A Reason For Orange Optimism?

Time Warner Sports here in Syracuse has been recently rerunning the 1987 SU football team's undefeated season, replaying all 11 wins (and for some reason, the anticlimactic Sugar Bowl tie with Auburn). It's the 20th anniversary of that magical season, which makes me feel old because I remember all of it. I'm hoping SU fans were able to watch at least some of that marathon not just for the historical significance of that season but also because it serves as a reminder that a team that is not expected to do well can accomplish amazing things...

...which brings us to this year's version of the Orange. No, I'm not predicting an undefeated season; that would be just plain crazy. However, I do believe that SU will exceed most people's dismal expectations for them. The attitude on the SU campus has become, "we suck and this isn't going to change." The attitude of Average Syracusan has become, "we suck, this isn't going to change, it's all the AD and Chancellor's fault, and we never should have fired Paul Pasqualoni." Sports Illustrated has predicted us to go 3-9 and says head coach Greg Robinson will likely be fired after the season. Many SU fans are probably rooting for a finish like that, and most believe we have no hope of doing any better.

Sorry to rain on the pessimism parade, but we're going 6-6 this year. How can I say this? Simple. We have a great veteran defense coming back this year, and that will serve as the backbone of this team. The offense may take a little time to come together because we have a new quarterback, but he and our skill position players are very good, and most of them were actually recruited for this system, not the old Pasqualoni system. The O-line is the real concern, and this prediction goes completely out the window if QB Andrew Robinson has to spend the entire season running for his life.

We open at home on Friday against Washington, a team in a similar position as us in terms of recent struggles. The game is at home, UW coach Tyrone Willingham, already a loser once in the Dome as Notre Dame's head coach in '03, is already blaming the non-existent wind in the Carrier Dome as a possible reason for failure. Chalk this up as a win for us. The next home game is against Illinois, A TEAM WE DEFEATED LAST YEAR AT THEIR PLACE. Why do I emphasize that? Because many people I've seen on the forums don't see us beating Illinois this year, even though the game is at home and we beat them rather easily last year. We will win this game. Next up is Miami of Ohio, another team we beat last year with relative ease. Mark that down as another win. Later in the season, we play Buffalo at home, a sure W if ever there was one. That's 4 wins already.

The other 2 will show our improvement in conference play. We beat Connecticut last year, we're better than them, most people are calling this for the Orange, even the naysayers, so there's win #5. The 6th win will come against either Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, two teams that finished ahead of us last year but are still second-tier Big East teams. There you have it, 6-6. Simple.

Part of the reason why I feel so strongly about my prediction for this year is because I like what Greg Robinson and AD Daryl Gross are trying to do for the football program at SU. They're trying to breathe life into and get people excited about a team that was as dull and lifeless as their ex-coach for so many years. I'm all for that. Of course, Average Syracusan is against change of any kind, so they tend to dislike this stuff. And then there's "1-10..."

Okay, there, I said it. 1-10. Yes, we went 1-10 the first season of Greg Robinson's tenure in 2005. That has become the mantra of the anti-Greg SU fan (otherwise known as the previously pro-Pasqualoni SU fan). A reference to a season that is now 2 years in the past and which we already improved upon last year. They hold onto the fact that we "won the Big East in 2004", so we weren't really heading for rock bottom. We pretty much won the conference by default that year, finishing in a 4-way tie for first in a 7-team league. Plus, we lost to Temple, which should have been as good a tiebreaker as any. And the season was bookended by nationally televised blowouts where our D gave up 51 points each time. But 1-10 trumps all of that, apparently, even now.

I was watching the SU/Maryland game from 1987 that started the Time Warner Sports marathon, and I noticed some things. First of all, the D that year was also loaded, even more so than this year's team. They set the tone for that whole season. The offense in that first game was a little ragged. QB Don McPherson, destined to eventually become a Heisman Trophy candidate, got picked off 3 times. Michael Owens, wearer of the vaunted (and now-retired) #44, fumbled his first pitch. And yet, they still won the game, rather easily. This by itself shocked a lot of people who had fresh visions of a 5-6 record the year before (and a Maryland victory in the teams' last meeting in '85) in their minds. From there, the team believed in itself, and the fans came back with it. The guys on this team in 2007 believe in themselves, and they're ready to prove it on the field Friday night. I believe they will beat Washington, and who knows where we could go from there? But the first game will tell a lot.

And one more note about '87... that team overachieved instead of underachieved. For the last 15 years, we've had underachieving teams at SU, practically every year. Wouldn't it be nice to overachieve for once? If anything, we're due...

A Nation On "Pause"

Well, here we are in August, which means a lot of things... the "dog days" of summer (unless you're here in Syracuse where it was CHILLY last night), the New York State Fair, school has started for some and is fast approaching for others... and Congress is on vacation.

I suppose it is just as well because let's face it, the major issues are on hold right now anyway. The Petraeus report on Iraq comes out next month, and everyone has said they want to wait for that before a real debate on withdrawing from Iraq can start, and by "real debate", I mean no one-sided proposals for immediate withdrawal that have no chance of making it past the president's desk. No, all we have to look forward to for the next couple of weeks is a LOT of soundbytes and photo ops.

The most prominent of these may well be happening later this week here in Syracuse, where Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland is planning a "town hall" meeting. Why would a congressman from Maryland hold a "town hall" meeting 400 miles from his district? Because it's not a "town hall" meeting... it's a campaign rally for the eternally campaigning Dan Maffei. The loser of the 2006 local congressional election is holding what amounts to a giant campaign rally so he can get some attention for an election that is STILL 15 months away. I'm sure the peaceniks will be there in full force showing their support, and we'll get a whole lot of good copy for the newspaper about how Jim Walsh is no less a war hawk than he was when he voted to authorize the war in 2002, despite his pleas to the president to pursue political options rather than military ones.

Meanwhile, President Bush is doing his usual August thing, vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, so you can be sure to see a lot of letters from liberals decrying the fact that Bush is not in Washington "doing his job" even though he really can't do his job without a Congress. I've seen these letters every August that Bush has been in office, and the irony here is that when he IS in Washington, they trash him for expanding executive power and trying to act without congressional approval, but when he is on vacation, they WANT HIM to act without congressional approval. You can't have it both ways, but of course I'm used to seeing liberals being on any side of an issue that can allow them to be against the president.

And speaking of being against the president, I'm sure we'll continue to see letters calling for immediate impeachment... as in now, not when Congress is scheduled to return after Labor Day. These letters will continue to claim that it is the "Constitutional duty" of the Congress to impeach Bush, when it's clear that many of these people have never read the Constitution in their lives. Just for reference purposes, I will quote the portion of this hallowed document to which liberals are trying to refer:

The Constitution, Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution, Article I, Section 3:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, according to Law.

Two key points here that I of course need to remind the 23% Crowd of: 1) Nowhere in here does it say you can impeach a president for political reasons, or for incompetence, and 2) In order to get a conviction, you need 67 senators to vote to convict, which means that if all 49 Democrats and both Independents vote to convict, you still need 16 Republicans to decide that their president is worthy of being removed from office. Not going to happen.

Looking back at prior presidential impeachments, you had Andrew Johnson, who was impeached because 2/3 of Congress was already against him in the first place for being too lenient on Reconstruction and basically being a racist. They rammed through a law that said he couldn't fire any of his cabinet members without their approval. He vetoed it, they overrode him. He fired his Secretary of War, they said "high Crime" and impeached him. They had wanted to impeach him before then, but had no "high Crime or Misdemeanor" to get him for (sound familiar?) They fell one vote short of conviction.

Then of course, there was Richard Nixon. There was no doubt about this one. There was a "smoking gun", there were recorded conversations with parts "accidentally" erased, and Nixon resigned because it was clear to many that he would be impeached and convicted if he had not done so. Based on the 27-11 vote of the House Judiciary Committee on the articles of impeachment before Nixon's resignation, it looked like they may well have had the votes.

Lastly, we have Bill Clinton. Clinton was accused of perjury and obstruction of justice over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Say what you want about how this was "just about sex", perjury is perjury. However, this was a case of an opposition party wanting to "get" the president. The Republican House passed articles of impeachment, and after Clinton was dragged through the mud in a 21-day Senate trial/public spectacle, they couldn't get more than 50 votes on either count, and they needed 67. The appropriate legal remedies for a case such as this came later when Clinton accepted what amounted to a plea deal under which he was disbarred from his law license and later resigned from the Supreme Court bar. In the end, the president probably broke the law, but his crime was not impeachment-worthy, certainly not if there was no chance of conviction.

Since recent history is the most readily available, we now have members of the 23% Crowd, still burning mad over Clinton's impeachment, wanting President Bush impeached. I've seen more than one letter claiming that Clinton was impeached for "far less" than what Bush has supposedly done while in office. That alone betrays the true motive of political revenge that seems apparent here. Also, the things Bush is being accused of are just plain without merit. There is no "smoking gun", there's not even a blue dress. You can scream until the cows come home that Bush "lied", but as he has never had to testify under oath (as Clinton did), there is no impeachment-worthy perjury. As for the warrantless wiretapping program, I've said in the past that if Bush continued to do that after Congress said it was not allowable, that would be impeachment-worthy. However, the Democrats recently passed a law allowing Bush to do it, thus removing the ability to consider it a "high Crime". Without proof or legal basis, all you have as motivation is a political one, the desire to drag Bush through a similar public flogging (even though this bunch has already been doing that for 7 years) with no hope for conviction. While it's true that the fight over "executive privilege" may prompt many to cry "obstruction of justice", this is something for the Supreme Court to decide, and the House issuing a preemptive strike would be no more rational and no less political than the move to impeach President Johnson 140 years ago.

Therefore, I'll say it again: there is no reason to push for impeachment. Let the president serve out his term and wipe the slate clean on 1-20-09.

Apparently, there are many who already agree with me, although it's more out of their opposition to the president than my just trying to uphold the Constitution. The bumper sticker and T-shirt industries have found a huge moneymaker in this "1-20-09" campaign. People have calendars counting down the days until Bush leaves office. I'll bet you these guys would be the most upset if Bush actually were to be removed from office, because their stuff would be as valuable as a playoff ticket for the 2006 Red Sox. As it is, once 1-20-09 actually passes, those bumper stickers will probably become laughable and pointless, much like the "Kerry-Edwards 2004" stickers that are STILL on people's cars, even more so if a Republican wins the presidency next year.

Of course, the end result of this is that with the exception of the war in Iraq and the endless presidential campaign, there really isn't much more that CAN be done right now. I'm sure many on either side don't want to try to roll out a new plan to fix the nation's problems until Bush is out of office so that it can be spared from the partisan fighting and the appeals to Bush-haters everywhere. In effect, after the next round of debate over the war is done, the nation may as well ask Bush to go back to Crawford and the Congress to leave Washington and not come back until 1-20-09. We'd probably get just as much done...

How Times Have Changed

Some might say I'm a bit "old school" when it comes to sports. I admit I prefer baseball seasons that end in October, not November; I think the NHL has WAY too many teams; I can't stand the DH. However, what really upsets me is the way we just can't trust our sports and our sports heroes anymore. You can't watch baseball without wondering if the big home run hitter is on something other than a hot streak, you can't watch basketball without wondering if the referees are on the take, you can't watch football without wondering how many times the star player has been arrested, and you can't watch wrestling... or you just plain shouldn't watch wrestling, cuz it's dumb anyway...

The most recent and most notorious example of suspicion and head-shaking in sports is of course Barry Bonds*. I put an asterisk next to his name because that asterisk should follow him for all time. His record is not a legitimate one. Now I have friends who support Bonds* and say that he needs to be given the benefit of the doubt because Bonds* has never tested positive for anything. I do believe in the American belief of innocent until proven guilty; however, when the evidence seems to be growing larger than Bonds'* head by the day, it's hard to remain objective. I mean, the guy's trainer has been sitting in jail for what, almost a year now? Greg Anderson is being held in contempt until he testifies in the BALCO grand jury proceedings, and he refuses to do so. Why would someone not testify unless he had something to hide, something that would incriminate his best friend, something that would make an indictment a slam dunk (if you'll excuse the mixed sports metaphor)?

No sooner did Bonds* tie the record a week and a half ago than yet another ex-teammate, Brian Johnson (not the lead singer of AC/DC) say in an interview with ESPN that he's pretty sure Bonds was using performance enhancing drugs. You have the book "Game of Shadows", which won its authors a First Amendment award for sticking to their guns and not naming their sources. You have Bonds*' own words where he claimed to mistake "the clear" for flaxseed oil.

And quite frankly, the fact that he is so full of himself it's not even funny does more to hurt his cause than help. Endlessly portraying yourself as a victim of the media is not the Dale Carnegie way to win friends and influence people. He is human, I do acknowledge that, and Bonds* does show rare instances of that, such as when he broke down while mentioning his father in his post-756 speech to the gushing San Francisco crowd (where every home game is Extra Kool-Aid Night). You don't have to answer the endless questions about what you've done, but don't scapegoat, that does nothing to help your cause. It also doesn't help when your lawyer is just as egotistical and cocky as you are... last month, Michael Rains, Bonds*' attorney, pretty much called his shot and said of the U.S. Attorney's office pursuing his client that he would "kick their ass." Yeah, that's not going to make the feds work that much harder to see that your client spends a good chunk of the rest of his life behind bars. If an indictment comes down, the odds are good that the federal government, much like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, will get their man. Just ask Michael Vick...

Meanwhile, of course, you have the Mitchell investigation currently being conducted for Major League Baseball, plus the former Mets' clubhouse boy who has a pretty extensive list of people he gave steroids to if he decides to squeal to the feds (and he will). The unfortunate result of all of this is that when I look at today's sluggers, I wonder which ones used and which didn't. We know Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire used, many believe Sammy Sosa did, Jason Giambi had to turn himself in and squeal, and now Alex Rodriguez is the latest 500-plus home run hitter to be under scrutiny. Atlanta Braves star Larry, errrrrr... Chipper Jones accidentally put the question out there in an interview last week. I've seen video of A-Rod in spring training with no shirt on, and to be honest, the first thing I thought was, "He doesn't look natural." Of course I'm sure many will jump on this one just because they hate the Yankees and A-Rod himself, and A-Rod is another type to draw media scrutiny with his demeanor.

Then there's the NFL... where it seems people who are on suspension for breaking the law (or league rules) get more press than the clean players. Pac-Man Jones gets suspended for a year, then makes headlines saying he wants to get into pro wrestling, not the first time a pro football star with a rap sheet went in that direction (LT, anyone?) The Cincinnati Bengals managed to break the record previously held by the Portland Trail Blazers earlier in this decade for most players to run afoul of the law in a 6-month span.

And of course, there's the aforementioned Vick. I don't need to say anything that everyone else has already said, but it does bring all of this full circle... People have asked why would someone with the star power and the money of a Michael Vick really feel the need to torture and train animals to fight and kill each other for entertainment? What did he not have that he would get through that? And what could Barry Bonds* have possibly wanted out of taking performance-enhancing drugs that he wasn't already getting? He was a natural-born athlete, a 2nd generation star player who had the tools to succeed from day one. When you're already an All-Star, already an MVP multiple times, already have the money and the fame, why break the law? The only reason I can think of is ego. Selfish motivation, plain and simple. It's not like we haven't had "me-first" types in sports; they've been around for years, even ones who had topsy-turvy relationships with the press. But these guys take it to another level, another level LOWER.

I previously wrote about how the "me-first" guys get more press than the good role models in sports, but it seems to have gotten even worse in just the last 2 months since I first wrote about it. That's a shame, because we need positive role models in sports to be uplifted now more than ever.

There Is No Free Lunch... or Health Care

Ever since Michael Moore's latest movie, "Sicko", came out, there has been a new debate raging on the United States getting universal government-run health care. Moore has made Canada and European systems look like the envy of the world when they certainly are not. CNN medical expert Sanjay Gupta debated Moore on "Larry King Live" and won handily. Despite this, Moore for some reason gets instant credibility among many because of movies like "Bowling For Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9-11". These movies "rang true" for so many people despite dubious credibility and tactics such as quotes being taken out of context or fraudulently edited.

I've certainly seen enough "form letters" in the newspaper in recent weeks calling for universal health care and saying we should have it because it works in other places. Naturally, as is the case with many letters, no facts were given to back this up. Well, here are some facts...

There is an unofficial holiday in the United States, which this year fell on April 30th, but changes from time to time. It's Tax Freedom Day, the day when Americans have made enough money for the year to pay off all the taxes they will pay to the federal government in a calendar year. Here in New York, it was actually on May 16th this year due to the high state taxes we have to pay. However, in Canada, Tax Freedom Day doesn't happen until late June. Look at some of the other nations on there with late Tax Freedom Days... the U.K., Sweden, Germany... just like Canada, they all have government-run health care, the best system there is according to Moore and his ilk because it's "free". How is something free when you have to pay two months extra salary just to pay off the taxes needed to run it?

Speaking of health care debates and tax hikes, we currently have what many seem to say is a proxy war in this battle between fans of universal health care and fans of free market-based care. The future of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) is currently being debated in Congress. The House and Senate have both passed similar versions of a bill that would expand the program with $35 billion in additional spending, paid for by higher tobacco taxes. Paul Krugman, the New York Times' resident knee-jerk liberal, proclaimed that the bill had bipartisan support and was really only opposed by the president and nobody else. As usual, he's embellishing badly. The House vote on SCHIP was virtually on party lines, while some Senate Republicans only felt the need to vote for this bill because they don't want to lose their next election. How nice of them to sell out their principles for votes.

Also, how nice that when the Democrats need more money, they always feel that they can milk the cash cow known as America's smokers. The sad thing is that smokers keep buying the more and more expensive packs of cigarettes, but really it's getting to the point where it's just plain exploiting people's addiction for financial gain. They're really no better than the tobacco companies. There's an inherent contradiction here... they want to pass all these anti-smoking laws (going so far as to ban smoking in public parks because of the chance that a kid on the opposite side of the park from the smoker will somehow inhale secondhand smoke), but they won't ban smoking altogether because they can't kill the cash cow. The way that I see it, there's only one solution to this: legalize marijuana. Stay with me, folks... if you make smoking marijuana legal, and you throw taxes on it like you do with tobacco, then you won't need to raise tobacco taxes again! And think of how much money it will save because you won't need to pay for the DEA raiding every medical pot clinic on the West Coast! Just a suggestion...

Of course the real debate here is whether or not the program should even be expanded, not how it's going to be paid for. Every Republican presidential candidate has said they don't like the SCHIP bill, causing Mitt Romney to declare that he was sure that the media would brand them all as being against children. Krugman and his liberal ilk have certainly done that with Bush. What is so wrong with keeping a program the way it is? Does it work? Sure it does. Then how is just keeping the status quo hurting anyone? That's always the problem with these spending bills. Vote to keep something the same instead of taxing and spending, and you'll get accused of wanting to kill people, sometimes old people, sometimes children. You would think people would see through this left-wing schtick by now.

Yeah, I know, we keep hearing "45 million uninsured" all the time. That's not entirely correct, as you can see here. And are we counting the 12-plus million illegal immigrants among the 45 million uninsured? Of course, 45 million is a pretty powerful number, and that's how a number like that can be used to sway people when they don't know (or don't bother to check) the details behind the numbers.

There are plenty of things wrong with our current health care system, don't get me wrong. However, there are plenty of things that can be done without a government-mandated "cure-all". During yesterday's Republican debate in Iowa that was televised on ABC, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California emerged, in my view, as my 3rd-favorite Republican candidate (behind McCain and Giuliani), because among other things, he pointed out a clear problem that CAN be fixed. Currently, you cannot go across state lines to purchase health insurance, which causes policies to cost different amounts in different states. Here is one area where the government actually can do something, because the federal government controls interstate commerce. Enable Americans to go across state lines to purchase insurance and costs will go down, just like Hunter says. Actually, I'm impressed that Hunter was able to state his point to completion without interruption, because every time someone started to make a good point in today's debate, that reporter from the Des Moines register would try to cut him off and move on to the next candidate (bias showing?)

Actually, speaking of the debate, I do have to note that Giuliani did an excellent job in this debate, but of course Mitt Romney grabbed the headlines. Gee, I wonder why the media would give Romney the attention? Perhaps because they know that Romney's easy prey for a Democratic opponent as compared to Giuliani? I certainly don't think that Romney can win, what with his position flip-flops and his solution for health care in Massachusetts... not government-run health care, but still government-mandated.

So you see, there are things that can be done to fix the health care system, and I think we should always try to fix what is wrong, because let's face it, where the federal government is involved, there's always going to be something wrong. Perhaps that, more than anything, is the ultimate argument against government-run health care...