Weekend Off Topic

Three more notes on the Edwards flap, valuing fatherhood vs. caving to Muslim sensibilities, sports

• One of the memes emerging from the Edwards-blogger deal is that regardless of who was offended, the important thing is that John Edwards did not cave in to the likes of Michelle Malkin and Bill Donohue.
  
  Sorry, that won't do.
  
  Donohue and Malkin are to proverbial stopped clocks (though they are more obnoxious in announcing what time it is -- maybe a stopped alarm clock that's stuck at the wake-up time) that are correct twice a day. This happened to be one of those times.
  
  One of the big weaknesses of the current Administration is ignoring news it didn't want to hear by demonizing the messengers -- Hans Blix, the UN, the French, etc. I expect better form the next Administration.
  
  
• And it also won't do to bring up stupid things Donohue and Malkin have said in the past, as some have suggested.
  
  Nobody has hired Donhue or Malkin to work on their campaign.
  
  Which leads to something interesting -- the right has more than its share of rancid bomb throwers -- Coulter, Rush, Malkin, Hannity, and on and on. Yet they seems content to do the dirty work without dragging down the candidates by being closely tied tied with them. Democrats do things like hire Marcotte to work on the Edwards campaign, or put Michael Moore in a booth at the convention with Jimmy Carter. This doesn't make the right better than the left, in fact it might reflect better on the left since these folks might get involved in campaigns because they want to do more than just attack the other side. But it's an interesting note,
  
  
• I've been reflecting on why this Edwards blogger thing bugged me so much. Obviously, it was my particular oxe that was being gored, so that certainly played a role.
  
  When it looked like they were going to be let go, I was going to base a post on this post by Jim Geraghty about whether this incident would cause the blogosphere to grow up a bit.
  
  What Edwards has done is send a signal that the coarsening of public debate is fine with him. Obvioously, this current Administration has made a lot of hay by name-calling its opposition into submission. Which is why I'm hoping for better from the next Administration.
  
  Obama may be the best hope for this.
  
  Ok, now I'm done with that.
  
  
• Via Andrew Sullivan, fathers are not allowed at government-run playgroups in the Netherlands. Why? Because Muslime mothers may not attend if men are present.
  
  Yes, I know I've just spilled a lot of pixels about lack of repsect for my religion, but I do think there's a profound difference between not wanting people working for presidential campaigns to mix crude sexual language with references to God, and barring half the parents from a parent-child activity so as not to offend sensibilities.
  
  Things like this are a cultural sign post that for all the talk about eqaul partners, in the Netherlands at least, fathers take a back seat. Let's hope it doesn't spreaf.
  
  
• First weekend with no (meaningful) football game, and I'm already counting the days until Opening Day.
  
  This year's transition is especially rough. My native and current sports markets are having a pretty rough winter season. They Flyers and Sixers are at or near the bottom of their leagues. The Blues have climbed back to respectability, but probably won't make the playoffs. There's usually at least one college basketball team among the Big Five (or Drexel) having a good year, but not this year. Same with Missouri, Illinois, and St. Louis U. The only ranked team around here is SIU-Carbondale, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go to the MVC.
  
  
• On a related note, if the book club is still on, I've got the book.
  
  
• Besides the backbreaking length, one on the things that's always bugged me about Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, besides the leering at cheerleaders, wanting to water down religion to a tepid ecumenical stew, and beating the same hobby horses (the blitz is stupid, the Sunday Ticket-DirecTV deal is unfair) to death, is the "Why am I the only one who picks up on this stuff?" attitude throughout the pieces. Last week's Super Bowl piece may have set a new record.
  
  To pick an easy target, Easterbrook several time expresses amazement that the Bears put the ball in the air against Indianapolis, writing several times, "IT'S RAINING, RUN THE BALL![sic, both for caps and punctuation]."
  
  Now, let's look at the postseason games both teams played. The Colts started by stifling the AFC's leading rusher, then shutting down Baltimore. They struggled against the Patriots, but more against Tom Brady than the run. They were obviously focussed on stopping the run, The Bears looked like they were about to let their lead slip away in the 3rd quarter against the Saints. They had become one-dimensional, and were going three and out. Then they opened up the playbook, Grossman made some plays, and the Bears pulled away.
  
  In order for the Bears to win, they were going to have to make some plays through the air. And Grossman had shown that he was more likely to make a few big plays than string together many little plays, as Manning was doing on the other side. They tried and failed, but that doesn't mean they were wrong for trying. And their efforts are not as easy to dismiss as Easterbrook makes it out. The MVP was the other teams's pure-pocket-passer QB (admittedly in a case of them having to give it to somebody on the winning team).