A Solo Dialogue
TWO QUICK UPDATES -
JUNIOR'S BALLOT PROBLEMS - The Libertarian Party of Illinois
has threatened to trya to keep President Bush off the Illinois general election ballot. The Democrats, however, have pretty much left this issue alone, agreeing in most places to let the President get on the ballot where he otherwise fell afoul of the law.
BIG EAST/ACC - Because they don't have anything better to do,
some Senators in the affected states, have asked Donna Shalala to reconsider Miami's almost certain departure from the Big East.
THE POISONOUS CITY - This is hardly an original observation, but I have never seen the political environment as poisonous as it is right now. Both sides seem intent on demonizing the other at every turn. Compromise has become a dirty word, and in a country that is either 50/50, or 51/49 (you pick which side has the upper hand), compromise should be the order of the day. Instead the Republicans have blithely ignored the Democrats, and the Democrats, in turn, have to resorted use parliamentary tricks and delaying tactics.
No situation sums up the atmosphere better that the nomination of judicial nominees in the Senate. If you haven’t been following for the past 15 or so years, Stuart Taylor
accurately sums up how we got to the current judicial mess that the Senate currently finds itself in, blaming both parties pretty much equally. He even suggests a possible compromise.
But such a compromise, on this, or any other political issues, would require Bush (he is the prime player) to be a "uniter, not a divider". At this point, I can’t believe there is anyone who believes this is a campaign promise that he has fulfilled. Two plus years into his Presidency, and despite a national tragedy and not one, but two wars, Washington has never been more divided, not even during Clinton's impeachment. Other than Zell Miller, there is hardly a Democrat who will work with the President, after seeing how he went after his Democratic "allies" in the 2002 elections. If the Republicans were to use the "nuclear option" on judicial nominees, chaos would undoubtedly follow. The Democrats would be forced to choke up the Senate (or possibly the House) with every possible parliamentary trick, meaning that almost nothing would get accomplished.
Following his election/appointment (you can chose which), the greatest hope that I had about a Bush II Administration was that he would, in fact, try to change the atmosphere in Washington. In Texas, he seems to have worked with Democrats, and seemed to understand the value of compromise. Unless there is a radical change in atmosphere, expect more fighting, expect both parties to seek every possible advantage, and expect the public, which has an above average opinion of government right now, to become even more cynical. The only way to avoid this is to have both sides step down from the brink, which would require leadership that I haven’t seen from either side to date.
NEXT STOP TEHRAN - The drumbeat for war continues, with the focus this time being Iran. This story in
today's Post shows that since the neocons couldn't get action on Syria (the WMD are really there!), they have turned their attention to Iran.
Apparently their mothers never taught them to clean up their messes before moving on to the next activity. We have yet to establish our bona fides in Iraq (or Afghanistan for that matter). What the neocons seem to miss is that if we could establish a democratic and functional government in either of Afghanistan or Iraq, military invasions wouldn't be necessary. Creating free and open societies with functioning democratic governments is our most dangerous weapon to regimes in Iran and Syria.
This is especially true in Iran, where they already have democratic traditions. We should be concentrating more on achieving what are our most important goals: creating stable, safe and viable governments in the Islamic world, and less on where our next B-2 should be targeted.
UPDATE - Apparently
Maureen Dowd has similar ideas. (Is that a good thing?)
Mike Tranghese's whining press conference at the end of the Big East meeting (see the ESPN story
here) basically tells me that the Big East is done for. All that is left is to figure out which contingent gets the Big East name/records/automatic NCAA berth, which increasingly looks like it will go to the basketball schools.
I hate to see the Big East go, especially since it has been so successful over the years. I hate it even more for UConn's sake. UConn was the last team to be invited to the Big East in 1980, getting Holy Cross' spot when they declined to enter. But a month ago they seemed to be sitting in the catbird's seat, with the Women's basketball program being the defending NCAA champs, the Men's program looking as if they will be the preseason favorites for next year, and the Football program about to open up a brand new stadium, and some guaranteed big draws against teams like Miami, BC, Syracuse and Va. Tech.
It will be interesting to see what arises out of the ashes, but it's hard to imagine that for schools like UConn and Va. Tech, lasting damage hasn't been done.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has announced that he will be leaving the White House. The initial story is
here. There are few, if any, people that I dislike more in Washington. I don't think he will be missed, and probably won't even be remembered.
UPDATE - Here is a slightly more detailed story from
the Washington Post.
Unless something dramatic happens (such as Notre Dame agreeing to join the league for football, the AD at Syracuse actually listens to Jim Boheim, or the fantasy of raiding Florida State and Maryland from the ACC), Miami, BC and Syracuse are going to join the ACC and the Big East is toast.
This leads to the question about happen to the remaining schools. It will probably lead to two different conferences, one for the basketball schools and one for the football school.
The new basketball conference would look something like this: Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Notre Dame (they will remain independent for football) and Villanova from the old Big East. They would look to add other basketball centered schools, like Xavier, DePaul, Dayton, UMass, St. Louis, Charlotte, St. Joseph’s or Marquette. Which schools get chosen depends on how many schools the new league would want and if they want to create a Catholic school basketball league. Either way, this would be a pretty respectable basketball conference. (UPDATE - If I were the AD at Holy Cross or Fordham I would fight like heck to be included in any Catholic league.)
The football conference would look something like this: UConn, Pitt, West Virginia, Rutgers, Temple, and Va. Tech from the current Big East. Look for them to add Louisville, Memphis, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marshall, and Central Florida. It makes for a pretty good basketball conference and an acceptable, if not spectacular football conference. It is an open question whether this conference would get a BCS bid, but I wouldn’t expect that it would.
Of course, for UConn, which just spent about $100 million to build a new stadium and upgrade their football team to I-A, playing Marshall and Central Florida is hardly the same as Miami, Syracuse and BC.
You can get a sense of UConn's anxiety from
this column.
It will be interesting to see what happens at the Big East meetings this weekend, but unless Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese can pull a rabbit out of his hat, there will be some interesting times ahead.
I think that
this story that the Big East is trying to turn the tables and raid the ACC is more wishful thinking than factual, but it does underscore the desperation that is being felt by Big East supporters.
I love this story!
The Texas legislature is trying to pass a Congressional redistricting plan that will help elect more Republicans to the US House. (I won't go into all the details, but the Republicans say that since a court imposed a redistricting plan last year, the legislature can redraft another one.) The Democrats in the legislature are opposed to this, but don't have the numbers to win the fight, so they left. Not just the capitol, but they entire state! They are holed up in Oklahoma.
Because of this, the Texas House doesn't have a quorum and can't vote on the redistricting plan, or anything else for that matter. Apparently the Texas police are looking for the missing Democrats and have even asked neighboring states if the Texas police could enter them and arrest the missing legislators. New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid said no to this request, but did respond that "I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the lookout for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy."
I love when politicians get crafty and use all the tools at their disposal.
UPDATE - Some links to the story,
here, here and
here.
Both
The Volokh Conspiracy and
Election Law have thoughts on the court's ruling in the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance case, portions of which the court struck down. I'll have some though after I've had a better chance to review some of the 1500 pages of the opinion.
