Friday, March 07, 2008

University of Alabama Football Report for 3/07/08



Look at him. Wouldn’t he look awesome on a currency note?





That Heisman, by the way, belongs to Earl Campbell, the Texas Rose.

I for one am unworried about a would-be president acting the goof with arguably the most famous trophy in sports. If anything, I’m encouraged. It sure beats the tap-dance routine by the current head of state.

Let’s look at it again.



Yup, there’s something, dare I say, hopeful about that. Too bad it’s all about to come crashing down on his head.




What’s that? You haven’t heard? The fix is in, mi amigos.

Now, you’d be right to point out that Obama has a nearly insurmountable delegate lead in the primaries and caucuses (cauci?) to this point, that he has garnered more total votes from the populace (for whatever that means), that he has sparked more interest and action (and money) from the first-time and future members of the electorate, that he has displayed further reaching support across geographic and demographic barriers thought previously impossible for a Democratic candidate, and that he has every fair right to be the party’s nominee because he’s done it all by the rules.

However, this is America, friend, and we don’t have much in our history that says we’ll reward a black man who plays by the rules.

Even though the skinny dude has our backing here at the Bama Report (My god, people! He’s a letter away from being Go Bama!) and will continue to have it until the inevitable soul-crushing end, the sooner we acclimate ourselves to our new uberfrau, Hillary Rodham Clinton (oops, forgot that it’s an election year…), the less it will sting.

So in the interest of mending fences, it’s only proper that I devote at least some space here for equal billing. And with more voters headed to the polls this weekend and in the coming weeks, what better way to pay homage to our would-be Phone-answerer-in-Chief than by presenting Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Four Point Plan for Victory.

Point 1: Marry well

Do you have goals? Great. Find someone with the same goals as you, but who is significantly better at it. Then bide your time until he’s done and take your shot.

The alternative would be to set out on your own, which could end in catastrophe. And what is leadership if not avoiding risk at all costs?

Point 2: Play the victim

Have you made mistakes? Probably, but two wrongs don’t make a right, and it’s always wrong to accept responsibility.

Perhaps you’ve made some utterly bone-headed, even cowardly, policy decisions in the past.

Maybe you’ve squandered an enormous lead in a campaign.

Possibly you’ve failed to articulate an honest message to the electorate because you’ve spent your entire political career marginalizing those whose voices don’t come through the pipeline of cash you need to fund the next election cycle.

These are all hypotheticals, of course.

But what’s not hypothetical is that any negative attention you receive is unearned. Remember, you’re judged by a double standard. I mean, who in their right mind can expect you to compete on an even playing field with a funny-sounding named black guy no one’s ever heard of until last year?

It’s unfair!

Point 3: Set your own standards

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. That is, unless you ignore every defeat.

Contests you win mean they’re important. Contests you lose mean they’re questionable. Some might say you have a consistent record of failure, but you can call that “experience.” After all, it takes a hell of a politician to make people reject free health care!

Again, the alternative would mean that there’s something wrong with you, that there’s something you’ve done that the voters don’t cotton to. Now, as we learned in Point 2, it’s probably that you’re a woman. We all know how much people hate mothers.

There’s no pitfall that can’t be made better by dismissing it. Actually, isn’t that how they treat cancer now?

Point 4: Empathy! (or not)

America’s a diverse place, and it’s hard to bring people together. One plan would be to strengthen the common desire people have to make the place where they live a better and fairer place, to build America up to at least being a country where you can eat spinach without getting sick.

That’s demanding work, and a sucker’s bet.

That plan would require people (actual people--yuck) to put aside their lingering fears of one another on the hope (double yuck) of a shared resolution. But you know what? Those fears linger for a reason, right?

Hey, “as far as you know,” Barack Obama’s not a Manchurian candidate sent here by Minister Louis Farrakhan, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Lex Luthor to steal America’s puppies.

By the way, have you seen that photo of him in a turban? It’s almost as good as that e-mail your campaign staffers sent out claiming that Obama was both a radical Muslim and a Christian separatist. Now that was funny!

See, this shows that you’re a “fighter,” that you know how to stand up for yourself. Besides, what are the odds of some photo popping up showing Obama to be an all-American dude.



Oh.






In its essence, that’s the problem with Hillary. She’s a “fighter,” the most cloyingly overused political cliché we have. And like most fighters, she can cause a lot of ruckus without doing anything positive. When she voted to authorize the Iraq war, who was she fighting for then?

Is it too rude to point out that she, thinking of her own ambition, saw that vote as mere electoral positioning? The lives of America’s volunteer soldiers, literally, be damned.

Say what you will about John McCain, but at least he’s stupid enough to actually believe America should’ve invaded Iraq. Hillary knows better--or at least she should have. She didn’t bother to read up on the pre-war intelligence. It didn’t matter to her. Her war vote was about her, plain and simple. And if she’s willing to play fast and loose with that, who won’t she sell down the river?

If you and Hillary Clinton are in a plane crash atop the Andes, here’s my advice: take the first watch. Otherwise, you may wake up to a full breakfast and an empty sleeve.

Roll Tide.