Shark Jumping Anyone?

While Senator Clinton has made it known for awhile that she plans on being President one day, I've been skeptical of her ability to serve the United States in this capacity for a number of reasons. As pathetic as it may sound, her un-Presidential smirks during Bush's State of the Union Addresses were what initially tipped me off to this. The smirk was in response to President Bush making a joke about him and former President Clinton being his father's two favorite baby boomers. Regardless of what anyone thinks of any U.S. President in history, I believe they all deserve a certain level of respect. After all, they are our elected leaders (althougth some may argue that point). If they aren't worthy of this, then logically no one is. In doing this, I believe she not only showed contempt for this highest of offices, but opened the door for anyone to treat her the same way should she someday attain the same position.

Her inability was further shown when she recalled the sniper fire that came her way when landing in Bosnia. Video shown of the event proved this to be untrue.

As embarrassing as these events may or may not have been, I believe Senator Clinton's political career jumped the shark with her recent comments of why she is staying in the race. In referring to her husbands campaign in 1992, she referrenced the fact that he didn't wrap up the nomination until the California primary in June of that year. Seeing how the primary schedule in 2008 is much different than when her husband initially ran, this is obviously a straw man arguement. Next, she recalled the tragic assasination of Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 which led to Humphrey's nomination. I'd put this right up there with teamates discussing their pitcher's no-hitter or wear shoes into a Japanese home.

For those of you who don't know, the term "Jumping the Shark" is generally used when something special has lost its credibility. It refers to an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie puts on his leather jacket while water skiing, and jumps over a shark.

It could certainly be argued that I'm being too hard on the Senator for New York, but the desperation behind her justification of the statements I think put an end to any serious political aspirations she has.

For the record, I hold her in the highest respect. All of my criticisms of her are relative to her goals. I say this as someone who is on the other side of many of her opinions. At the very least, she is worthy of respect. Regardless of whether or not she is able to give it.

Buzz Bissinger vs. Balls Deep

For anyone who regularly watches Costas Now, the title of this blog is fairly self-explanatory. For anyone else, it is a reference to an hour and a half show that was taped on April 29th of this year. Numerous topics were covered during the course of the show, often with hilarious results.

During one of the segments, the advant of internet blogs was discussed. If you are not offended by strong language, the portion of the show can be seen here. Among other things, Bissinger attacks Leitch & his Deadspin blog for being glib, gossipy, profane, and poorly written. Unfortunately Bissinger's profane accusation falls on deaf ears due to his own choice of language. In light of everything Bissinger said, though, throwing the baby out with the bath water would be a huge disservice to the actual issue.

I quit listening to sports talk radio more than 10 years ago, and rarely converse with fans online due to its profane and negative nature. At the risk of sounding holier than thou, my simple reason for doing this is that it holds no appeal for me. Among other things, I have a very difficult time separating engaging in something like that from living it out in my personal life, so I simply try to avoid it.

In terms of Bissinger's concerns about online blogs slowly taking over the sports media, I honestly do not see that happening anytime soon. To start with, a majority of online information that I read links the "old media" as their primary source. In other words, no "old media" means no online media. Anyone who has ever read any of my blogs can tell that most, if not all, of the information that I communicate comes through media outlets that have direct access to the people or teams that I am writing about. My only complaint is that the links that I provide normally do not tell enough of the story they are reporting, or they fail to ask some of the tough questions that need to be addressed. I'm not exactly sure what the reasons behind this are.

With high school football I suspect most of the prep beat writers are not only spread out pretty thin with the amount of sports they cover, they some of them also may lack enthusiasm about the sport themselves (perhaps they're waiting for the beat writer for the mariners to retire). I don't know what the reason is behind the sport of boxing. The only thing I can think of is that some of the writers are institutionalized. Whatever the reason is, there can be little doubt that the access, professionalism, and quality of writing allows them to surpass anything that I do. If any professional writer decided that they wanted to tackle the issues I do, this blog would gladly cease to exhist.

I touched on it earlier, but I want to reemphasize how valuable it is for the media to have access to the people. Part of what made Mary Lou Retton's gold medal in 1984 so memorable was Rick Reilly being savvy enough to sneak in and rub elbows with Bela Karolyi while he was encouraging the young gymnast. I think it goes without saying that cystic fibrosis research wouldn't be where it is today if not for Gary Smith's phenomenal article on the Esiason family. Personally I cannot express any passion about the intricacies that have taken place on the field of play without first tipping my cap to people like Frank Deford and Bud Greenspan who romanticized it in the first place.

If the next generation of sports fans chooses to get their their news from Balls Deep's of the world, then the sports world will lose me as a fan. I deserve better, and so do the athletes.

Christians Voting For Obama?

That's what this article reports, and given the last 28 years I can't say that I'm surprised.

I'm of the opinion that the Republicans who have been in office have taken a pro-life stance for the primary purpose of gaining votes. I say this because since 1980 a majority of the Presidents have professed this belief (including the current one), yet have done nothing about it.

Personally, I'm embarrassed to say that Obama would get my vote if my only choices were McCain, Clinton, and him. Seeing how I haven't voted for either a Democrat or a Republican Presidential candidate in over 10 years, I'd say his chances of breaking this trend are minimal. We'll see come November!