Wednesday June 7, 2006

I have a quote from each of two GOP hacks. First, DeLay, who leaves Congress this month under the cloud of money laundering indictments. From the DC journal Roll Call:

If he had the time, DeLay said, he would have continued transforming the Appropriations panel while also pushing harder on budget reform, passing annual reconciliations bills and sunsetting outdated federal programs, all elements of what he described as “a long-term strategy for taking a liberal Democrat welfare state and applying Republican principles to it.”

At least someone in the GOP is willing to admit it. Now, Ann Coulter. This is an alleged quote, mind you, from her latest book. She used to be a reactionary, but if this quote is legit, she’s now bordering on being a crazed fascist:

“U.S. soldiers who die in Iraq knew they would. Most of them couldn’t get a decent job in the private sector anyway, so what does it matter? Someone has to die in a war, why not the poor?“

Or you could just, y’know, not have a war. She also said, of 9-11 widows on national TV, “I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

Wednesday June 7, 2006

You probably don’t know the name unless you’re a pretty serious baseball fan. In Cleveland, he is best known for having crawled through air ducts to break into the umpire’s locker room to remove a corked bat belonging to infamous Indians slugger Albert Belle. Unfortunately, he replaced it with a bat with another player’s name on it. Belle was eventually suspended seven games as a result. Otherwise, he’s had a rather unremarkable career as a journeyman relief pitcher with a losing record and a pedestrian 4.77 ERA over his fourteen Major League seasons, throwing for no less than eight teams since 1989, currently working in the bullpen for the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Well, until today. He was released at his own request.)

Well, you’re going to hear more about Jason Grimsley than you ever wanted to. His house was searched by Federal agents for six hours last night. (With a warrant, reassuringly.) He allegedly used a cocktail of illegal drugs throughout his career and, when investigators came knocking last year, named names. If you thought that the endless hand-wringing over Barry Bonds for the last few years was excessive (and was it ever!), get ready to have it happen with dozens of baseball players. We’re probably going to have another round or two of Congressional hearings (as Congress continues in its quest to never address anything important) and at least five thousand newspaper columns bemoaning the tainting of our national pasttime.

Honestly? It’s always been tainted, whether by drugs or segregation or spitballs or weak expansion-era pitching … so please, just shut up. Baseball will live on.