at a map in 10 years and see a country labeled Iraq and looking like it is now.

In the north, you have a region that is completely controlled by the Kurds and has functioned as an autonomous region ever since the first Iraq war back in 1991. They have an independent state in all but name and between 80 and 90 percent of the population favor having an independent state of Kurdistan rather than staying with Iraq.

On the southern side, there is a strong presence of Shia Muslims who probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem being absorbed into the Iranian state. Some of the intelligencia wouldn’t care for this, but they might be outnumbered by the masses. The Sunnis are primarily in the western section of the country and could unite with Jordan and Syria.

The problem with the simple breakup idea though is the upcoming war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. I’ve talked before about how Israel might be invaded on three sides by various Arab factions. Iran might even get involved by attacking US positions in Iraq and keeping us pinned down long enough for the western Arabs to significantly weaken Israel. Its unknown as to how the Shia Iraqis would respond to an invasion like this, whether they would join the Iranians in attacking us or they would resist the invasion. The Kurds would back us as well as Israel as they have strong ties to both countries, but I could also see them using this war to completely entrench themselves in the city of Kirkuk, which they are steadily trying to get back from the Arabs. The Sunnis meanwhile would support the Arab invasion of Israel and try to grab their own base of power as well.

So what’s the outcome? It depends on how strong Israel decides to push back. If they just expel the invaders, things might return to a status quo with a low level civil war now going on in Iraq. But if Israel pushes back as hard as they should have in 1967, things will be very different. Israel would completely expel the Arabs from Gaza and take over the entire West Bank. They might even seize land in Syria and Jordan to create a buffer zone between Israel and any foreign invader. Kurdistan would recognize the expanded state and form a trading alliance with Israel, forming a territorial border and trading highway through land formally possessed by Syria. With this new alliance, the two would unite and be strong enough to refute any advance from Turkey, which is not partial towards the Kurds. Depending on how quickly the Iranians were pushed back, territorial concessions might be made there, although the status quo might be maintained. Eventually, some of the mostly Shia areas of Iraq might defect to Iran, but that’s still very iffy. But Iraq itself would probably be dissolved into several minor states, including a southern Shia zone and a central Sunni zone. The middle region where Baghdad currently is might be declared a free zone, monitored and maintained by the international community, leading to a possible reconstruction of the city of Babylon as a free city of the future for which the leaders of the world might hammer out any problems.

Extreme possibility? Perhaps. Possible? Certainly. We’ll see what happens in a couple of years.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Dancing with the Press

Sometimes the press can just get very annoying. We’ve all been quite amused by the story that has come out this week about Mr. Cheney accidentally shooting one of his hunting companions. The man unfortunately suffered a relapse when one of the small pieces of shot triggered a mild heart attack. I think we will all admit that this is a tragedy and just another example for those of us who don’t care for guns as to why to avoid using them.

However, I think most reasonable people would also agree that either Mr. Cheney or the White House Press Secretary (Scott McClellan) deciding not to inform the Washington Press Corp immediately does not equate to the withholding of the Nixon tapes. In fact, the press was notified very soon after the incident, the local Corpus Christi press. Now, the Washington Press Corp is throwing a very public temper tantrum about being scooped by the small town folks in Corpus Christi. In fact, there apparently was an incident prior to the cameras being turned on in one of the press briefings where the NBC correspondent asked a question about why the Vice President’s office hadn’t informed the press immediately after the incident. Mr. McClellan told the reporter to wait until the cameras were on, but also implied that he would tell the reporter to direct that question to the Vice President’s office. The NBC correspondent apparently got very angry and started yelling at Mr. McClellan, accusing him of being a jerk and withholding information. If this were a young child, I think most people would have taken this person over their knee and given him a good spanking or at least a time out.

Unfortunately, because the old guard media no longer has complete control over the story, they are losing market share and that in turn makes them more whiney, pompous, and under the delusion of privilege than ever before. In my profession, if someone new comes along and starts doing my job in a way that my bosses prefer more to mine, then it is up to me to find out what my bosses want and improve my performance to suit their desires since they are the ones that pay my salary. This concept of the Washington Press Corp needing to be the only ones who disseminate any information regarding political figures is just annoying and very tiresome.

On a lighter note, we are now the semi-finals of Dancing With the Stars. Given the way the marks have been going, I expect Drew and Stacy to lead the pack with Lisa coming in right behind in third and Jerry finishing fourth with the judges. However, because of the fan vote, Lisa will go home. In the finals, I suspect that the producers will encourage the judges to give Drew and Stacy tying first place scores, with Jerry rounding out the bottom. Thus, when the fan vote is tabulated, Jerry won’t be able to sneak in for the win. Let me elaborate:

Mrs. X and I think that the scoring is as follows: the scores from the judges determine the ranking order. In the finals, the top couple would receive 3 points, the second 2 and the last 1. Then the fan vote comes in. The top couple in the fan voting receives 3 points, next 2 and the last 1. Then the points are added together. Let’s say that in the finals, Drew receives the top score from the judges, Stacy is second, and Jerry is last. But, in the fan voting, their numbers are reversed: Jerry –1, Stacy – 2, and Drew – 3. Added together, all three couples would have 4 points, but fan voting breaks the tie and Jerry Rice would win the crown. But, if Stacy and Drew tie for first, each would receive 3 points while Jerry gets 1. Thus, even if Jerry gets the top spot in the fan vote, one of the two remaining would get 5 total points to top Jerry. Plus, the fans would feel reasonably mollified because it was their voting that decided which of the two top contenders would win and the show would avoid the cries of “foul” that marred last year’s show. I’m sure the fan vote has been reasonably consistent that the producers already know who is going to win and have only had to do a marginal amount of manipulation. My gut tells me that Stacy is who is going to win, because nothing ever beats sex appeal when it comes to marketing.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Tppppppth!

To quote Bart Simpson, “I didn’t think it was possible, but this both sucks and blows.” Not only did Pittsburgh win a thoroughly non-entertaining Super Bowl, but the commercials pretty much stunk as well. All in all, I would say that there were about three good commercials. My rating would go as follows:

1) Fed Ex: Caveman – This one started out slow but the caveman getting chewed out by his boss for not using a service that hasn’t been invented yet and then getting squashed really amused me. Some good ultimate bad day humor.
2) Bud Light: Magic Fridge – Again, a slow start but an amusing pay off at the end. Skater guys bowing down to the magic fridge is always good.
3) Dove: Pretty Girls – Not funny, but something that needs to be recognized as to just how bad the problem has gotten with young women and their image of themselves, especially when there is nothing wrong with them. In some cases the opposite is true. But it was a good message and subtly played.

Some honorable mentions would go to the Budweiser Colt, the Kermit Hybrid, and the “I’m going to Disneyworld” commercials. Not the best, but at least mildly entertaining. In this group you could also add the Benny Hill Moto and the Monkey/Jackass commercials, but I thought both those premises were a bit tired.

The Diet Pepsi “brown and bubbly” was just bad but I rather dislike inanimate objects acting like people commercials. The first Hybrid commercial made no sense to me and I can’t recall any of the other commercials off the top of my head. Obviously they failed to garner my attention for memory. So I don’t believe we’ll be adding any of the commercials to the best list, which is still way too tilted towards that overly sappy “Mean Joe Greene” commercial.

As far as the game goes, I thought it was pretty bad. Pittsburgh had a grand total of three good plays that allowed them to score their 21 points. Seattle was in position for several good plays but the refs or the Seahawks themselves ended up screwing things up. As far as the pass interference call in the first quarter that negated a touchdown, I thought it was technically right, but the fact that the back judge didn’t call it until the Pittsburgh player complained made it something of a ticky-tack call. The holding call in the third quarter was a little more correct as I did see the arm bar. But I still thought the refs made themselves too obvious in this game, which is exactly what the NFL wanted to avoid. Any time you can look back on a game, and can say that a game changing moment was one that involved the refereeing of the game, its just not an entertaining or satisfying game. People want to talk about how either one team totally crushed the other or about how there was this one play that changed things (such as a last second field goal or a tackle at the 1 that saved a touchdown). Talking about officiating leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Now, Pittsburgh might have still won the game. They could have gone into the locker room down 14-7 and rallied to win 21-17. They certainly looked like they were getting things going a little better in the second half, even though they still didn’t do a whole lot.

Overall, I would say that this Super Bowl should be relegated to the scrap heap of history. People in Pittsburgh can enjoy it, but I can’t imagine anyone else wanting to watch highlights of this game in the future.