Pouty pres gets personal with press

If Bush wants to get personal, I’m sure the press corps could oblige by asking why Bush and his kids danced the drunk fantastic while others’ kids were sent off to die in foreign wars.  Personally, I think it might demean the office, but then, I don’t know how Bush could do that any more than he already has.

Thursday, the president got personal when talking about the threat from al-Qaida terrorists. “They are a threat to your children, David,” he said to NBC’s David Gregory. It’s an understandable instinct. To persuade, we try to appeal to common experience. Policy debates can get abstract. Mention someone’s children, though, and they get concrete fast. The president found this such a useful tool that he used it a second time in the same press conference. “I would hope our world hasn’t become so cynical that they don’t take the threats of al-Qaida seriously, because they’re real, and it’s a danger to the American people,” he said in response to a question about the war from Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times. “It’s a danger to your children, Jim.”

More on Cheney’s attempts to instigate an attack on Iran

Joe Klein at TIME:

…can confirm, through military and intelligence sources, part of Steve Clemons’ account of Cheney’s crazed bellicosity regarding Iran. ….

Last December,…President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff … asked …about the wisdom of a troop “surge” in Iraq. They were unanimously opposed. Then Bush asked about the possibility of a successful attack on Iran‘s nuclear capability. He was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran’s government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Chiefs were–once again–unanimously opposed to taking that course of action.

Why? Because our intelligence inside Iran is very sketchy. There was no way to be sure that we could take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Chiefs warned, the Iranian response in Iraq and, quite possibly, in terrorist attacks on the U.S. could be devastating. Bush apparently took this advice to heart and went to Plan B–a covert destabilization campaign reported earlier this week by ABC News. If Clemons is right, and I’m pretty sure he is, Cheney is still pushing Plan A.

pachacutec: Iraq war, immigration: corporations win, America loses

Two very disappointing pieces of legislation this week:

the Iraq funding bill passed, to the aid and comfort only of the oil and military industrial complex, and

the immigration bill with it’s permanent underclass and undercutting of working people (likely to pass in some form).

link

…on the one hand, the right wing is melting down over the GOP corporatist position on immigration, cracking the coalition with the grass roots racists. On our side, we control, supposedly, both houses of congress, and yet the Blue Dogs and other corporatists (led by Steny Hoyer, abetted by a handful of Dem senators) struck a deal with the White House to capitulate on the occupation funding just as we had the greater leverage and momentum on our side.

Notice anything?

The same party is winning both fights, but it’s not the Dems or the GOP.

I wrote a post right before the election that was a little more weedy than David Sirota’s subsequent description of the Money Party versus the People Party. In it, I argued we actually have three parties. I’d like to recommend people take a look at that again, because I think it holds up rather well in light of the events of this week.

Baseball: Alfonso Soriano’s projected numbers after 1/4 season

Just a follow-up on my impressions of the ridiculous contract the Chicago Cubs gave to Alfonso Soriano.

Playing half his games in tiny Wrigley Field, here is what Alfonso Soriano’s season will look like if he continues at his present pace:

16 HR, 36 RBI, 100 Runs, 152 Strike outs, 195 hits, 70 doubles, 8 triples, 28 Stolen bases, 4 caught stealing, 12 picked off base (not to mention being thrown out at bases). He will make about 430 outs of a team total of about 3280, or 13%, which is 1/8.

Projected salary: $17,000,000; biggest contract in club history. He’s going to be hurt more as he gets older, not to mention the fact that his age indicates his production will drop, regardless of injuries.

.288 BA, 5th on the Cubs.

.472 Slugging, 4th on the Cubs

.345 On base, 8th on the Cubs

48 walks, 6th on the Cubs

Plays left field, a non-skill position, after being clearly inadequate in center. He can throw out the adventuresome baserunner.

It is my strong impression that Soriano continues in his inability to hit good pitching and his inability to hit with runners on base. He hurts the Cubs virtually every game when he hits in the top half of the batting order, not to mention his base-running blunders and his awkward, no-hustle fielding, and he isn’t much of a team player, either.  The Cubs have a won-lost record which is much worse than would be expected from the number of runs they have scored and allowed. This generally means that a team wins slugfests and loses close games. Alfonso Soriano is the kind of player who contributes to that tendency.

He just isn’t as good as the average Cub player.  The only reason he has as many runs as he does is that Derek Lee is having a career season and Aramis Ramirez is a very productive cleanup hitter.  Soriano’s  troubles are no all his own fault, but it ridiculous that Soriano continues to be placed first or second in the lineup, and make where he makes enormous numbers of outs, leaving the bases empty for Lee and Ramirez.

The Cubs may not be a championship team, but they could certainly be over .500. Pinella did move Soriano to left field, a positive step, but if Pinella doesn’t  get him down in the batting order, he deserves to be fired.