Red State Diaries

Why the 99 percent won't go away

2011-10-31T23:55:00.012-05:00

CNN posed a good question today: How do you measure success for something like the burgeoning yet nebulous Occupy Wall Street movement? As you might expect, CNN obtained both some pretty good guesses and some profoundly stupid ones. To figure out which is which, it's worth looking at why hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets lately.

The main reason is almost too obvious to state: The economy sucks, and it's showing few signs of getting much better for the average American in the near future. The recession officially ended two years ago, but unemployment is still way too high, and underemployment is even higher still. For three decades, income growth has been gangbusters for the rich and minimal for everyone else. The recession only exacerbated that trend.

Uncertainty is real and steady, but it has nothing to do with businesses' alleged perennial fear of taxes and regulation that Paul Krugman has labeled "the confidence fairy." No, the uncertainty that matters here is the average Joe's concern that his house is worth much less than he paid for it, that he may not make it to the next paycheck, that he may not even get a next paycheck.

With only one available job for every 4.6 unemployed people, millions of Americans who are out of work simply have no room to get back in the game. And with the economy still on the edge, millions more live under the constant threat of joining the ranks of the unemployed. Consumer spending is still sluggish, and people aren't likely to spend much today when they're worried that everything could fall apart tomorrow.

Democrats' primary response to the recession was the Recovery Act, which worked to stabilize the economy but was too small to jolt us back into significant growth. Republicans' response, meanwhile, has been to rail continually against the alleged failure of the stimulus and to demand enormous spending cuts that would drain trillions of dollars of spending from the economy at precisely the wrong time. They've also doubled down on calls for more tax cuts for corporations and the rich, who already have lots of money they aren't spending right now because there isn't enough consumer demand for their products and services.

In short, millions of Americans are desperate and scared about the future, and they don't see much getting done to improve it. Some of them are on the streets right now under the auspices of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and most of the problems they're upset about don't have quick fixes. It's not just about the next election. It's certainly not a popular uprising in favor of more conservative politicians who would enact policies to entrench the status quo even further. It's about a deeply held sense that things are wrong, that the people who should be doing something about it aren't, that our government should do more to live up to the "of the people, by the people, for the people" ideal.

Dismissing the protesters as a bunch of lazy hippies is wildly inaccurate, and it won't do anything to fix the very real problems that prompted them to take to the streets. Whether the protests linger or abate, the spirit of the 99 percent movement will live on until the American people regain the sense that the government and the economy are working not just for the rich and powerful, but for everyone.

Suffer the little children

2011-09-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

Here's all you need to know about the immigration law about which so many Alabama lawmakers can't seem to stop bragging: It left terrified, innocent children in tears this week.

I hope all the posturing and demagoguery was worth it, guys.

The designated distraction is back

2011-08-31T23:55:00.002-05:00

I could write about the protracted legal battle over Alabama's short-sighted, overly broad, ill-crafted immigration law that is an embarrassment to my home state and could undo decades of progress in our efforts to be seen as a modern, accepting, forward-thinking place. I could write about the persistent jobs crisis that Congress has spent much of the year either doing nothing about or actually making worse. I could write about how it somehow has become almost mandatory to ignore basic science or economics if you want to win the Republican presidential nomination.

But I won't write about any of those things, because they're depressing, and we all need some positivity in life. Instead, let's just make a few quick predictions before the return of the college football season, something that ultimately means so little but can bring so much joy. Here goes:

BCS Championship: Alabama over Oklahoma. Yes, I'm a Bama homer, Pawwwwwl. But I'd predict this matchup even if I were able to set my personal allegiances aside. These teams have the nation's two best groups of returning talent. The Sooners will benefit from starting at the top and having one fewer hurdle to clear this year, with the death of the Big 12 title game (perhaps presaging the death of the Big 12 itself?). If they survive the early-season trip to Tallahassee, the rest of the regular season will be downhill sledding. After the last five years, the SEC champion is essentially a lock, and I think it'll be Alabama after a tough battle with South Carolina. The Crimson Tide probably will lose a game at some point this year in a conference that has evolved into NFL, Jr., in the last decade. But a one-loss Alabama still would make it to the main event in New Orleans, and I'll take Nick Saban over Bob Stoops in a big game every time.

Rose Bowl: Nebraska vs. Oregon. The Cornhuskers are brand-new to the Big Ten, but they come loaded for bear with a punishing defense and just enough offense to squeak out a win over Wisconsin in the inaugural conference championship. (Given that Fox will broadcast that effort, perhaps we'll get a few live look-ins at the game during the wall-to-wall coverage of the bands.) Oregon remains Oregon and likely will knock off Stanford in the Pac-12's first title game. But I think the Ducks will slip up somewhere along the way -- think last year's Cal game, only with an unhappy ending -- and miss an opportunity for a repeat trip to play for all the marbles.

Sugar Bowl: LSU vs. Virginia Tech. LSU probably has the best overall raw talent of any team in the country. It also has perhaps the most unpredictable coach, and sooner or later that will catch up to the Tigers, especially with trips to Alabama, Mississippi State, and West Virginia on the docket. Still, as consolation prizes go, a Superdome transformed into a sea of purple and gold isn't bad. Meeting LSU there will be a better-than-expected one-loss Virginia Tech. The ACC, at long last, will get two teams into the BCS -- and SEC fans could enjoy a preview of a potential future marquee conference game.

Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. West Virginia. If the Seminoles beat Oklahoma in an epic clash Sept. 17, they'll probably be headed to the national title game in the Sooners' place. (Who said we don't get great non-conference games anymore?) If not, I still think they'll run the table in the ACC and end up here. West Virginia will be across the line of scrimmage, because someone has to win the Big East, and someone has to take the Big East champion, and that's usually a task best left to the Orange Bowl. It'll be entertaining, and it'll make way more sense than that Louisville-Wake Forest game a few years ago that I may well have imagined in its entirety.

Fiesta Bowl: Boise State vs. Texas A&M. This year could be a milestone for the so-called "non-AQ" conferences: They could get a one-loss team into the BCS. If it's Boise State, that loss would have to be to Georgia, and it would have to be close, and the rest of the games would have to be blowout wins. But by this point, the Broncos have built enough credibility to be an appealing selection even for a bowl that isn't forced to take them. (If they're unbeaten, of course, the point will be moot.) Texas A&M may end up with a couple of losses, but it also has nearby (by Fiesta Bowl standards) fans hungry for a return to a big-time bowl. If the Aggies, fresh off a "Dear John" letter to the Big 12, don't yet have an SEC future nailed down by this point, this game may turn out to be far more meaningful than anyone could anticipate.

Note that these predictions are worth exactly what you paid for them, and therefore are likely to be disproved in their entirety by this time next week.

Game of groans

2011-07-31T23:50:00.007-05:00

Tonight's deal on the debt ceiling (assuming it passes, which remains uncertain) confirms Congress' burgeoning instinct to approach public policy like an irresponsible student approaches a pile of undone homework: by doing the absolute bare minimum at the last minute and begging for extensions on the rest.

They had to have a medium-term increase of the debt ceiling right now -- or at least promise they will any minute now, they super-duper pinky-swear -- to try to keep the stock markets from collapsing in panic over an unprecedented game of chicken that stopped being funny a long time ago. (There's also the pressing matter of what a federal default would mean for mortgage and credit card rates, but those are the concerns of the mere vast majority of Americans, who of course don't have enough ~~money~~ speech to be heard.)

But the other stuff? The specifics of deficit reduction, whether we'll ever again raise taxes for the rich from their lowest level since the 1950s, when we'll get over the Tea Party stuff and get back to trying to create some damn jobs instead of slashing spending in an economy struggling with a lack of spending? That all has to wait. There's Xbox to be played and August recesses to be had.

Both the conservative and progressive bases are complaining loudly about the deal, which pundits usually portray as the mark of a great compromise. In this case, though, it's the sign of a package that kicks the can on the most important parts, a proposal that isn't very good but could be much, much worse.

GOP leaders, boxed into a corner of their own making by the Tea Party's continual anti-tax howls, couldn't agree to anything that included anything that could, for sure, be called a tax increase. President Obama, boxed into a corner of his own making by both his nationally televised addresses and actually being right on the substance in this case, couldn't agree to anything that foreclosed, for sure, the possibility of new revenues to help the nation actually start paying for Medicare and defense and all of the other great things we like having.

After lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth, they both got what they wanted. Kinda. The debt ceiling compromise consists of (1) some cuts that both sides said they could live with all along, (2) an agreement to create a powerful committee to work on a mix of cuts and revenues to keep reducing the deficit, and (3) automatic cuts to defense (the GOP's baby) and domestic spending (the Democrats' baby) if Congress doesn't go along with the panel's ideas. (There also will be a vote on a constitutional "Balanced Budget Amendment," which would require enormous, unpopular budget cuts at the worst possible times and feels more like a show pony than something with real legs under it.)

If the triggered cuts come to pass, and they very well could, we may live to regret it. Deeply cutting the domestic discretionary budget -- the one that includes "win the future" stuff like education and scientific research and environmental protection -- while preserving tax breaks for the super-rich would be the political equivalent of eating our seed corn while standing in a fully stocked cornfield. On the bright side, the deal would spare Social Security, Medicaid, and low-income programs from the knife, so at least there's one true saving grace in the final scene of the awful game that our congressmen refused to stop playing while we were trying to sleep this summer.

A default of reality

2011-06-30T23:55:00.003-05:00

Stephen Colbert, as he put it in typically hilarious fashion tonight, can haz super PAC. And so can pretty much anyone with enough time or money or notoriety or connections, thanks to last year's Citizens United v. FEC ruling, the latest in a recent line of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that essentially boil down to the idea that political contributions are free speech.

To return to high school for a moment, basic mathematical principles imply that if money equals speech, then speech also must equal money. That in turn would suggest that you should be able to walk into a mall and buy a sweater or a sandwich just by talking for a while. The equivalence, as you're surely aware if you've ever tried, breaks down at that point. It's the sort of fact that could prompt a lesser thinker to question the whole premise in the first place.

But a new day appears to require new thought patterns, and they're on proud display in our country these days. Because if money is speech, that means money talks, and it's damn sure been talking in Washington lately. Nowhere has that been clearer than in this year's talks over legislation to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt.

The negotiating positions were established early, when congressional Republicans demanded huge budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. President Obama and congressional Democrats started from the imminently reasonable position that we should take a two-fold approach to the long-term debt problem by both cutting things we can live without and raising more money to keep paying for things we can't afford to cut. Even some Republicans, mere months ago, acknowledged the need for some tax increases as part of the deal.

Amid debate over the mix of spending cuts and new revenues, Obama went so far as to offer the GOP a package with 83 percent spending cuts and just 17 percent new taxes, aimed primarily at the super-rich who are doing quite well even in a sluggish economy. The Republicans told him, in so many words, to go to hell, refusing to consider any new taxes or loophole closures at all. One senator even had the gall to seek out the media today and say a president with ice water in his veins needs to "take a Valium and come on up here and talk to us."

Yes, it seems tax breaks for corporate jets and hedge fund managers must be protected at all costs, even if they mean cuts to food aid for poor women and their babies. The only acceptable compromise is total surrender for the sake of those with plenty of money to fund campaigns, who will be so grateful that they'll surely create tens of millions of new jobs with all that spare cash. Or, if history can be of any assistance, maybe not.

Today's prevailing American political discourse is an upside-down place where the underpants gnome strategy is offered as fact, and gravity is posited to be just a theory. It helps explain Colbert's appeal to millions of people who are tired of the decades-long petty shouting match that tries to pass itself off as governance. In a world where money talks more loudly than it has in a long time and where parody struggles to keep up with the ever-shifting sands of proffered reality, what more soothing option is there than to have a good laugh at the whole maddening state of affairs?

If we can't have sanity, at least we can haz super PAC.

And the couch may not even be lumpy!

2011-05-31T23:55:00.003-05:00

If you were inclined to be critical of Alabama's newly elected Republican leadership, this year's legislative session, now winding to a close, would be fertile ground for potential material.

Our state's consistently shortchanged budgets once again have left the state's dangerously overcrowded prisons pitted against the state's notoriously skimpy Medicaid program over the right to be slightly less underfunded than the other one.

Many hundreds of state employees will lose their jobs next year, and more than 1,100 teacher positions will go unfilled, leaving our children's classrooms more crowded. The public employees who remain will have to pay much more for their health insurance and retirement than before.

In the face of deep service cuts and layoffs, Republicans have proposed no significant new revenue for the state budgets other than the end of a couple of tax loopholes that should have been closed decades ago, while leaving untouched many other loopholes that primarily benefit wealthy taxpayers and huge out-of-state companies.

Republican leaders haven't so much as given lip service to ending the state's grocery tax or otherwise easing Alabama's inexcusably heavy tax burden on the poor. They have found time, though, to explore exciting new opportunities in the fields of allowing employers to keep their workers' withheld taxes and letting the state effectively pay tariffs for foreign companies. Meanwhile, amid the incessant talk of job creation, Alabama's unemployment rate has stagnated this year, and the impending public-sector layoffs won't help. I could go on and on -- we haven't even mentioned immigration yet, have we? -- but you get the point.

Whether Alabama's Democratic leaders get the point, though, is another question entirely. For one thing, they didn't do a whole lot about the state's perennial tax and budget problems when they were in charge. It's also hard to find a business tax incentive -- no matter how generous -- that they haven't embraced in the name of economic development.

For another, they still actually waste time commenting on the most meaningless of meaningless sideshows. With all the critical issues confronting Alabama at an almost seismic turning point in its history, the state Democratic chairman is cracking wise in the newspaper about... Republican senators who sleep in their offices.

Yes, really.

Because once you get over all the joblessness and the quality-of-life struggles and the institutional barriers to progress, here's what really matters to the average voter: Some dude is spending the night on his work couch, and you're paying for the air conditioning, which you would pay for anyway.

If that's not a winning formula, I don't know what is.

After the monsters are gone

2011-04-30T23:55:00.006-05:00

The roar of a monster tornado is the cruelest, most inhuman sound on earth. Many who have heard it have compared it to a freight train or a jet engine, but that's not quite right. Freight trains and jet engines are man-made devices that follow certain rules, that tend to do predictable things in predictable ways, that can be comprehended in the slightest.

A monster tornado is different. It's cold and mechanical but not subject to the usual strictures of logic or reason. It doesn't care who you are or where you live or what you're like or whether you've done all the right things that are supposed to improve your odds of survival. It's the universe's way of telling you that you're nothing in the great scheme of things and shall receive all the deference that status affords you. It's the primal knowledge -- petrifying and helpless and dreadful -- that this thing is either going to kill you or not, and nothing you say or do can be depended upon to change its split-second verdict.

If you've heard the sound, you already know these words -- any words -- are inadequate to describe it. If you haven't heard it, I hope beyond all hope that you never will.

* * *

The monsters are an unavoidable fact of life in Alabama. I was fortunate enough to be spared by one that came at me a few years ago. Hundreds of my fellow Alabamians were not so lucky when the monsters came for them Wednesday during the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost 90 years.

If you don't live in Alabama, it's difficult to understand just how shattering that day was for those who do: how callously it ripped away loved ones from hundreds of families and thousands of friends, how thoroughly it vaporized so many beloved and familiar places, how deeply it scarred the psyches of even people who physically endured nothing more than a few raindrops. "I've never seen devastation like this," President Obama said Friday during a visit to Tuscaloosa, one of the dozens of cities across the state that won't even be within earshot of normal again for years or even decades.

Few others in Alabama have seen devastation quite like this, either. I suppose part of us almost thought we couldn't. This is a place where children grow up practicing their tornado drills. This is the age of Doppler radars and TVS readings and wall-to-wall weather coverage. This is the state that turned a bald local television weatherman into a folk hero. If anyone has a healthy respect for the power of nature and its unpredictable skies, it's us.

But that's just it: Sometimes it doesn't matter how ready you are. Even well-built brick homes disappeared into nothingness in Wednesday's powerful storms. Even people who heeded all the warnings and crowded into a bathroom or closet as they've been told to do lost their lives amid the swirling death that ripped apart town after town. Good people in one home survived unscathed while good people next door were killed. There's no rhyme or reason to tornadoes. There's no arguing or pleading with them. There's only a chilling assurance: If the monster wants you badly enough, it will get you.

* * *

Fortunately, the monsters can't and don't get most of us. Those lucky enough to dodge the bullet are left with the responsibility to provide immediate aid and comfort to the victims and their families, to begin the long process of cleaning up the wreckage, and to start the even longer process of rebuilding a broken landscape. It's not a glamorous task, and it's one that will continue long after the lights of the national media, temporarily drawn here away from the fluffy glitz of the British royal wedding and the grave seriousness of the ongoing Libyan airstrikes, move on yet again to another story.

It's also a task that, done properly, will require us to look in the mirror as a people. Many tornado deaths occur, as they did in this outbreak, in mobile homes. It's easy to say the victims just need to seek sturdier shelter, but that ignores the fact that mobile home residents usually are poor, frequently have few other places they can go, and often have limited means to get there before a tornado even if they do. Those who live through the experience also have far fewer resources to rebuild than other survivors.

Our sense of duty to help our neighbors shouldn't fade away as this awful disaster grows more distant in time. As a state and as a nation, we should commit to do more, both publicly and privately, to reduce poverty, to make good housing and health care more widely available for people who can't afford its full cost, and to increase transportation options for people who don't have a reliable vehicle. These missions will be difficult, and they will never be complete. But they will help save and rebuild lives, and they will help make life better for all of us.

Monsters come and go. Our humanity endures.

Not broke, but broken

2011-03-31T23:55:00.002-05:00

My first visit to the State Archives still sticks with me. Decades ago, my parents took a much younger (and even nerdier) version of me to Montgomery for a weekend trip to visit some places they thought I should see. On the agenda were all of the historical sites you'd expect: the State Capitol, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the First White House of the Confederacy. It made for a fun day, but nothing in particular stood out to me at the time.

Then came the State Archives. I hadn't even known it existed, but I was enraptured almost immediately. Here was the entirety of the Alabama experience all in one convenient location, a building where you could track my state's history from its Native American heritage to the dark days of slavery to the riveting journey of the civil rights movement. Here were important documents from two centuries of governance and heartfelt letters from homesick soldiers and quirky paraphernalia from political campaigns that had been nothing more than a few lines in a book until they came to life before my eyes. Here was Alabama, a complicated place with many embarrassing flaws but also many inspiring successes. Here, in short, was who we are.

I fell in love with Alabama for good that day, and it breaks my heart to know that children today may not have a chance at the same experience. Were a child to take a weekend trip to the State Archives today, he wouldn't be in for an afternoon of wide-eyed discovery about his home state. Instead, he likely would be greeted by a "Closed" sign.

Year after year of state budget cuts have forced the State Archives to shut down on weekends, when families are likeliest to have time to visit. (To the staff's enormous credit, they've managed to keep the building open on one Saturday each month.) Less money has forced the agency to stop digital scanning of old documents and pictures and to stop efforts to preserve more old newspapers on microfilm. The department also has had to scale back on new acquisitions and, most disturbing of all, on security for the existing collections. Further cuts could force layoffs of the next generation of people working to preserve our state's history.

As I said last month, budget cuts aren't abstract. They have real consequences for real lives and real services that we as a society have deemed to be valuable. In Alabama, we're looking at court layoffs that could force lengthy trial delays and unfilled teacher vacancies that could force larger class sizes. We're looking at a diminished capacity to fight raging forest fires. We're looking at fewer community support services for the elderly and the intellectually disabled. We're looking at more infrequent restaurant inspections. And those are just a few items from the rattle list of impending bad news.

We're well beyond waste, fraud, and abuse. We're well beyond cutting the fat. We're to the point of cutting deeply into public health and safety, into our children's educational futures, into the very reasons we have a government in the first place, into the preservation of the memories of who we are and where we've been as a people. We're better than this, and we deserve better.

Many conservatives, both in Alabama and nationally, have said loudly and often in recent months that we're broke, that we don't have any more money available, that we just have to slash and burn and hope for the best. It's a mantra that overlooks one very important fact about budgets: They have two sides. There's both a spending side and a revenue side, and to declare one side completely off limits amid a deep downturn is short-sightedness of the highest order.

The fact is that federal taxes are at their lowest level since the Eisenhower administration. The fact is that the rich have a greater share of the nation's wealth than at any point since the run-up to the Great Depression. The fact is that Alabama's tax system pays for artificially low rates for the rich with artificially high rates for the poor and middle class. The fact is that the rich have the money to help limit the size of cuts to schools and public health and other important things that make life better for everyone. And the fact is that it's not impossible to ask the rich to share in the sacrifices the rest of us are making by paying slightly higher taxes. Gov. Robert Bentley made some reassuring noises in that direction this week. It would be nice to hear even more.

That many of our state and national leaders have chosen lately to protect lower taxes for the rich instead of continuing to pay for important services doesn't mean that we're broke. It means we've allowed our system of public priorities to become broken. It means we need to reconsider the bizarre idea that the only people who should be immune from financial pain in tough times are the people who felt the tough times the least in the first place. And it means we need to remember that despite all the turmoil and strife, we as Americans and Alabamians are good people who aren't afraid to do the hard work needed to build a brighter future.

I learned that lesson one weekend decades ago. I hope we allow this generation to learn it, too.

A few gentle budgetary reminders

2011-02-28T23:50:00.005-06:00

Alabama's legislative session begins Tuesday, but the next round of budget cutting began today. As you hear the incessant talk of "fiscal responsibility" and "living within our means" and "bold leadership to create jobs" continue at both the state and federal levels over the coming months, keep three things in mind.

There's no such thing as just cutting a budget: Budget cuts mean fewer resources for people to do their jobs in education, social work, health inspection, and other fields we've deemed important as a society. It often means they work longer hours and get lower take-home pay in return. And sometimes it means putting a lot of them out of work entirely. Public employees work hard and pay taxes just like everyone else, and their jobs are no less important just because tea-party types like to toss around the word government as though it were a slur instead of a device society uses to try to do things that are in our common interest.

Even if you don't care at all about public employees and are glad to see them climbing aboard the economic pain train, budget cuts are likely to make life harder for you and your family in some way. Your children may go to school in more crowded classrooms with older textbooks and technology than their counterparts elsewhere. Tuition may explode yet again and leave you even further in debt as you try to improve your job prospects with an associate's or bachelor's degree. Or you may find yourself standing in a much longer line to renew the license that gives you the right to drive on roads with an ever-growing number of massive potholes. Whatever the negative effects, they'll hit home -- or your car's undercarriage -- sooner than you think.

The depth of the coming cuts will surprise a lot of people: Alabama's budgets already have been slashed by about 20 percent in the last two years, and we're facing a minimum of two more years of cuts before the economy finally bounces back from the Bush recession toward anything resembling strong growth. Sure, Gov. Robert Bentley probably will tackle some administrative inefficiencies, or propose a few agency consolidations that would save money without hurting the public's health and safety. That's all well and good, and he should be commended for any productive steps he can take to make government better and smarter. But contrary to what some bloviation might lead you to believe, there's no Department of Waste that lawmakers can eliminate to solve our problems magically.

To use one of those medical metaphors of which our state's new chief executive is so fond: We're cutting well beneath the skin, getting into muscle, and will be lucky to avoid bone. If you think people are upset now about the prospects of closing farmers markets or losing federal funds for meth lab cleanups, just wait until entire agencies -- and the hundreds or thousands of jobs that go with them -- get slashed dramatically or eliminated entirely.

Things don't have to be as bad as they're going to be: Remember that a budget shortfall doesn't happen just because the government spends money. It happens because the government is set to spend more money than it collects in taxes. It's a two-sided equation, and there's more than one way to equalize it. You can cut spending, or you can bring in more revenue, or you can do some of both, which is what should happen.

I hear the "no new taxes!" screams already, but consider that even though federal taxes are at their lowest level since the Korean War, and even though national income inequality is at its greatest level since the 1920s, millionaires just got two more years of protection from a mild increase in their marginal tax rates because Republican leaders threatened to let everyone's taxes go up if they didn't. Consider that in Alabama, the effective overall tax rates for millionaires are, perversely, actually far lower than those for the poor and middle class. And consider that even though defenders of low taxes for the rich say those tax cuts will create jobs, we're still rather short on new jobs a decade after the first of the Bush tax cuts took effect.

The least Alabama could do is ask the well-to-do to pay at the same overall rate as the rest of us. Education and health care cuts would be smaller. Fewer public workers would lose their jobs. Most folks might even be able to get a tax cut in the process. Our legislators could make it happen this year if they wanted, but it probably won't happen any time soon.

Tough times will be unavoidable. Making them even tougher will be a choice.

Governing beyond the rest stop

2011-01-31T23:55:00.010-06:00

Just off Interstate 65, a few miles south of Cullman, stands a lasting tribute to Alabama's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. It's the Gov. Guy Hunt Rest Area, named in honor of the former Cullman County probate judge who stumbled into the state's highest executive office almost by accident in 1986 when the Democratic Party exploded in internecine squabbling, awarded its gubernatorial nomination to a guy who didn't win the primary, and disgusted enough Alabamians into casting an "anyone but you" vote. Hunt was that anyone.

As rest stops go, Hunt's namesake is nothing special. About the only thing that stands out about it is that it doesn't have a companion on the other side of the highway: Southbound traffic is routed over the interstate to the same facility shared by northbound motorists. (I suppose it was more cost-effective to build a bridge and a long exit ramp than to maintain another building. I don't pretend to know those details.)

A rest stop is a good thing to have, of course, and people have had their names connected to worse before. (That includes Hunt, who was thrown out of office in 1993 over a felony ethics conviction for which he later was pardoned.) As Hunt himself said upon its dedication in 2006: "A lot of people have buildings named after them, bridges and roads, but the one thing everybody does is use the bathroom. And then I got to thinking, I have had the times, and you have, too, when you really, really have to go that there's nothing more beautiful than a urinal."

Rest stops, when you get right down to it, are all about the here and now, about a series of people resolving a series of urgent but ultimately short-term crises, about meeting an immediate need and then getting on your way without a thought about how it ties into the greater scheme of things, because the truth is that in your mind and most other minds, it really doesn't. Rest stops don't prompt thoughts about tomorrow or the next month or the next decade. They're the bare minimum, and sometimes, the bare minimum is just fine.

All too often, though, Alabama has settled for the bare minimum in its politics, too. You didn't run off to South America with the education budget? Good job. You didn't select "prison inmate" as your next job after public office? Fine work. You loudly berated the federal government while quietly making sure never to let its financial aid spigot shut off for even a second? Outstanding performance; go back and do it again. Alabama politics, even more so than in other states, has seen a mostly uninterrupted string of one politician after another addicted to a subpar status quo in a state that can do -- and deserves to do -- better.

The vision thing, as the first President Bush termed it, is hard to come by, and many of our state's politicians haven't even bothered. Few Alabama governors stand out as having tried to do truly bold and profoundly transformational things. The last guy who tried it, Bob Riley, got rewarded for his troubles by a barrage of attack ads and a 2-to-1 defeat of an amendment that would have shored up education funding while cutting most working Alabamians' taxes. He got re-elected, but not before virtually everyone demonized the idea and him for pushing it -- even many people who initially were for the plan.

To say there are disincentives for governors of either party to try to do big things in Alabama is to say Kevin Durant would win a pickup game at the local high school gym, or to say Avatar had a few special effects. We're left with a state where the constitution forces county leaders to jump through hoops for the right to carry out basic acts of local governance, with a state tax system that finances low rates for the rich with high rates for the poor and middle class, and a state that struggles from year to year to pay for even the most basic public services.

The results are as predictable as they are sad. The quality of a child's education hinges far too much on whether he or she happens to live in a wealthy area with lots of local financial support or a poor area with comparatively little. Inadequate education revenue and the soaring tuition that results mean college graduates find it difficult to start adult life without a mountain of debt unless they have well-to-do parents, make straight A's, or run a 4.5 40. And in a state that spends not a single cent on public transportation, many roadways nonetheless are in such bad shape that motorists are left to wonder if this will be the day the potholes decide to keep their gas tank as a parting gift. (Ride around I-65 in the Birmingham area and tell me I'm wrong.)

Amid these problems and more, a state of great potential and great opportunity welcomes a new governor, one who is positioned like few before him to accomplish really big things should he choose to try to do so. Gov. Robert Bentley has a strong victory margin, a Legislature dominated by his own party, working knowledge of the goings-on in the Statehouse, and that whole "I'm a doctor" thing from the campaign that he can use on the bully pulpit for at least a little while longer to try to persuade Alabamians to follow his lead. He also has at least one Democratic lawmaker convinced he will be the state's best governor ever. The hopes and expectations are high, as they should be.

Bentley's inauguration day remarks about non-Christians not being his brothers and sisters got him off to a bad start, set off some First Amendment alarm bells around the country, and raised more than a few concerns that he might not be quite ready for prime time yet. To his credit, though, he apologized for offending religious minorities and promised to act as the governor of everyone. The media storm quickly blew over, and the state's more pressing budgetary problems began to take center stage.

What remains to be seen is whether Bentley's governance style will be for the long term or for the here and now. In the next four years, will we adhere to the same slash-government, no-new-taxes-ever-for-anyone mantra that Alabama has chanted for decades to end up where we are today? Will our economic development efforts focus on handing out massive tax credits to land a few big out-of-state companies while doing too little to help homegrown small businesses? Will we keep giving our schools and public safety and health agencies just enough money to get by but not enough to do the superlative jobs they're fully capable of doing if they have the resources? Or will Bentley lay out a vision of what Alabama can and should be 10 or 20 or 50 years from now and come up with realistic plans to invest in getting us there?

The challenge is great, but Bentley has the opportunity to guide us through the hard times and lay the foundation now for a better, stronger future. If he does, he'll go down as a legendary leader, as one of Alabama's greatest governors, and as a man who can't have enough schools and roads and hospitals named after him.

And if he doesn't, there are still a couple of rest stops near Tuscaloosa waiting for a namesake.

So much for the year of pretending

2010-12-31T23:30:00.004-06:00

It was all going to be different, you see.

The new law that made modest but important improvements to the nation's health insurance system -- including some common- sense things that nonetheless took almost a century to achieve -- was going to be President Obama's signature accomplishment heading into the 2010 midterm elections. Until, that is, Democrats forgot how to defend themselves by speaking clear English in front of television cameras and instead scrambled for cover amid misguided cries of Marxism and fascism and other things that are neither the same nor true.

The election of a batch of tea-party-fueled conservative Republican congressmen was supposed to signal a new era of fiscal discipline and concern for balanced budgets. Until, that is, the time came for GOP leaders to stand firm in defense of tax cuts for multimillionaires instead of using that money to pay down the very deficit that is supposedly the nation's foremost problem.

The emergence of Artur Davis and Bradley Byrne as Alabama's leading gubernatorial contenders was going to give state voters a vigorous governor's race with a vibrant discussion of the sort of reforms needed to propel Alabama into the 21st century. Until, that is, primary voters chose instead a comparative snore-fest between a guy whose campaign made him come across as a one-trick gambling pony and a guy who can create jobs because, um, he's a doctor?

The ascendance of the Alabama Crimson Tide to the top of the preseason football polls on the heels of a resounding national championship victory was supposed to mark the beginning of a decade-long dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen, or at least hasn't seen since ESPN spent the entire 2005 season pumping up USC for a fall. And OK, the dynasty still might happen, but three losses sure were a revolting turn of events in the face of restored high expectations. (Seriously, has anyone looked into Peyton Manning's whereabouts on that one solitary afternoon when a quarterback alleged to be Stephen Garcia turned into the destroyer of worlds?)

All of those things and so much more were going to be different, but they weren't. Ah, well, that's life. Let's try again in 2011. Happy new year, everyone.

Beyond the lost horizon

2010-11-30T23:55:00.007-06:00

President Obama came to office pledging a new era of compromise and bipartisanship in our nation's capital. It's a tonal change that we still need, and it was one of the reasons (a minor one, but still a reason) that a slightly more naive version of me supported him for the White House two years ago. Obama did his best to make good on that promise, compromising upfront with congressional Republicans on provisions of the stimulus package that saved the economy from freefall and allowing the health care reform debate to drag on and on through month after month of ultimately fruitless attempts to reach bipartisan agreement before going with a bill far less strident than much of the Democratic base wanted.

What has he gotten from the GOP in return? Condemnation as an out-of-control socialist outsider bent on destroying America and an unprecedented string of pointless filibusters that served as little more than the procedural equivalent of a gigantic "Nobama" bumper sticker. Republicans have delayed dozens of Obama appointments for months, even nominations that sail through unanimously when they finally get a hearing. They've filibustered everything from the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gay soldiers to a bill to help small businesses create jobs. And as emergency unemployment benefits for millions of Americans expire amid persistently high joblessness, the GOP shows few signs that it's willing even to consider compromise in the months and years to come.

The midterm elections, which left us with a Republican House and a weakened Democratic majority in an already dysfunctional Senate, mean we're going to see even more of this dog and pony show in the next two years. The conservative base, angered by the actions of Democratic leaders they never liked in the first place, turned out in droves during the midterm elections. Enough independents lashed out at the state of the economy by voting against the people in charge, even if they actually disliked their opponents' positions. Most voters, distressed by the bad economy and frustrated that Obama hasn't turned around the deep recession he inherited more quickly, simply stayed home.

Republicans seem to have taken the 2010 election results as a resounding endorsement of the very same Bush-era policies that voters soundly rejected in 2008, but the facts just don't bear that out. The American people didn't call for protecting rich people's tax cuts or repealing a health care law that enjoys majority support. They didn't call for political theater or budgetary games of chicken. They called for a better economy with more jobs and growing incomes. In the long run, we'll have to address our national debt with both spending cuts and more taxes. But to protect and nurture our wobbly economic recovery for now, we'll need more temporary tax cuts and -- cover your ears, tea partiers -- more temporary public spending, too.

It's not about 2012. It's about now. I'd like to believe leaders in both parties get that. But to a degree I couldn't have imagined even in my most cynical moments a few years ago, I'm now fully capable of believing they won't.

The blinders are off, and ugliness stretches all the way to the horizon. Beyond, though, lies the promise of a better tomorrow. It's the hope that will sustain us all as we march through the dark days ahead, the hope that we will emerge from these struggles stronger and wiser than we've ever been before, the hope that our best days as a nation are yet to come.

Football is the only good October surprise

2010-10-31T23:30:00.009-05:00

I could have written so much here in the last few months about the upcoming elections. Instead, I did almost nothing of the sort, and I'm OK with that.

In part, my absence from this site has been because I've been too busy. But mostly it's been because I get deeply sad every time I consider the looming midterm victories for the tea party movement and the vague fear and misdirected rage that underlie so much of it all. I'll try to do a few posts in the coming weeks to look at what it all means in the long term -- maybe I will, maybe I won't; you get all the customer satisfaction guarantees that you pay for here -- but in the short term, I fear for the fate of sanity in our political discourse, no matter how many attendees showed up this weekend at what appears to have been a magnificent rally.

History still arcs toward progress, of course, but sometimes there are a lot of fits and starts along the way. In the meantime, in the timeless words of Hunter S. Thompson, a man who knew a little something about both politics and sports: "The time has come to get deeply into football." Here are four of the many possible observations about the finest version thereof.

Alabama still somehow controls its destiny: Considering I'm the kind of rabid partisan whose mood and (if things reach a sufficiently good or bad extreme) entire outlook on life can ebb and flow depending on how the Crimson Tide fares on any given Saturday, the loss to South Carolina should have bothered me much more than it did. Alabama fell behind early, got thoroughly outplayed, and plummeted down the polls after losing on the road to a better-prepared, well-rested team. But a clear memory of a crystal football goes a long way toward soothing football-related pain. So does the knowledge that the SEC's four straight national titles essentially have earned the conference a mulligan in the national horse race: If an argument with even the slightest plausibility can be made for your champion, voters will accept it.

Sure enough, here we are at the end of October with the dominoes lined up perfectly. Only two undefeated teams from automatic-qualifier conferences remain, and one of them comes to Tuscaloosa the day after Thanksgiving. If Alabama wins out against a schedule that could include four top-20 teams in the last five games, the Tide will get a chance to defend its title, and there's nothing Boise State or TCU can do about it. It'll be a month-long tightrope walk to get there, but when is it ever not?

Auburn is evidence that history repeats itself: The last time Alabama won a national title (1992), Auburn followed up by going undefeated the next season. Now, a year after the Tide's 2009 championship, the Tigers are on pace to finish unbeaten themselves. Sure, the team would be average at best without the one-man wrecking crew that is Cam Newton, but that's not the point: They have Newton, and that makes them a force to be reckoned with down the stretch. It also ensures the Tigers won't get jobbed 2004-style out of a title shot if they go undefeated this year. The worst-case scenario for Auburn would be a 10-win season, which is twice as many as it had two years ago, when the idea of Gene Chizik as head coach was much funnier than it is now.

Schedules have to matter this year: If you're undefeated, you should get a chance to win the national championship. If no one has beaten you, no one can be certain that anyone could beat you. In any other sport with a just playoff system, a team that outscored everyone on its schedule would get an opportunity to win the crown on the field of play. But the convoluted, ad hoc history of college football has left the sport with a postseason that makes less sense than any other. It's not about giving a shot to everyone who deserves a shot; it's about deeming two teams -- just two out of 120 -- the worthiest and then pairing them off to pick a champion. It's blatantly unfair and largely subjective, but for the foreseeable future, it's the system we have.

And as long as the BCS is the system we have -- as long as only two teams get a shot and not eight or 16 or as many as merit inclusion in any given year -- what a team has accomplished has to matter. Boise State and TCU are marvelous underdog stories, and they may well be the two best teams in the country. They almost certainly would win the ACC or Big East with ease. But if one team only beats three or four really good teams in a year while another squad beats seven or eight, pollsters shouldn't vault the former team over the latter just to make a point about a broken system. When you're whittling a list of a dozen deserving teams down to two, objective facts have to be the key factor in where you end up. If programs like Boise State and TCU want to be atop the polls at year's end, they need to do whatever is necessary -- even if that means agreeing to play four road games at BCS conference schools every year -- to position their teams to build a resumé as good as or better than those of everyone else.

Stop messing with the uniforms: Look, I know a helmet with a mutant bronco springing out of a player's neck on one side (and one side only) may appeal to today's youth. But that doesn't mean I don't have to have nightmares about it. Sure, TCU's new look wasn't bad, but have you seen what happened to Ohio State and Virginia Tech? If the trend continues, I fear Alabama will take the field a few years hence in houndstooth helmets, black pants, and jerseys featuring the cover art of the latest Cage the Elephant album, because, you know, you guys have an elephant, right?

The gubernatorial campaign: Where we stand

2010-09-29T21:20:00.001-05:00

Robert Bentley's message: He's liberal! Liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal! Health care reform bad! Jobs good!

Ron Sparks' message: Tax gambling! Gambling gambling gambling gambling gambling! Rich doctor governor bad! Jobs good!

If I've left anything out, I doubt it's much.

We really can be good at everything

2010-08-31T23:40:00.007-05:00

The first time I got the feeling was when we rushed 11.

It was the 1993 Sugar Bowl, and I was watching my beloved Alabama Crimson Tide take on the leading football force of the era, the Miami Hurricanes, for the national championship. It was the culmination of a dream season defined by fundamentals: a hard- working defense, a determined running game, and a quarterback who did just enough to win. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't attention-grabbing. And it wasn't supposed to have a prayer against Miami's pass-happy Heisman Trophy winner, Gino Torretta, and the Hurricanes' cast of stars.

Then Alabama, in a confident and calculated move, put all 11 defenders on the line of scrimmage. Torretta, confused by this bold development, quickly called a timeout to ask the coaches what to do. He finished the game with three interceptions, and the Tide finished with a 34-13 victory and a national title. Alabama, a huge underdog, had worked hard and won big.

I watched the game with a growing sense of euphoria throughout. But the moment that still stands out above all others -- above the memory of George Teague high-stepping into the end zone with a pick-six, above even the legendary image of Teague chasing down Miami speedster Lamar Thomas and stripping away a sure touchdown -- is when Alabama rushed 11. It was brilliant, it was daring, and it showed a willingness to take risks and try new things to be the best. It was the moment I knew not only that Alabama would win, but that it deserved to win, because we had earned it.

That success didn't happen by accident. It happened because Alabama hired good coaches who crafted good game plans. It happened because Alabama recruited good players who executed those game plans well. And all of that happened because Alabama decided that having a good football team was a priority and invested the time, energy, and money necessary to get it.

Two decades later, college football is still an example of the great things that this state can accomplish when it is determined to do so. Alabama has one of the nation's best-paid coaches, one of the most beautiful stadiums anywhere, and yet another national championship to its credit. Auburn in that time has had two undefeated seasons, one or both of which should have led to a national title for the Tigers. And Troy and UAB have clawed their way from lower-level obscurity into bowl games in recent years.

College football is proof that if Alabamians set our minds to it, we can do it. We shouldn't settle for just being good at college football, though. We should try to become that good at everything: education, health care access, transportation, and whatever else you can name.

It can be discouraging to read headlines about how Alabama's education reform application for federal Race to the Top grants finished dead last, or about how Alabama still taxes groceries when almost no other state does, or about how high poverty rates persist in the Black Belt. But it's important to remember that those aren't unchangeable conditions that we have to accept like the weather. We can use our government to do something about them.

Yes, it will require more citizen engagement. Yes, it will require more careful scrutiny to ensure that candidates lay out a realistic vision for our state instead of just promising free ponies paid for with tax cuts because they think that's what we want to hear. And yes, it will require us to acknowledge that if Alabama hopes to compete with states that spend much more than we do on education and infrastructure, we'll need to invest more money in those things, too. (We could start by asking the state's rich to pay at a tax rate similar to what everyone else pays, but that's a conversation for another time.)

It won't be easy. It won't be flashy. For a while, it won't be attention-grabbing. And just as football programs endure rebuilding years, there will be ups and downs along the way.

But with the same devotion and determination that we pour into vaulting our football teams to the top of the polls, we can improve our state's fundamentals and make Alabama a better place to live and work. We can make our state a place where the quality of our highways and public transportation can stand proudly alongside the beauty of our mountains and beaches. And we can move closer to the day when Alabama, a huge underdog, can shock the world again by both having the best education system in the country and hoisting yet another crystal football to the heavens.

It'll be the feeling of being the very best -- and best of all, having earned it.

Two different flavors but no major changes

2010-07-15T23:10:00.011-05:00

So it's come to this in the Alabama governor's race: Robert Bentley vs. Ron Sparks. Republican vs. Democrat. Business tax cuts vs. expanded gambling. Alabama Needs to Get That Looked at vs. Scratch and Win for the Children.

Yes, we have a choice this fall. And yes, the nominees have some key policy differences. But if you're looking for a lot of systemic, big-picture change, you probably need to keep looking.

The state's best chance at electing a truly transformational governor in 2010 disappeared last month when Artur Davis, the only major candidate who pushed modernization of our state constitution and tax system as a major platform plank, got crushed in the Democratic primary. And the odds of education reforms -- good or bad -- to which the Alabama Education Association objects fell to about zero after Bradley Byrne's big loss in the Republican runoff Tuesday. (Rule 1 of Alabama Politics: Never start a land war with the AEA with fall approaching.)

Both Bentley and Sparks say they support legislative revisions of individual sections of the constitution -- it's funny how that never seems to happen given how often lawmakers say they support it -- but they oppose a convention to rewrite the document. They're also sticking publicly to "no new taxes" stances (if you don't count Sparks' gambling plans, that is).

You'll hear Bentley and Sparks battle it out in the coming months on a range of issues, including whether to allow more gambling, whether to waste state resources fighting against federal health care reform, and whether to pay for ending the state grocery tax or just cut the tax and hope the money magically replaces itself. Those issues, especially the latter two, are very important to Alabama's future. I wouldn't claim otherwise.

But it's likely that neither man will pledge to use the gubernatorial bully pulpit to push heavily for structural changes like greater home rule for counties or a major set of reforms to make our overall tax system more balanced and humane. Don't be surprised to hear numerous vague platitudes about job creation but few specifics about how to cope with the budget shortfalls that could force major job losses for public employees in 2012 after federal stimulus money disappears. And Alabama's new governor will be largely powerless to enact an agenda without cooperation from the Legislature, which can override vetoes with a simple majority thanks to the constitution that won't be getting rewritten.

Perhaps worst of all, now that Sparks and his facial hair have gone their separate ways, Alabama will miss a prime opportunity for its first unapologetically mustachioed governor since Charles Henderson left office in 1919. (Then again, maybe our state's last mustachioed governor was William Brandon in the 1920s. Some mustaches are less impressive than others, you know.)

This would be a damn shame

2010-06-03T19:30:00.003-05:00

Artur Davis' announcement that he wants to stay away from elected offices and political appointments is understandable, considering how fresh the pain of his unexpectedly large loss in the Democratic gubernatorial primary still is. But given the four- term congressman's great intellect and experience, it'd be a loss for Alabama if he makes good on his pledge to stay away for good.

As I said in the comments here, I'm of the "never say never in politics" school. Five or 10 years is a lifetime in politics, and at 42, Davis is young enough that he could sit out several election cycles before trying for a comeback if he wanted. Even if he does choose to spend the rest of his career in private law practice, though, something tells me we haven't heard the last of Davis.

What's next for Artur Davis?

2010-06-02T23:45:00.007-05:00

Getting thrashed almost 2-to-1 isn't exactly how most politicians like to kick off the summer. Unfortunately for U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, that's exactly what happened to him Tuesday in Alabama's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

If you're looking for explanations of how Davis went, in short order, from presumptive nominee to distant second, I offered a couple of major reasons here. (You also can find great accounts at Doc's Political Parlor and King Cockfight, the state's most authoritative and most hilariously incisive political blogs, respectively.) But if you're looking for admittedly uninformed guesswork as to the next steps for Davis, you're in the right place. There are no easy answers, but let's examine a few possibilities.

If at first you don't succeed: Run, run again. Davis could come back with another gubernatorial campaign in 2014 if Ron Sparks falls short this fall. But that'd be a non-starter if Davis doesn't work hard to rebuild support among black voters who felt scorned by his shocking "no" vote on health care reform and his refusal to pursue the black establishment's backing. He'd also have to settle on a simple, memorable campaign theme and unleash more of the Davis we saw during his concession speech Tuesday night.

Mr. Davis goes (back) to Washington: It'd be easy to assume Davis could just wait a couple of years and return to his old congressional seat in 2012. But he no longer will have the advantages of incumbency at that point, and he struggled Tuesday in many key areas of his district. If you're into dreaming big, Davis could challenge for Jeff Sessions' seat in 2014 or hope Richard Shelby retires before 2016. Remember, though: As conservative as the Alabama electorate has become in state races recently, it's even more conservative when it comes to national offices. Barring an unforeseen sea change, it'll be a generation or two before a Democrat -- any Democrat -- can harbor serious hopes of winning a U.S. Senate race in Alabama.

By appointment only: Davis, as you may have heard, was a law school classmate of a guy named Barack Obama, who, as you may have heard, is the leader of the free world. That would seem to help Davis' case to be appointed to an open executive-branch job or federal judgeship. One caveat is that Obama may be a little less open to this possibility after that "no" vote on health care reform. Another is that Davis likely would have to forsake any future political ambitions were he to get a lifetime judicial appointment. A shorter-term executive position would leave the door open, but it also might drop Davis off the Alabama political radar entirely. Anything short of a full-fledged Cabinet position or an in-state U.S. attorney post probably wouldn't be worth it if Davis hopes to run for office again.

Take what you can get: We elect more than just the governor in Alabama, and Davis is fully qualified for many of those jobs, too. A run for a lower state office -- lieutenant governor or attorney general would seem likeliest -- could present fewer entry barriers for Davis and would garner valuable state-level experience to which he could point in a future gubernatorial campaign. The previously mentioned concern about rebuilding black support still applies. So does the still unanswered question of whether the full Alabama electorate is ready to elect a black man to one of the state's highest offices.

Take it easy: Davis first ran for Congress in 2000, and he first won in 2002. After almost a decade in the public eye, he might just choose to retreat into private life for a while and spend some more time with his family. Absolutely no one could blame him for that. But for the state's sake, I hope he finds his way back into public life sooner or later. Artur Davis is an intelligent and relatively young man who still has a lot to offer Alabama. One election setback hasn't changed that.

Lessons from the primaries that just won't end

2010-06-02T02:15:00.006-05:00

It's a gubernatorial election featuring a margin so tight that it fairly could be said to fall into "rounding error" territory. Also, the Democratic nominee is best known for supporting an expansion of gambling. If "2002" flashed into your mind before you read this sentence, congratulations: You, like me, pay way too much attention to Alabama politics. Let's consider a few early takeaways from the 2010 state primaries.

A good poll is hard to find: Maybe you thought Ron Sparks would beat Artur Davis for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Maybe you thought Robert Bentley had a chance to run, say, a strong third on the Republican side by picking up some voters disgusted by the free-for-all between Bradley Byrne and Tim James. Maybe you thought lower-than-expected turnout could have unanticipated consequences. But if you claim to have known both that Sparks would trounce Davis almost 2-to-1 and that Bentley would surge all the way to second place (by a mere 40 votes at this writing), then you're either a liar or someone who needs to make way more money as a pollster than you do now.

The black establishment's support still matters a lot: At least if you're a Democrat running for high office in Alabama. When I read that Dallas County, right in the heart of Davis' congressional district, had gone for Sparks, I knew Davis' night would end early. Say what you will about Sparks' pursuit of backing from the Alabama Democratic Conference and the Alabama New South Coalition, but the decision got results at the ballot box. Davis' move to vote against health care reform while stating support for a hypothetical bill that would do all the things that the actual bill did couldn't have helped him among the party's more progressive wing, either.

Seriously, Bentley's campaign was lights-out: How many non-politically-minded people outside Tuscaloosa County could have told you who Bentley was a year ago? You probably could count the number on your fingers. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, he's in the thick of the GOP governor's race, and he has an excellent chance of getting the nomination if he hangs on and makes the runoff. (If you think a lot of James supporters will go for Byrne after a brutal primary battle, and if you think the Alabama Education Association won't pull out all the stops to keep Byrne out of the Governor's Mansion, think again.) Depending on how the next few days go, I may have to reclassify his campaign as not just the state's best-run of the year but maybe its best-run in decades.

The power of positive thinking (or at least advertising): As solid as Bentley's campaign was, it got big assists from Byrne and James, who focused like lasers on each other with ad nauseum negative attacks. GOP and conservative independent voters turned off by the tone were left with two choices: the former judge who's still trying to make political hay out of his years-ago Ten Commandments battle, or the doctor who's running pleasant-sounding ads talking about job creation. A very conservative person who's close to me put it thusly earlier this week: "I think I'll vote for Bentley because he hasn't made me mad."

You can't always get what you want: But if you drop out of the governor's race and run for lieutenant governor instead, you at least can get nominated for something, right? Now Kay Ivey just has to hope that Jim Folsom, Jr., can't remember how to spell "PACT" in campaign ads. But something tells me he can. And will. Frequently.

Sometimes being tall is enough: Name one thing you know about Luther Strange besides the fact that he was a lobbyist and that he's roughly 27 feet tall. Here's a hint: He's also not Troy King, which was all it took for him to win the GOP nomination and become the overwhelming favorite in the attorney general's race in the fall. Our state's long nightmare of having an AG who voluntarily straps on a tracking device and who in his younger days publicly worried about the household arrangements of three men, an armadillo, and a houseplant are finally over. In Alabama, you take progress where you can get it.

And sometimes you just deserve to lose: Remember when U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith decided the Democratic Party had become just way too liberal for him, mere months after it spent an enormous sum to get him elected? And remember when the Republican establishment welcomed him with open arms and bragged about his party change as an omen of things to come in November for the Democrats? Yeah, see, it turns out that GOP voters don't like blatant political opportunism any better than Democratic ones. Enjoy the rest of your one and only term, Mr. Griffith. I'd suggest enjoying a cheeseburger at the congressional cafeteria before you go, but you'd probably just ditch it for a chicken sandwich in the middle of the meal anyway.

Down the stretch they come

2010-05-31T23:55:00.014-05:00

By this time tomorrow, we'll get a needed (if temporary) respite from the scattered variants of this ad template that have assaulted us on television for weeks on end. Incidentally, we'll also have a much better idea of the finalists for state offices in November.

With Alabama's gubernatorial primary just hours away, it's past time to examine the candidates and their campaigns. I'll discuss the top contenders for the state's top office (defined as "people for whom I've seen at least five roadside signs") in the most scientific fashion I know: how annoying I've found their campaigns. Let's go in reverse order from least to most annoying.

Artur Davis: His campaign has been far from the slickest. Much or all of his once-huge primary lead has disappeared. And his "no" vote on health care reform looked like the epitome of a crass political calculation. But it's refreshing to find a gubernatorial candidate who talks publicly about actual substantive issues like constitutional reform and ending the state grocery tax. He's also the only real contender with a plausible claim to be a true Montgomery outsider. (Sorry, Tim James, the son of a two-term governor is pretty much the definition of an insider.) If Davis can secure the Democratic nomination, he'll have a much better chance at victory in the fall than many people believe -- especially if he's running against James or Roy Moore.

Bill Johnson: It's hard to be annoyed by someone you never see. Best wishes to the former ADECA head in his search for employment in the weeks to come. Times like these make one feel glad that our state spent millions of economic development dollars to convince all those multinational corporations to locate here. Otherwise, we might have an unemployment problem...

Robert Bentley: Granted, he won't win, and his policy proposals don't really make him stand out that much from the rest of the Republican field. But Bentley, who had almost no name recognition at the start of the race, surely will finish in the double digits in Tuesday's primary, and he's stuck with positive messages amid what has become a nasty battle for the GOP nod. Start to finish, it's probably been the best-run campaign this year.

Ron Sparks: Gambling? Gambling. Gambling? Gambling! Sparks has done well enough as agriculture commissioner, but his one-note campaign is strongly reminiscent of the 1998 effort by Don Siegelman, who lost a lot of momentum a year later when voters shot down his lottery proposal. However you feel about it, gambling isn't the cure for Alabama's financial woes, and it'd be nice to hear Sparks, who has a real chance of claiming the Democratic nomination, offer some more realism about the hard choices that lie ahead for our state. I'd also appreciate the return of that magnificent mustache, but you have to start somewhere.

Bradley Byrne: Would it be the healthiest thing for Alabama to have a governor perpetually at war with the state teachers' union? There's an excellent chance that we'll find out in 2011. Byrne probably will win the Republican runoff next month, and his massive war chest will make him the favorite in the fall if he does. If you've enjoyed the Byrne camp's complaints about "Democrat union bosses" and the anti-Byrne camp's TV ads attacking the very idea of evolution, just wait until the battle is everyday life in Montgomery. But on the plus side, given Byrne's claims to have cleaned up corruption in the state's two-year college system, he apparently is a one-man U.S. Department of Justice.

Roy Moore: Trust me, I'm just as amazed as you are to find another candidate more annoying than the Granite King. But until this week, Moore basically has been the J.D. Salinger of the gubernatorial race: He did this one thing one time that made him famous for a while, and then he fell out of the public eye and public consciousness for years. He probably won't make the GOP runoff, and if he somehow squeaks into it, he won't win. The extent to which these circumstances qualify as real progress in Alabama should not be underestimated.

Tim James: This guy is a worldwide Internet celebrity, and not in a good way for Alabama. If you think the top issue confronting our state is the fact that we allow a handful of people to take the driver's license exam in Vietnamese, then Tim James is your man. If you missed the steady gubernatorial hand of his father, Fob "I'm not a fat monkey" James, then Tim James is your man. And if you want a leader who interrupts his public statements to look down at his shoelaces for no discernible reason, then Tim James is your man. Without some slick and silly commercials, this guy would be lucky to finish fourth in the GOP primary, even though he's been running for governor roughly since Richard Alpert came to the Island. As it is, he's virtually a lock to make the runoff, and he might even win it. If you're an electorally minded Democrat, that's a dream scenario. If you're an everyday Alabamian who may have to live in a state governed by James, it's... well... not.

Whatever happens, it should be safe to watch the local news again for at least a day or two after Tuesday. Unless the runoff campaign begins immediately, of course. Come to think of it...

You know what was Katrina? Katrina

2010-04-30T23:50:00.008-05:00

First things first: The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a terrible disaster. I doubt you'll find anyone who disagrees.

It'll be the largest American spill since the Exxon Valdez went down in 1989, and it may well top that in the coming weeks. Most tragically, 11 people are presumed to have lost their lives at sea. Closer to land, the Gulf Coast's fishing and tourism industries may not recover for years. The environment may not recover for even longer than that. It's another major economic blow to a region that still hasn't really bounced back from the crippling devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

There's that word again: Katrina. Almost five years later, it's on the tip of people's tongues again. Mobile's Press-Register today analogized the federal government's abysmally botched response to the hurricane to its present response to the oil spill. The Drudge Report was more direct, suggesting in a headline that the oil spill could become "Obama's Katrina."

The oil spill is a horrible thing. I get that. But to treat it as somehow the same as Hurricane Katrina is to forget the depth and breadth of the horror that was Hurricane Katrina.

The oil spill's death toll is 11. Katrina's death toll was more than 1,800. The oil spill will hurt the Gulf Coast's economy and could wreck its environment. Katrina did all that and then some, displacing tens of thousands of people from the region, many permanently. The oil spill will destroy the homes of many animals. Katrina destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, many of whom still are waiting for rebuilding help to this very day.

An analogy between the federal responses to each incident also doesn't hold up. The oil spill was a sudden, unpredictable incident whose magnitude was unclear until several days afterward, due in part to BP's repeated assurances that it had things under control until it became clear that the company did not. The Obama administration kicked its response into high gear as soon as scientists ascertained the scale of the spill. It also put the brakes -- at least temporarily -- on plans to expand offshore drilling after seeing a crystal-clear illustration of its down side.

Katrina, on the other hand, was forecast in advance to be one of the worst catastrophes ever to strike the United States, and its magnitude was clear immediately to anyone who had a television. Even so, the Bush administration took several days to fire up major federal relief efforts while thousands of people begged in the streets for help. Years later, many people are still waiting for the assistance they've been promised.

I understand the frustration and desperation on the Gulf Coast right now. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who will be affected in the years to come. But just because something is bad and happens on the Gulf Coast, that doesn't mean it's Katrina.

The oil spill is a disaster. But Katrina was hell on earth. No one should forget the difference.

Government takeover of incrementalism

2010-03-31T23:55:00.002-05:00

If the Soviet tanks rolling through the streets haven't crushed your car in the week since President Obama signed health care reform into law, there's a reason for that: They don't exist.

In the last few days, we've heard no reports of elderly citizens sent to their graves by death panels. We've seen no political dissenters shipped to FEMA camps. And one has to guess that the vast majority of Americans haven't received surprise visits in the dead of night from gun-confiscating government agents.

No, none of that happened last week when Obama signed the health care bill. But here's what did happen: The nation took a few reasonable but important steps down the road to a saner health care system wherein people aren't discriminated against or crushed financially just because they get sick. This country didn't solve all of its health care problems, but it began to do so.

In time, as the moderate reality of the law becomes clearer to the public, conservative opponents' fervor against it will wane. (For the general public, that process already has begun.) For those whose hearts were set on a Canadian-style single-payer system, the disappointment may last longer. But it's important to remember just how significant of a victory this law really is for tens of millions of Americans -- just how meaningful it is to have done a lot of common-sense things that nonetheless took almost 100 years of effort to achieve.

For 32 million uninsured people, including more than 640,000 Alabamians, the law means gaining health coverage that they don't have now. For millions of people barely getting by, that will mean newfound eligibility for Medicaid. For millions of middle-class Americans, it will mean a more affordable private plan with the cost defrayed by a government subsidy. And for millions of senior citizens on Medicare, it will mean lower prescription drug costs.

Just as importantly, the law will forbid insurers from dropping policies just because their customers ended up with a costly illness. It will bar insurers from saying they won't cover your medical bills anymore because suddenly they're too high. And by outlawing exclusions of pre-existing conditions, the law will end what a Newsweek columnist last year called "a shameful era in our nation's history when we discriminated against people for no other reason than that they were sick." And the law installs all those coverage expansions and consumer protections while taking some creative steps that actually reduce the deficit.

Is the law ideal? Of course not. Millions of people will remain uninsured. The law doesn't allow the federal government to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs -- something that should be a no-brainer in the American free-market economy. Without a public option to compete with private insurers, it may prove difficult to slow premium increases. And without the ability to select a public alternative, people will be left with two choices: Pay a fine or buy insurance from the very companies that played a big role in driving up costs in the first place.

Despite its flaws, perhaps the most important thing about the health care reform law is the moral statement it makes to the nation and the world. It says the United States has chosen to be a country where, as Obama said, no one deserves to go broke just because they got sick. It says we're a country that recognizes the value -- economic, social, and moral -- of doing our best to keep people healthy and productive, even people we don't know and will never meet. It says we're a country that believes no one should be treated as disposable.

Health care reform isn't finished by any stretch of the imagination. But after a century of lawmakers and activists and everyday Americans banging their heads against the health care wall, the first bricks have broken free at last.

Some things aren't worth dying for

2010-02-28T23:55:00.010-06:00

We humans have a complex relationship with death.

We're all going to die eventually, but most of us don't want to think about it. Anthropologists will tell you it's a major reason that religion is so prevalent in human societies. It's the unspoken undercurrent of fear that drives both proponents and opponents of health care reform in America. It's an uncomfortable reality that we all deal with -- as we must -- in our own way.

Few things bring the value of life more into focus than a funeral. I realized that yet again recently while attending a funeral for a loved one who died in the prime of life. All around, you saw tears of inconsolable grief. You heard stories of the happy times in a life cut short far too soon. You felt the sense of profound sadness over the loss of what more might have been, if only death had waited, if only it stayed at bay for a few decades or even a few years longer.

Some people think death is permanent. Others think it's a pathway to a new life in another place. But regardless of religious beliefs, something everyone can agree on is that death means a loss for those who remain. It means the lasting pain of years or decades of separation from someone important to you. It means children who lose a parent, parents who lose a child, friends and siblings who lose a confidant, spouses who lose their everything.

As survivors, we find ways to ease our pain. We tell ourselves our loved ones died doing what they loved, that their suffering is over now, that they laid down their lives in defense of others or of their country. We tell ourselves what we need to hear so we can sleep at night, so we can dull the gnawing pain, so we can be confident we'll see our loved ones again. We tell ourselves everything -- even something as shocking as death -- happens for a reason.

Humans have a tendency to work ourselves into froths over religious or political disagreements, and things get extra frothy when the matter involves both at once. Such is the case with the electronic bingo battle that is consuming this year's legislative session in Alabama. Crowds march on Montgomery demanding a vote on bingo and a restoration of their jobs. Law enforcement orders raids on bingo halls. Tensions escalate.

And then people who should know better say things they shouldn't. State Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said that if Gov. Bob Riley's task force tried to raid Greenetrack without a warrant, "you will see a bloody day in Greene County." His Democratic House colleague, Johnny Ford of Tuskegee, ratcheted things up even further, telling a Montgomery television station, "If somebody has to die, so be it. I'll die for my constitutional rights. You gotta die for something."

I have no idea if the electronic machines at dog tracks and bingo halls in Alabama are legal or not. As someone with little interest in gambling, I personally don't care if they stay or go. I think Riley's raids -- sending more than 100 police at once to establishments accused of nonviolent crimes -- have been wasteful and heavy-handed. And I sympathize with the people who feel that electronic bingo halls are their only option for jobs after decades of inadequate state action on economic development for their areas.

But Alabama has legislators and judges for a reason. It's the Legislature's job to determine what's legal and what isn't, and it's the Supreme Court's job to determine how general provisions apply to the specific facts at hand. It's not as exciting as a tense standoff, but it's the way we do things in a civilized society. It's how we maintain order even in troubled times. It's how we guard against unnecessary violence and death.

Everyone on both sides of the bingo debate should take a deep breath, then another, and then another. Make your best legal and policy arguments. Speak out, march, and rally in favor of your position -- peacefully. Let the system do what it's supposed to do.

And pray to God that no one has to attend a funeral -- that no one has to lose a loved one -- because of a damn bingo machine.

Sometimes it gets better by not getting worse

2010-01-31T23:55:00.013-06:00

When a bull is loose in the china shop, your options are limited. Sure, you might like to try out some new product lines one day, or expand your online operations, or finally get around to hiring that extra sales clerk. But right now, all you can think about is one thing: Let's get this bull to stop breaking all the china.

The 2008 election was, if nothing else, a clear signal that Americans were tired of a government that left them walking across broken china. The Bush administration got the country mired in not one but two wars that no one in charge seemed to know how to end. It very publicly botched the response to one of the biggest natural disasters in American history. It sent a nation that had begun to pay off its national debt spiraling ever deeper into the red. And for its swan song, it then drove the economy into the deepest ditch we've been in since the Great Depression.

Millions of people voted for President Obama with the idea that he would accomplish any number of great things and do so quickly. I wasn't in that class. Was I hopeful that he would work to change the tone of political debate and restore the focus to issues instead of sideshows and personalities? Without a doubt. But my bottom- line expectations were much lower: If he managed to govern without breaking more things, if he managed to stem the bleeding in domestic and foreign affairs alike, I'd consider him a success.

With fits and starts, Obama has done just that in his first year. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- a.k.a. the stimulus package -- used public infrastructure investments and targeted working-class tax cuts to keep a bad economic recession from lapsing into a bad economic depression. (Locally, it also staved off a budgetary disaster for Alabama for at least a year or two.) Obama has begun to look at how to bring our nation's spending and revenues closer together, even if the proposed cap on discretionary domestic spending isn't entirely up to that task and leaves the major drivers of debt -- defense and entitlements -- untouched. And Obama has committed to, if not an immediate end to the Iraq war, at least the beginning of an end to it.

Those are real accomplishments, but they aren't as visible as they should be. The major problem Obama has faced in his first year is that most of his best achievements are counterfactual. How do you convince people that even though things are bad, they would have been so much worse without your actions? How do you explain that even though unemployment is still increasing, things are getting better because you've slowed the rate at which it was going up? How do you convey that the status quo can be considered progress when the alternative might have been another layoff or another foreclosure?

As Obama rolls into year two, he may have found an answer that sounds all too easy: Just get out there and do it. In his State of the Union address and especially in his much-ballyhooed Q&A session with House Republicans earlier this week, the president has gone on the offensive, doing his best to knock down talking points with facts and disarm generalized fear and outrage with a calm manner and a smile. After months of hoping the results would speak for themselves, Obama has decided that he has to help speak for them.

He's already shown the ability to do more than damage control. The never-ending story that is the health care reform battle has overshadowed some of Obama's substantive victories: credit card reform, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the lifting of the ban on federal funding for stem cell research.

But now that the economic situation has begun to stabilize, Obama needs to do more. He has to sign a health care reform bill. He has to stiffen regulations on the big financial institutions that helped to crash the economy in the first place. And he has to do more to reduce the unemployment rate by promoting small business growth, investing in more infrastructure, and aiding state and local governments so they can avoid layoffs of teachers, police, and other public workers.

Will any or even all of that stop Republicans from gaining seats in Congress this year? Probably not, but that's beside the point. At least since World War II, the historical trend has been for the party out of power -- be it the Republicans or the Democrats -- to win more power on Capitol Hill. Some districts now represented by Democrats are just too conservative to go long without a Republican reclaiming their seat. It's a short-term adjustment.

Obama's focus should be -- and presumably is -- on the longer term. His task is to make the case to the American people, skeptical after decades of hearing the mantra that "government is the problem" -- that government actually can be a force for good if it's done right, and then proving through action that he and his team are the ones for the job. As the economic situation continues to stabilize, Obama should begin to get that opportunity.

But no matter how those efforts go, try not to forget that perhaps Obama's greatest virtue is not in what he does but in what he doesn't, not in what he says but in what he doesn't say, not in who he is but in who he isn't. And if you ever do forget, just ask the Europeans. They gave him a damn Nobel Peace Prize for little apparent reason other than the fact that he isn't George W. Bush.

I understand the sentiment. After eight years of china flying everywhere, it's a relief to see someone walk in the door and start picking up pieces instead of making more.

Another year down the hole

2009-12-31T23:50:00.007-06:00

The recession made for a tough year all around, and things were no different in Alabama in 2009.

Unemployment soared quickly in our state this year, rising above the national rate for the first time in years. Partly as a result, Alabama had far too little money for its education and General Fund agencies, forcing funding cuts for schools, courts, and other public services. And next year may be worse unless the liberal federal government decides to spend more for big-government boondoggles like keeping teachers employed and paying for doctors to treat poor patients.

Taxes remained a reflexive four-letter word in many corners of the state. Alabama still taxes poor people heavily despite all of the much-ballyhooed claims of having the nation's lowest taxes. A bill to end the state grocery tax while protecting education funding went down without even getting an official hearing. And Gov. Bob Riley and other GOP lawmakers cited fears of a hypothetical future tax increase to scuttle plans to accept free federal money for the state's unemployment insurance fund.

Jefferson County presented some special cases this year. The county backed away from the very edge of the financial abyss this year, but the legal challenges are far from over. Meanwhile, Birmingham's mayor pledged repeatedly during his campaign to do something, but problems arose when a federal jury found him guilty of dozens of counts of doing something... illegal.

Election-year news saturation began well before the actual election year. Artur Davis emerged as the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee, but a contentious primary still lies ahead. Bradley Byrne became the early favorite in a much more crowded Republican gubernatorial field, but the possibility of ousted former Chief Justice Roy Moore seizing the GOP nod for governor remains. And U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith decided to add actually being a Republican to his congressional track record of voting like one -- just in time to face primary challenges from people who nonetheless find him insufficiently conservative.

To summarize: Thank God for Mark Ingram and Alabama football. Roll Tide, and happy 2010.

Dadgummit, Bobby's out

2009-11-30T23:40:00.004-06:00

You might say he's lost his touch. You might say the academic fraud scandal will tarnish his legacy. You might say he just wasn't the guy to reverse the team's recent dip into mediocrity. And you're probably right about all of that.

But on the eve of his likely retirement as the Florida State football coach for as long as anyone can remember, don't forget just what Bobby Bowden did. A childhood Alabama fan who never got to coach in Tuscaloosa and whose win over the Crimson Tide in 2007 officially never happened, Bowden took over at a school where football was a sidelight -- the team had won a grand total of one bowl game ever before his arrival -- and turned it into the premier program of the 1990s.

To say FSU was dominant under Bowden's watch up until a few years ago would be a vast understatement. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, the Seminoles won two national titles, played for several others, and probably deserved a piece of one or two more on top of that. They also went a decade and a half without losing a bowl game. As a younger man, I remember remarking during an FSU game, only half-jokingly, that the only way to give the opposing team a chance would be to force the Seminoles to punt on third down like a CFL team. Given the potency of those offenses, I still doubt it would have helped.

The team's slide was gradual, and it never was complete. FSU still hasn't had a losing season since 1976, a performance that would merit a contract extension at many programs, and perhaps even at FSU in the old days. But Bowden raised the stakes there, and now those higher stakes have forced him out the door. Oddly enough, after several years of media claims that the Seminoles are ready to turn the corner, that really might be the case next year considering the team's returning talent. If new coach Jimbo Fisher gets FSU back in the title chase quickly, Bowden will deserve at least some of the credit.

Bowden's multi-decade tenure was not without its controversies and PR disasters -- where do you think the "Free Shoes University" moniker came from? -- but it'd be hard to find a coach at a school of any size who could make that claim. Ultimately, his many successes on the job are what will endure. In time, the memories of incidents like the Dillard's arrest and the academic scandal will fade, leaving decades of success, a newly established college football powerhouse, and status as one of history's great coaches as Bowden's legacy.

That and those creepy Allstate ads. Dadgum.

College football preview: November edition

2009-10-31T23:50:00.003-05:00

It's a sports cliché to say that even two months into the college football season, we don't really know anything. It's also wrong. What do we already know for certain about how things will shake out before Daylight Saving Time comes to a close?

Texas will play for the national title. The Longhorns have no more realistic obstacles between here and Pasadena. Who's going to beat them? Kansas, when it isn't busy losing to Colorado? Texas A&M, when it isn't getting plowed by a mediocre K-State team? The Big 12 North champion, when it finally becomes bowl eligible? Please. One spot is taken. And thank God it's not on Fox this year.
The SEC champion almost certainly will, too. If Alabama or Florida pushes through undefeated, this question is academic. The more interesting possibility is if Alabama, Florida, or LSU leaves the Georgia Dome with a loss and a conference crown. Protests and caterwauling would issue forth from any remaining undefeated teams. But unless the loss is very late or very bad, it still probably wouldn't matter. The narrative of "best conference this side of the NFC" has emerged, and it is not to be denied.
Heisman voters will make every possible effort to give it to Tim Tebow. Once again, this is a situation in which objective facts and reason are optional at best. Tebow is the best player on the No. 1 team, a quarterback, and a media darling to boot, which are the only real qualifications a Heisman winner needs these days. That said, a win by Colt McCoy wouldn't shock me. And for the record, Mark Ingram is this site's official Heisman favorite, unless Rolando McClain and Terrence Cody get traction, in which case it's them. A three-way split would be ideal.
Everyone will forget about Boise State. This already has begun, with pundits vaulting Oregon into the top five on the strength of a dominant victory over USC, all the while forgetting that Boise State's win over the Ducks was just as impressive and would suggest that the Broncos are maybe, you know, better. It's not fair, and it makes no sense, but we've established that those aren't the guiding principles here. What matters is the ability to examine the full body of evidence and -- oh, look, shiny new thing is shiny and new!
We won't see two non-BCS teams in BCS bowls. Not this year, anyway. If Boise State and TCU win out, their on-field performances would merit trips, but the rules of the game would guarantee a slot for only one (likely TCU). The other team could slip in only if Notre Dame loses again and if four of the six major conferences don't have an available at-large team with two or fewer losses. The odds against that are overwhelming.

Note: All of the above is subject to change. Because, of course, we don't really know anything.

Way to take a stand there, liberal media

2009-09-17T23:50:00.004-05:00

Actual, can't-make-this-up headline on CNN.com right now: "Obama as witch doctor: Racist or satirical?"

Should posters portraying a black president as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose be considered racist? We'll hear from both sides, next!

Do banjos count?

2009-09-01T02:00:00.004-05:00

Kentucky law still requires elected officials, in 2009, to swear that they haven't challenged anyone to a duel before they can take office. The state constitution says so.

I suppose I should take some small comfort in the knowledge that Alabama's constitution isn't the only one plagued by antiquated, embarrassing, downright weird provisions. But I also bet the Kentucky charter doesn't have near as much to say about dead farm animals. And let's not even mention bingo.

He also doesn't know Batman

2009-08-24T21:20:00.001-05:00

Buried in the middle of this article is an amusing report on the interaction between U.S. Rep. Bobby Bright, D-Montgomery, and some elementary school children in Prattville last week. During his visit, Bright presumably talked about what being in Congress is like -- the coverage is scant on that point -- and then showed the kids the card that he uses to cast votes on Capitol Hill.

What seemed to interest the children more, though, was whether Bright had any bodyguards. And if he would say hello to President Obama's daughters for them. And most of all, whether Bright could obtain a presidential classroom visit by Obama. The answer: "Probably not."

Wonder if being the only House Democrat to vote against the economic stimulus package, the 2010 budget, the climate change bill, and the expansion of children's health insurance might have anything to do with that?

G-strings, pasties, and the Alabama Legislature

2009-08-15T19:40:00.000-05:00

Alabama's legislators did what they were asked to do in this week's special session. They pulled Jefferson County back from the brink of immediate financial disaster. They used federal money to extend unemployment benefits for the growing rolls of jobless Alabamians. And they made it easier for school districts to pay for school construction.

They also approved, without a dissenting vote, a bill including a lengthy provision about G-strings and pasties. It will become law the moment Gov. Bob Riley signs it.

Technically, the measure would regulate alcohol sales, or the lack thereof, in Houston County adult entertainment facilities. It's a policy matter about which I know less than nothing and therefore offer no opinion. Two things seem worth noting, though.

First, our state government's structure is such that lawmakers across Alabama weigh in on explicitly local issues like whether to allow drinking in a given county's strip clubs. And second, the following direct, possibly not-safe-for-work quote probably will appear soon in local law:

"Attire which is insufficient to comply with these requirements includes but is not limited to, those items known as G-strings, T-Backs, dental floss, and thongs. Body paint, body dye, tattoos, latex, 'pasties' tape, or any similar substance applied to the skin surface, any substance that can be washed off the skin, or any substance designed to simulate or which by its nature simulates the appearance of the anatomical area beneath it, is not full and opaque covering as required by this act."

In fairness, I should note that local laws for many counties appear to be unavailable online, so G-strings and pasties might well be on the books already. And for everyone's sake, I'll save the discussion about the various kinds of clefts that can be found in our state statutes for another day.

Kicking the can ever so slightly

2009-08-15T18:25:00.007-05:00

Well, that's done.

Alabama legislators, resisting the urge to lock down in tedious filibuster exchanges, got in and got out in five days this week for a special session to save Jefferson County from immediate financial disaster. They reauthorized an occupational tax that accounted for a fourth of the county's budget. They established a county manager and required quarterly budget reports. They saved the cheerleader and saved the world.

For a few years, anyway. The occupational tax will start to die in 2012 unless voters bail it out. As unpopular as the Jefferson County Commission is, and as unpopular as the very idea of taxation is in some circles, you could be forgiven for having doubts about the prospects for a "yes" vote. If the tax goes down, the county's cash flow problem is likely to re-emerge. And we won't even discuss that pesky, lingering $3.9 billion Sword of Damocles that is the county's sewer debt.

Questions of fairness understandably surround the occupational tax. Why should poor people pay at the exact same rate as richer people? Why is it OK for some counties to have an occupational tax but not others? And as we've heard most commonly, why should people who don't live in Jefferson County have to pay the tax? Isn't that taxation without representation?

The last question in particular might raise a valid point in a state with a governmental structure that makes any degree of sense. But in Alabama, where the question of whether a city is allowed to cut weeds is a matter for the Legislature, everyone across the state just got a say in Jefferson County's tax system.

If you look at the House and Senate votes on the occupational tax bill, you'll notice "yes" votes from Rep. Marcel Black of Colbert County and Sen. Vivian Figures of Mobile County. You'll also notice "no" votes from Rep. Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa County and Sen. Trip Pittman of Baldwin County. Those areas, plus many others, weighed in on Jefferson County's occupational tax, even though, at last check, none of those places were Jefferson County.

So in the end, everyone had a chance to be heard, the votes were tallied, and the occupational tax is back on life support. Hundreds of potential layoffs of Jefferson County employees were averted. The county will have an added layer of oversight -- even if, as the Birmingham Weekly notes, adding a county manager will do little to simplify the county's finances. And all of the lawsuits and legal ambiguities surely are coming to an end.

Except... Wait... What's this? Oh, it's the Legislative Fiscal Office's fiscal note for the brand-new occupational tax bill. This should be informative: "An estimate of the amount of revenue generated by the tax authorized by this bill is undetermined due to the fact that a clear definition of 'compensation, excluding benefits, or net income before taxes whichever is less' is not provided in this bill."

Uh-oh.

A session more special than the rest

2009-07-31T23:00:00.005-05:00

I can think of no finer way to drop $110,000 of public money than to convene a special session of the Alabama Legislature.

It can be productive. It offers loads of largely unintentional entertainment. And it's a second chance to go gavel-to-gavel without marijuana-related drama, or flooding of epic proportions, or editorials with epically bad legislative flood puns.

The arguments for a special session may seem obvious, but like most things, they look more compelling in a bulleted list:

Jefferson County -- which, as the county where more Alabamians live than anywhere else, is kind of a big deal -- faces the budgetary equivalent of a massive heart attack in the middle of a debilitating stroke. And swine flu. Swine flu that mutated into Ebola.
The state's prepaid college tuition program is in danger of being eaten by bears. Stock market bears, not literal ones. Not yet, anyway.
Your child's school would like to invite you to a proration party! And then another one in October! BYOB! (Bring your own books, that is. There's not much money for new ones.)
More Alabamians are losing their jobs every single month, prompting the state to borrow money for its unemployment fund. But at least we didn't take federal stimulus money for the unemployment fund. Because that would have required submission to outrageous liberal tyrannies like giving an unemployment check to a woman who had to leave her job to escape an abusive husband, or counting applicants' most recent work to determine their eligibility for benefits. Oh, and a hypothetical tax increase years down the road. As opposed to the certain one next year.
Insert reference to the broken and unfair nature of our state constitution and tax system here.
We're going on four months since the Legislature weighed in on an opposite-marriage dispute between a beauty pageant contestant and an entertainment blogger, both of whom live thousands of miles away. And it's been years since we double-banned gay marriage. If it weren't for our ongoing efforts to rid ourselves of the scourge of wine labels featuring classical artwork of nude women, outsiders might start getting the wrong idea.

Whatever happens, we should make sure it occurs during the most stifling, unbearable stretch of August. The one that proves that a bunch of liberal liberals and lazy polar bears and the Hawaiian birth certificate industry have orchestrated an international conspiracy to invent so-called "global warming."

And the one that's least likely to bring flood waters back.

I should pay closer attention to the hashtags

2009-06-17T19:15:00.002-05:00

I somehow missed the news about how President Obama became our supreme religious authority and brutally cracked down on almost all forms of communication, leaving Republicans with no other choice but to express their outrage with a repressive, theocratic regime 140 characters at a time.

Then I read tweets from a pair of brave House Republicans, and the analogy became much clearer.

It's a sad sort of perspective

2009-05-31T23:50:00.006-05:00

Alabama chronically underfunds all sorts of things: schools, health care, courts, public safety, prisons. You name it, we probably don't support it like we should.

But at least we're not California. Its budget deficit for next year is about twice as large as our General Fund budget, federal money and all. They're talking about closing most of the state parks and dropping health insurance for almost a million poor children.

There but for the federal stimulus money go we. And after 2011, there goes the federal stimulus money. Let's hope we're ready.

Have they no sense of timing, at long last?

2009-04-01T00:15:00.005-05:00

Happy April Fools' Day, everyone. Maybe the Republicans' next attempt to unveil their much-ballyhooed alternative budget (version 2.0 drops today!) will include some actual budget-type content this time instead of proposals to slash rich people's taxes some more and just hope everything works out OK.

And if it doesn't, it's probably all Barney Frank's fault, anyway.

Funny how these things work

2009-03-31T23:45:00.005-05:00

Remember, kids: It's beyond the pale of human decency even to consider refusing millions of dollars in bonus money to white-collar AIG workers for no good reason other than that their company would have collapsed into the abyss without hundreds of billions of federal dollars. They had contracts, after all.

On the other hand, it's absolutely mandatory that blue-collar autoworkers, some (but nowhere near all) of whom get six-figure annual compensation including benefits, be forced to renegotiate their pay packages downward for the good of the nation. They had union contracts, after all.

The snow-nado means business

2009-02-28T23:50:00.002-06:00

Tornado warnings and snowstorms all in the same day. Gotta go with my gut and say that's distinctly not normal. Also gotta use this as perhaps my only opportunity to have a plausible excuse to link to this awesome video.

See you in March. I'll try to revive this place then.

Now it's time to get to work

2009-01-21T01:15:00.002-06:00

I'm not trapped in a St. Elsewhere-style dream sequence after all.

Four years after signing on for another dose of overprivileged, ill-equipped, tunnel-vision leadership from George W. Bush, my country has inaugurated a worldly, intelligent, charismatic man from a modest background as its 44th president. It was a stunning about-face. It seemed too sudden, too drastic of a shift to be true. But it was real. I saw it with my own two eyes.

Further, that worldly, intelligent, charismatic president happens to be a black man named Barack Obama, which, as you may have heard more than once in the last few days, is kinda sorta a very big deal given our nation's history. As strongly as I believe that American history is a steady progression toward a more accepting and inclusive society, I hardly would have believed even 10 years ago that I'd live to see what happened Tuesday.

Over the last year, the Obama campaign and inauguration accomplished something I hadn't thought possible before: It melted away the cynicism that had become my default approach to politics. For the first time in my life, we have a president who I supported not because I saw him as more palatable than the alternative but because I actually thought he was the right person for the job. For the first time in my life, we have a president who has convinced me that politics can be about more than senseless division and false promises. For the first time in my life, we have a president who makes me believe that politics can be the American people's friend and not our enemy.

But now that Tuesday has become Wednesday, the glamour of ebullient crowds and inaugural balls has begun to fade into the mundane processes of governance. When the country wakes up in a few hours, we'll find that challenging times threaten to swallow Obama's presidency whole before it even gets off the launch pad. It'd be easy to look at what Obama has inherited -- two costly wars, a cratering economy, and deeply flawed education and health care systems, just to pull a few items off the list -- and throw your hands up in disgust, frustration, and hopelessness.

With great challenge, though, comes great opportunity -- opportunity to heal America's wounded international reputation, opportunity to restore America's economy to a sound footing that gives everyone the chance to get ahead, opportunity to come together to build a stronger America where everyone is welcome regardless of surface differences like race or religion.

Our nation's greatest presidents -- Washington, Lincoln, FDR -- have been the ones who took over amid great crises and rallied Americans to work hard for a common cause and a brighter tomorrow. There's no guarantee that Obama will have what it takes to join that list. But there's no question that he assumes our nation's highest office at a time when our crises are of the breadth and depth that gave rise to the great presidents of our past.

For all our sakes, may God help Obama live up to their legacies.

I owe this post to the historical record

2008-12-02T01:00:00.008-06:00

With the ad hoc once-a-month posting schedule I've informally and inadvertently adopted for much of this year, an increasing amount of my decreasing traffic has come from Google searches.

People get here using all kinds of search queries -- check the series I used to do on the weirder ones if you don't believe it -- but a few tend to recur. One of the most common for three years running has been "Blount Countian," because the newspaper got mentioned in the comments a time or two and those posts quickly took their place among the most popular search engine results for the term. When people went looking for a newspaper website that didn't exist, they ended up here instead.

I'm pleased to report that that shouldn't be a problem anymore. All of The Blount Countian's editions since mid-September are now available for your perusal at its shiny new website, so check them out there. And then, if reading a blog is your sort of thing, feel free to come back here, too.

Not bad, as it goes

2008-11-30T23:15:00.004-06:00

Barack Obama swept into the presidency in a powerful rejection of the Bush administration's failed policies and divide-and-conquer politics, even picking up an electoral vote in Nebraska.

Fringe, the best new show on television, is getting a strong vote of confidence from network brass.

After capping off a perfect 12-0 regular season with a long overdue 36-0 devastation of Auburn, my Alabama Crimson Tide is a game away from a 22nd SEC title and two games away from a 13th national championship -- and this after a preseason when fellow Alabama fans dropped their jaws in disbelief when I optimistically predicted 10 wins.

All in all, November has been pretty good to me. See you in December with actual posts, material, thoughts, effort, etc.

Playing out the string

2008-10-31T23:55:00.005-05:00

Nothing has worked, my friends. Nothing.

They've tried to point out what a terribly arrogant, egocentric celebutante this Barack Obama fellow is, only to find out that perhaps running ads full of thousands of Europeans joyfully waving American flags at the very mention of Obama isn't the best way to argue against him. Plus, they totally got punked by Paris Hilton, an inestimably difficult task.

They've tried to tell the world how dangerously inexperienced and unready to lead from day one That One is, because of all the arguments that Hillary Clinton used in the primary, that's the one that helped her lose slightly less than the others. (Nota bene: Next time, consider arguments that won.) In addition, calling attention to 26 years of Washington insider status during a change election may, in retrospect, have been a poor tactical decision.

They've tried to let everyone know that for real change from the failed Republican policies of the past eight years, you need a brand-new mavericky Republican with a maverick like Sarah Palin at his side. Then it turned out, also, that Maverick 2.0 was for that Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, and also had some novel ideas about disclosing public records, and also struggled to string together coherent policy statements or sentences under brutal questioning from renowned inquisitioner Katie Couric, also. Let's not even talk about that state trooper scandal, also.

They've tried to convey the gravity of the economic crisis confronting our nation by bravely suspending the presidential campaign -- except for the parts that involved giving public speeches and running ads and going to debates and such -- to return to Washington, D.C., just in time to take credit for the Wall Street bailout just before it went down in flames in the first vote. Look, what's important to remember is this is a crisis, which you can tell by the way the letters are italicized, and you should know who's tested and ready to respond to a crisis, even if it means misleading David Letterman a little every now and then.

They've tried to declare guilt by association by playing Six Degrees of Barack Obama with pretty much anyone and everyone.

They've tried to paint Obama, with his plans to raise taxes on the wealthy to start paying some of the country's rapidly mounting bills, as a socialist redistributionist who would replace the stars and stripes with a hammer and sickle.

They've tried to blame the damn liberal media -- John McCain's former "base" -- for taking everything out of context, even if it was aired from start to finish, and even if it was your five-day forecast.

They've tried, in all seriousness, to make the final weeks of the campaign a referendum on Joe the Plumber.

But nothing has worked, my friends. Nothing.

So before these final four days fade, fire up the robocalls, empty your arsenal of sports metaphors, and put your best ABBA album on continuous loop late on election night.

Because no pain -- not even a failed White House bid -- can touch you when the smooth harmony of "Dancing Queen" fills your ears.

What matters most

2008-09-03T10:45:00.003-05:00

Chalk up Sept. 2, 2008 -- two days before Republican presidential candidate John McCain gives his acceptance speech at the GOP convention -- as the day his campaign gave its concession speech on the things that actually matter.

Proof? Let's go to an actual, live, on-the record statement from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Rarely do you hear a campaign of utter distraction spelled out so clearly. Still, just to show that we're good Americans, perhaps we should forget all about the economy, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, health care, education, the environment, and all those other things that don't help the GOP win elections. Instead, let's fire up the grill for some delicious mooseburgers and paste a picture of McCain's face on a hand puppet so we can hold it up over James Garner's head during a 24-hour Maverick marathon.

That's what this election is about, my friends.

Lessons learned? Here's hoping

2008-09-02T04:15:00.001-05:00

New Orleans couldn't afford another crushing blow. Fortunately, Mother Nature appears to have pulled its punches there this week.

Hurricane Gustav was powerful and exacted a terrible death toll -- more than 70 people, including at least seven in the United States -- but in New Orleans, at least, it wreaked nothing like the hellish watery havoc that Hurricane Katrina brought three years ago at this time. Forecasters say Gustav will dump a bunch of rain on northern Louisiana this week -- after Tropical Storm Fay, we here in Alabama can sympathize -- but by and large, the worst of the storm mercifully appears to have played out.

One heartening thing to see is that federal and state officials appeared a lot more prepared for this storm -- and more publicly vocal about their preparedness -- than they were for Katrina. For a case study, look no further than President Bush, who spent the early hours of the Katrina catastrophe playing guitar with a country singer and eating birthday cake with John McCain. This time, though, Bush called off an appearance at the Republican National Convention and headed to a command center in Texas -- close enough to the storm-affected area to act quickly, but not so close to the danger zone as to be in the way of relief efforts.

On the political side of things, Barack Obama and the RNC organizers both have responded in the correct (and electorally wise) way, staying out of the danger zone, temporarily tamping down the campaign, and urging supporters to donate to hurricane relief groups. It was refreshing to see upper-echelon politicos with vastly different viewpoints on so many of the key issues of the day agree that some things really aren't political.

And it'll be even more refreshing if McCain pops the trial balloon he floated in an NBC interview wherein he said he might deliver a speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination from somewhere along the freshly devastated Gulf Coast. Seriously, how tone-deaf can a person be?

A great night for America

2008-08-29T02:30:00.001-05:00

When it comes to politics, I can be quite cynical. But Thursday night, I got a reminder that politics still has profoundly good things to offer, still has moments that are deeply moving, still has the capacity to transform an entire nation of people for the better.

I saw Barack Obama become the first black man ever to become a major party's presidential nominee Thursday night, fewer than 50 years after he wouldn't even have been allowed to register to vote or enter a restaurant through the front door in many corners of the country. I witnessed Obama receiving a deafening ovation from a packed-out stadium filled with cheering people of all races and ages. And then I heard Obama lay out the substance of his vision for an America where everyone has a fair chance to get ahead, an America where our fearless freedom and peaceful prosperity make us unquestioned moral leaders in the world, an America where absolutely anything is possible through hard work.

I teared up a little by the end, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Aug. 28, 2008, was a proud moment in our nation's history. Here's hoping that Nov. 4, 2008, will be even prouder.

Democratic veepstakes: 13th-hour edition

2008-08-23T07:00:00.006-05:00

Near the top of the list of things I've meant to write for a few months now is a breakdown of the Democratic and Republican vice presidential contenders. Now that we seem to know the GOP's answer and are literally hours away from seeing Barack Obama standing next to his VP pick with our own eyes, it's a fine time to start emptying the archives. First up: a look at why Joe Biden won the Democratic veepstakes and a bunch of other people didn't.

Evan Bayh, U.S. senator, Indiana
Why him?: If you're into moderate Midwestern senators with executive experience who could put a traditionally Republican state into play, Bayh was your man. As a Hillary Clinton supporter during the primaries, he also could have brought some deeply disenchanted Dems back into the fold.

Why not?: Were personal charisma to be an Olympic sport, he'd struggle to qualify for the quarterfinals. Those votes for the Iraq war and the bankruptcy bill also don't sit very well with the base.

Verdict: On the short list. Faced Kathleen Sebelius for the bronze.

Joe Biden, U.S. senator, Delaware
Why him?: He has all kinds of foreign policy experience and likely will help with outreach to Catholics and older voters. He's also an amiable attack dog (which Obama needs) who effectively slammed the door on what was left of Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign with that famous line about "a noun, a verb, and 9/11," which has to be worth something in its own right.

Why not?: He cast the same Iraq war and bankruptcy bill votes as Bayh, though he later called the Iraq vote a mistake. In other news, at last check, Delaware still has only three electoral votes, all of which were going to the Democrats no matter what.

Verdict: It's him. And I don't mean in the way that pundits were sure it was Hillary Clinton, and then Wesley Clark, and then Tim Kaine, and then... I mean in the way the Secret Service has begun providing him a detail and in the way the Official Campaign Text Message® said so. As it turns out, he is the guy.

Wesley Clark, Retired Army general, Arkansas
Why him?: You want foreign policy expertise and a guy who could reach out to alienated Clinton supporters? Um, yeah.

Why not?: Mr. Personality and Mr. Political Experience he ain't. Besides, he may have taken himself out of the running with those remarks about John McCain getting shot down in Vietnam.

Verdict: Along with Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, a favorite of defense-minded Democrats, but likely not strongly considered.

Hillary Clinton, U.S. senator, New York
Why her?: Remember the primaries? She got lots of votes. Obama would like to have those votes for himself this fall.

Why not?: Anyone up for reliving endless discussion of Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater, Filegate, and Travelgate for anywhere from the next three months to the next eight years, as well as round-
the-clock speculation about what Bill Clinton is up to behind the scenes today? Didn't think so.

Verdict: Despite the media's best efforts to shriek "Dream Team!" 24/7, probably considered only in passing, if that.

Chet Edwards, U.S. representative, Texas
Why him?: Because you're willing to take those 40/1 odds that John Parker Wilson will win the Heisman Trophy this season. I have no idea how or why this name ever got floated, other than as a favor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Why not?: Who?

Verdict: McCain may have had a marginally better chance.

Chuck Hagel, U.S. senator, Nebraska
Why him?: He was an early Republican critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, and the nation always claims to appreciate a little bipartisan spirit.

Why not?: Pretty deeply conservative on most things other than Iraq. Also, Republican. You try selling that at the Democratic convention and see how it goes.

Verdict: Pie-in-the-sky hypothesis from a bored pundit class.

Tim Kaine, Governor, Virginia
Why him?: He's a young, charismatic Catholic with executive experience from a key swing state. As for shared personal narrative with Obama, they're both Harvard law graduates with mothers from the same Kansas town.

Why not?: He's only been governor for two and a half years, and Obama really needed someone with decades of experience, particularly on the international front.

Verdict: Probably the last one out. Silver medals don't break ties in the Senate, though.

Bill Richardson, Governor, New Mexico
Why him?: He had the broadest array of experience -- foreign and domestic -- of any of the Democratic presidential candidates. He also would have shored up New Mexico and made things very interesting across the Southwest.

Why not?: His speaking style is dryer than one of his state's deserts, and the beard might rub some people the wrong way. (No pun intended.) The primaries also raised questions about whether his national electoral strength among Hispanics was overrated.

Verdict: I'd like to think he received much stronger consideration than he actually did.

Brian Schweitzer, Governor, Montana
Why him?: He's a wildly popular governor whose libertarian streak could have appealed to residents of Western swing states and to working-class voters everywhere. He also has some very interesting ideas on energy independence.

Why not?: Montana is small, and few people outside its borders know him. Plus, there was no guarantee that he even could have pulled the state's three electoral votes into the blue column.

Verdict: Fun thought, but likely never seriously in the mix.

Kathleen Sebelius, Governor, Kansas
Why her?: She's a popular governor who knows how to get elected in a deeply red state and who erased a $1.1 billion budget deficit in a year without cutting education spending or raising taxes. Her selection would have been a strong outreach to women, too.

Why not?: Kansas governors don't tend to have very high national profiles. They don't do much in the way of foreign affairs, either.

Verdict: On the short list, but lacked the global experience that Obama was seeking. Battled Bayh for bronze.

Putting this place in perspective

2008-08-08T02:10:00.002-05:00

One of Alabama's most influential, most consistent blogging voices has fallen silent. My best wishes go out to Dan, proprietor of the recently shuttered Daily Dixie and the not-so-recently shuttered Between the Links. I hope we haven't heard the last of him, in both the online and offline worlds.

Bloggers, myself included, navel-gaze far too often, so feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you aren't interested in that. News of Dan's decision -- and to me, it does qualify as news -- reminds me that in almost four years of mostly on-again, but (sadly) increasingly off-again blogging, I've had to overcome the urge to quit for good more times than I care to count.

The considerations have been numerous and predictable: real-life obligations, no pay for the site, frustration with the increasingly hyperpartisan nature of the blogosphere, lack of time, lack of motivation, and sometimes, lack of anything to say that I haven't already said better before. Blogging, like any other hobby, can consume huge chunks of time, and its nature is such that it can burn out its aficionados in a hurry.

Given how many times I've let self-imposed return deadlines roll by without a sign of life in the last few months, some of you could make a fine case that, in a way, I already have quit. But in my mind -- the arbiter that makes these sorts of things official -- this place is up and running and prone to having new content at any moment.

I have my hopes that "any moment" will come sooner rather than later -- and it probably will -- but whether it will be later today or weeks from now, I can't say for sure. What I will say, though, is that it will come in due time, and that it will come not out of a sense of grim obligation but out of a sense of cathartic enjoyment.

In the end, it's just a blog. And it's important to keep it that way.

Trying too hard to be cool is not cool

2008-07-31T01:15:00.002-05:00

Look, kids, the Republicans know Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have enjoyed fame in the last decade! And they've seen those old Norm Macdonald sketches on Saturday Night Live where he talks about how much Germans love David Hasselhoff, too!

Surely these ultra-clever pop culture references, along with John McCain's avowed awareness of the Internet, shall be the final elements needed to establish the GOP brand as the choice du jour of the "it" crowd and thus worthy of electoral dominance this fall. Or maybe they can keep people from thinking about, you know, issues and stuff. Hey, it's a win either way, right?

The long-promised return to regular posting will begin no later than this weekend. Now that political reality seems more outlandish than the best efforts of The Onion and Stephen Colbert combined, I have too much material to stay away any longer.

Yes, he can... make it a little closer

2008-07-01T09:15:00.001-05:00

The news that Barack Obama has trimmed John McCain's lead to 15 points in Alabama's presidential polling -- cutting the previous lead in half -- raises three notable points:

1) Despite all the caterwauling from pundits who really want a close race for the White House, this election is shaping up to be a solid victory for the Democrats. Obama is holding his own among independents, and even after a seemingly never-ending primary fight, he has a base that is far more motivated than McCain's and is consolidating more and more as the days pass.

2) Things have reached the point in Alabama that a mere 15-point deficit for Obama is considered a moral victory for the Democratic side. Considering Alabama is McCain's surest bet this side of Utah, though, this news can't be heartening to the Republicans. It also can't be good news for GOP congressional candidates who hoped McCain might have some coattails to ride.

3) I've got a lot of catching up to do. Three to four months' worth, to be precise. Those of you who have continued to visit have superlative patience, and you deserve to be rewarded with a whole host of posts. Tonight, though, let's start slow by breaking that unhealthy "one post a month" trend.

They'll run out of TV money eventually, right?

2008-06-03T09:05:00.003-05:00

What have we learned from the Republican primary race in our state's 2nd Congressional District? That we need to fight some vast, nebulous liberal conspiracy. That we must despise all taxes with every fiber of our being. And that we should feel outrage over the prospect that someone might speak Spanish on the telephone.

Just seeing these ads on the Internet is a strong argument to give up television forever. Not that I'll listen, of course.

Wherever you are in Alabama, go to your polling place and vote today. You'll feel better, and it might make the ads go away.

The Alabama Legislature in 400 words or less

2008-05-31T23:55:00.005-05:00

I haven't been around much lately, so I've missed most of the lively post material our esteemed Alabama legislators dished out generously this year. Fortunately, it's easy to tell the story of the last four months of Goat Hill action via the magic of bullet points.

The Senate threatened to lock down from the very start after the ghost of the Punch Heard 'Round the World floated into the chamber, only to make peace after the most interested parties -- Sens. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, and Charles Bishop, R-Jasper -- made nice and made up.
Then the Senate threatened to lock down after Sen. Phil Poole, D-Moundville, vowed to filibuster in protest of Gov. Bob Riley's veto of road money for his district last year.
Then the Senate did lock down as everyone and his brother and her aunt and their cousins burned two full months of the session filibustering a local gambling bill.
Meanwhile, House members, as per recent tradition, handled their business about as efficiently as a group of 105 politicians can, then waited around for the Senate to do anything -- anything -- at all.
The Senate somehow found time to pass a General Fund budget, then dawdled on the education budget until the clock ran out on the regular session.
Among the reams of bills killed that day: a plan to cut income taxes for most Alabamians and cut grocery taxes for everyone, a bill to ban smoking in most public places, a measure to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes law, and a call to set those wrongfully imprisoned hops free.
Negotiators disagree on who said "no deal" to a proposed education budget in the regular session's waning hours. Regardless, when they opened the case during the special session a week later, universities found the $5 million -- written on a check to K-12 schools.

With that, Alabama got an education budget, the special session ended today five days after it began, and our legislators wished us happy trails. Seriously, the House closed the session by playing "Happy Trails." And yes, there was singing.

Lest you fear your love for ALISON will go unrequited until next year, though, there's already buzz that lawmakers may go back to Montgomery for yet another special session this summer. Because much like Goonies, our Legislature never says sine die.

It's the show that never ends

2008-04-22T08:00:00.003-05:00

After six long weeks, Pennsylvania Democrats at last get to decide today what's a bigger deal-breaker: not wearing an American flag lapel pin at all times or getting schooled by Sinbad on your recollection of what happened on your trip to Europe.

A serious prediction: Hillary Clinton will win by somewhere between four to eight points, enough to gain a few pledged delegates on Barack Obama but nowhere near the 70-30 blowout that mathematics dictates she'd need to catch up at this stage.

Another serious prediction: Clinton will stay in the race anyway, claiming her Pennsylvania win means she's won the hypothetical Electoral College, or crossed the commander-in-chief threshold at 3 a.m., or something. Two weeks from today, Obama will make up all the lost ground and then some with a crushing victory in North Carolina. But even then, North Carolina will be a red state that voted against Clinton, and therefore it won't be a "significant state," and therefore it somehow won't count, or something.

Finally, an even more serious observation: Getting schooled by Sinbad is worse. No contest. Come on, the dude got off this line: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go, because I might get shot, but I'm going to send my wife and daughter. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you, too."

I feel burned, and I was nowhere near that fire.

4,000

2008-03-24T22:45:00.008-05:00

That's the American death toll in Iraq, five years and five days into a war that President Bush has no idea how to end, and presumably no intention to do so even if he did.

This war means 4,000 American families and untold thousands of Iraqi families will go to bed tonight -- and every night -- without someone who meant the world to them. It means thousands of people will go to bed tonight -- and every night -- knowing they never get to spend another day with their best friend. And it means thousands of children will go to bed tonight -- and every night -- without feeling the loving embrace of a mother or father.

This war destroys lives every day. How much longer must it last?

Unintentional brilliance

2008-02-09T22:25:00.000-06:00

CNN's Wolf Blitzer just noted that lingering GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee "captured Kansas decisively ... in Kansas."

Yep, sounds about right.

A tribute to Multiple Choice Mitt

2008-02-09T22:15:00.000-06:00

The week shouldn't pass without a remembrance of Mitt Romney, the presidential contender who shared your values. Always.

You guys are pro-choice? Hey, cool, so is he. Well, I mean, he was. Before he remembered he was passionately pro-life. After hyping his endorsement from a pro-choice group during his run for the Massachusetts governorship. And admitting he was "effectively pro-choice" as recently as 2005.

You're all about supporting equal treatment for gays? Hey, he was even stronger on gay rights than Ted Kennedy. Until he realized he was vehemently against the scourges of gay people being allowed to get marriage licenses or serve in the military.

You say you're from Michigan? Say, what a coincidence, because that's his home state, too. Before it became Massachusetts, of course. And there was that time he was from Utah, too. And that summer house in New Hampshire. And...

Poke fun if you must. But before you bid adieu to Romney, bestow upon him the fulsome praise he deserves for the valuable lessons he shared with a grateful nation before he dropped out of the Republican presidential race this week.

Without Romney, how would you have known that the same person could argue that only "a person of faith" is qualified to be president, then turn around and argue that a candidate should not be elected or rejected due to religion?

Without Romney, how would you have known that someone could oppose "the surrender to terror" by surrendering a presidential campaign that got its clock cleaned on Super Tuesday?

And without Romney, how would you have known that a wealthy businessman could spend $30 million of his own money on a White House bid, only to get trounced at the ballot box and get served in a public battle with a computer-generated snowman?

So farewell to the last (kinda, sorta, maybe) great hope for true American conservatism, whose glory days still must be ahead. After all, if Romney is a loyal GOP soldier and doesn't take any more road trips with the dog on the car roof, John McCain surely will pick him as a running mate to burnish his conservative credentials in the Deep South this fall.

Until he remembers Romney didn't win in those places, either.

The Punch is spiked at last

2008-02-09T20:30:00.000-06:00

Could it be? Could it be that Alabama has liberated itself from the viselike grip of the Punch Heard 'Round the World once and for all?

State Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, told his colleagues Thursday that he'd accept his punishment for punching Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, in the head last year -- and he won't even sue over it, either. "I'm going to treat everyone in this Senate the same way I want to be treated," Bishop said.

See how easy that was, guys? Now, everyone get to work. There's a budget crisis that's waiting patiently for your attention.

We'd never miss it, right?

2008-02-07T08:45:00.000-06:00

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Sounds like a great idea. Too bad this may be about to happen.

Late observations on Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T23:55:00.000-06:00

Round two of banter about projections, exit polls, momentum, delegate counts, and wall-to-wall television punditry:

Barack Obama has won 13 states thus far to Hillary Clinton's eight, but she claimed a big prize today in California, where early returns indicate she's building a margin that's larger than expected. Still, as the pundits have told us time and again, it's the delegate count that matters, and the early indication is that the national split will be about 50/50.
John McCain has taken 10 states, but today's biggest winner could be Mike Huckabee, who may well have shored up the Republicans' vice presidential nomination with triumphs in the GOP strongholds of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. The shock with which the talking heads have greeted the idea that a Southern Baptist preacher would do well in the South has been an endless source of amusement.
Clinton's campaign strategist called her Massachusetts win an upset. So it's supposed to be an upset for someone to win in a state where she has led from the beginning and had a seven-point edge in the polls going into today? Really?
Creatively named "upsets" aside, the biggest surprise on the Democratic side was Obama's win in Connecticut. The Northeast is Clinton's home turf, a region where she sewed up Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York with relative ease. Her campaign can't be comforted by a loss there.
Mitt Romney is done. So very, very done. Who ever would have expected Republican primary voters to reject a guy from Massachusetts who until recently was pro-choice and supported gay rights?
Caucuses are Obama's friends. The Iowa caucus vaulted him to prominence, and tonight he's rolled to enormous margins of victory in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, and North Dakota. One possible explanation: Caucuses tend to attract parties' hardcore political junkies, and Obama's support is greater among them. Another possible explanation: Caucuses tend to happen in the West and Midwest, where Obama's support appears to be stronger. A third possible explanation: It's all just an accident of circumstance.
Regionalism has continued on the Democratic side. So far, Obama has dominated in the Midwest, and Clinton has swept all the Northeastern states except Connecticut. The wildcards are the West and South, where Obama seems to have a narrow edge right now.
Republican contenders keep dropping out, but Ron Paul's vote share stays about the same. As determined and fervent as his supporters may be, a second-place finish in Montana just won't be enough to make it happen.
The Clinton campaign made a tactical error by letting Obama have the last word tonight. Had they held off the speech until the media called California for their candidate, Clinton could have made a good case that she had the momentum going forward. As it is, they ceded the traditional "winner's slot" to Obama and helped ensure the narrative instead will be more about Obama's ascendancy.
Sure, you mock the American Samoa caucus now. But those three delegates will split 2-1 for Clinton, and as close as the race appears, who's to say that won't be the difference?

The race goes on and on and on. Wouldn't it be funny if this turned out to be the year when Alabama's primaries, for once, would have gotten more attention by staying in June?

Early observations on Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T21:20:00.000-06:00

Scattered election notes, in no particular order...

Alabama has done its part for Barack Obama. The Illinois senator leads Hillary Clinton 56 percent to 41 percent with 70 percent of precincts reporting. Though he dropped out late last month, John Edwards has more than 5,500 votes.
The national media sure moved quickly in calling Alabama for Mike Huckabee, doing so even before the Obama projection. For a while there, John McCain was up by several points despite the check mark by Huckabee's name. But the former Arkansas governor has begun to pull away, leading 41 percent to 38 percent with 69 percent reporting.
It's been a better than expected day for Huckabee, who has claimed Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia and is running close in several other Southern states. Mitt Romney has taken Massachusetts and Utah, but unless he gets a sizable win in California, it's hard to see how he can hope to stay in the race given the high hopes with which he entered the day. As I suggested a few weeks ago, it's probably down to McCain and Huckabee for the GOP, with a McCain nomination now looking all but inevitable.
Barring a serious mistake by one side or the other, there's a real chance the Clinton-Obama race could go all the way to the convention, with the so-called "super-delegates" (a concept that should be abolished) anointing one of them in a decision that would enrage half of the party base.
Bill Richardson has responded to the disappointment of his failed presidential bid in much the same way Al Gore did: by growing an ultra-scraggly beard.
Huckabee earned points with me by issuing forth a "Roll Tide Roll" during his victory speech in Arkansas. Seconds later, he lost them back and then some by suggesting he'd like to sing "Rocky Top." Pick a side, Mike.

More thoughts to come later.

The Punch yet lives

2008-02-05T20:10:00.000-06:00

Thought you'd heard the last of the Punch Heard 'Round the World when a Senate committee decided to drop the matter last week?

Think again. Today, mere hours into Alabama's 2008 legislative session, 19 Democratic senators approved a resolution allowing the Senate to vote, if it later chooses, to require that any lawmaker who hits someone on the floor be accompanied by a security guard. You know, just in case any lawmakers happen to do that sort of thing in the future. But such a hypothetical lawmaker could have the restriction lifted by finishing anger management.

In other, surely unrelated news, a group of legislators today stripped Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, of most of his committee assignments. When Bishop left the building shortly thereafter, he was, to put it charitably, displeased.

One day down, 29 to go. Learn to love the gridlock.

Newspaper and blog endorsements galore

2008-02-05T02:00:00.000-06:00

As I did for the 2006 general election, I've compiled a list of newspaper endorsements for today's Alabama presidential primaries. Unlike 2006, I also included links to the opinions of some major state bloggers, because there seems to be a wider array of views this year than in 2006. My thanks again go out to Doc's Political Parlor for making it easy to find so many of these.

Let me know if I've omitted any noteworthy nods that offer at least a couple of paragraphs of explanation, and I'll add them ASAP. (Only one endorsement per party per site, please.) Here's the list:

Hillary Clinton: Anniston Star, Daily Home (Talladega), Decatur Daily, Montgomery Advertiser, Times-Journal (Fort Payne), Birmingham Blues

Mike Huckabee: None found

John McCain: Anniston Star, Birmingham News, Crimson White, Daily Home (Talladega), Decatur Daily, Montgomery Advertiser, TimesDaily (Florence), Times-Journal (Fort Payne), Tuscaloosa News, Doc's Political Parlor*

Barack Obama: Birmingham News, Crimson White, Selma Times-Journal, TimesDaily (Florence), Tuscaloosa News, Daily Dixie, Doc's Political Parlor*, Hey Jenny Slater, Practically Harmless, Red State Diaries, World Around You

Ron Paul: Daily Dixie, Flashpoint

Mitt Romney: None found

* This endorsement came from guest poster Chauncey Sparks, not the site owner, Danny.

The case for Barack Obama

2008-02-04T05:20:00.000-06:00

When I started Red State Diaries more than three years ago, the political atmosphere was even more polluted than it is now.

It was mere days after the 2004 presidential election, a hostile affair that had devolved on each end into barely contained hatred and thinly veiled contempt for the opposing side, and the prospects of healing the nation's 51/49 rift any time soon seemed distant at best. Still, retaining hope that our country could unite again with a common sense of purpose and trying to find others who felt the same way, I added my voice to what was then a relatively small contingent of Alabama bloggers. The site's original tagline said it all: "The musings of an Alabama moderate in a country that isn't as divided as it thinks."

More than 1,300 posts later, the tagline has changed -- I decided moderate was too subjective and went with the more objective independent label instead -- but the sentiment hasn't. I still long for leadership that plays not to the base but to everyone, leadership that tries to bring us together instead of trying to tear us apart, leadership that appeals to our best instincts rather than our darkest fears. After decades of bitter division, I believe our country finally has a chance for that sort of leadership, and I believe that leader's name is Barack Obama.

* * *

The slumping economy is the No. 1 issue for a sizable number of Americans, recent national polls have shown, but for me this election comes down to one word: Iraq. The war has caused tens of thousands of deaths, distracted from our mission in Afghanistan, tarnished our image in the world community, suffered from the Bush administration's botched planning from the very start, prompted tens of billions of dollars of deficit spending, and -- yes -- contributed in no small part to the recession that's either already here or will be soon. For all the talk, mostly from Republicans, that "the surge is working," the fact is that the Iraqis have made virtually no progress toward the political stability vital to any lasting peace, and the surge simply is unsustainable with many soldiers already on their third or fourth tours of duty.

Anyone who plans to keep our soldiers in Iraq with no clear end in sight will not get my vote. That measure rules out every Republican candidate except Ron Paul, whose love for the gold standard and sponsorship of legislation that would strip federal courts of the power to hear cases on gay marriage and state governments' establishment of religion, among other things, must lead me to decline the generous offer to join his revolution.

So that brings it down to a choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom have spent roughly the same amount of time in elective office. They are veritable mirror images on a range of domestic policy issues, including taxes, health care, energy, and environmental protection. Each also pledges to end the Iraq war as quickly as possible and redirect our efforts toward pursuing al-Qaeda. Despite some minor policy divergences, their websites indicate the similarities far outnumber the differences.

But the presidency is about more than just making promises; it's about making correct decisions. And when the Iraq war debate came around in 2002-03, Obama made the right assessment, while Clinton didn't. Well before any insurgencies or "Mission Accomplished" banners or dire State of the Union warnings, scores of Middle East experts and other observers publicly warned that the decision to go to war for proffered reasons that, to be generous, turned out to be not quite accurate, would leave our nation mired in just the sort of difficulties we face now.

Have no doubt that Clinton and Obama -- highly educated, politically astute people -- both heard those analyses. Obama responded with a passionate speech against the war. Clinton responded with an oscillating speech and a vote to authorize the war. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but all other things being roughly equal, it sure does make a great tiebreaker.

Intrinsics also make a great tiebreaker, and Obama has a solid edge over Clinton here. Due partly to some controversial campaign tactics and partly to her opponents' unforgiving, otherworldly antipathy for her, Clinton has been a lightning rod for a decade and a half, inspiring intense loyalty among many voters but intense hatred among many others. Fairly or not, her negative ratings are quite sizable, and if she becomes the Democratic nominee, the country will be well on its way to another 51/49 election that will drag the electorate into another period of destructive, counterproductive "us vs. them" politics.

Obama is a fresh face who hasn't evoked nearly as many fiery negative responses. He also is able to reach out to many people who already have written off Clinton as an option. Obama's stump speeches, laden with rhetorical flourishes and repeated calls for unity and hope, have earned him tremendous support from millions of young voters and independents, and even some old-school conservatives. Among the last category is a lifelong GOP voter who attended a jam-packed rally in Birmingham last week and put it this way: "I've spent the past few elections voting against a candidate. This time, I'm voting for Obama."

* * *

The very first thing I posted on this site was a mission statement. I wrote it partly to introduce my writings to a world of strangers, but more importantly to have a reminder of the principles that inspired me to start writing here in the first place. At the risk of sounding too self-absorbed, allow me to quote the 2004 version of myself: "We live in an unhealthy environment where honest political debate has been replaced by a mindless shouting match, where demagogues can win elections with promises to discriminate against an irrationally feared minority, where people are told they hate America if they deviate from the accepted party line. It's a wretched environment for democracy, for basic human decency, and for our future. It has to change."

Indeed it does. That's why my personal endorsement for Tuesday -- and with any luck, for this fall, too -- goes to Barack Obama.

It turns out that they're just people, too

2008-02-04T01:30:00.000-06:00

Interested in a little-known fact about each remaining presidential contender? Sure you are. These gems come from the bottomless wellspring of wonder and merriment that is Wikipedia.

Hillary Clinton: She spent the summer of 1969 on a journey through Alaska, including stints as a dishwasher at Denali National Park and a salmon slimer at a fish cannery.

Mike Gravel: Though he grew up in western Massachusetts, he spoke only French until age 7.

Mike Huckabee: His band, Capitol Offense, has opened shows for Grand Funk Railroad, Willie Nelson, and Percy Sledge.

John McCain: As a young man, his high school nicknames included "Punk" and "McNasty," and he once dated an exotic dancer known as Marie the Flame of Florida.

Barack Obama: His brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, is the head basketball coach at Brown University. (This one actually came from his wife's Wikipedia page, but I'll still count it.)

Ron Paul: As a teenager, he was a Pennsylvania track star who delivered milk to baseball hall-of-famer Honus Wagner.

Mitt Romney: He's a big Roy Orbison fan, but you'll need to keep the eggplant far away from his plate.

Bite-sized presidential trail mix

2008-02-04T00:55:00.000-06:00

Just because I haven't written about the presidential primaries here in a few weeks, that doesn't mean I haven't kept up with them. Here are a dozen full-blown posts I've neglected to write on a timely basis -- each conveniently condensed into a single (though occasionally long) sentence.

Democratic delegates are awarded not in a winner-take-all style, but proportionally in a quasi-Electoral College format, which means Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are virtually tied in national polling, can stay in the race well after Super Tuesday.
John McCain has emerged as the likely Republican nominee, much as I predicted, though Mitt Romney probably will continue burning through his millions for a while to try avoid the fate that befell his father when he sought the White House a generation ago.
John Edwards, who set the substantive tone for the Democratic race before dropping out last week, probably still has the power to swing his party's nomination with an endorsement of Clinton (less likely) or Obama (more likely), but barring an 11th-hour press conference, it appears he'll refrain from doing so before Super Tuesday.
Romney won the Maine caucuses Saturday, but sadly for him, the Pine Tree State has joined Wyoming as a place where the election was built, but the media just didn't come.
What does it say about our nation that Bill Richardson, the only candidate in any party who has spent multiple years as an executive, legislator, and diplomat, couldn't even attract enough support to stay in the race past early January?
What does it say about Rudolph Giuliani's $50 million campaign that he went, in three months, from national GOP frontrunner to an ignominious third-place finish in Florida that led him to leave the race with just a single delegate?
It looked good for him after Iowa, but in the end, Mike Huckabee's down-home populism and Chuck Norris friendship simply won't be able to overcome his lack of campaign funds, his call "to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards," and his recently adopted desire to put all of the federal government's revenue eggs in the inherently regressive and volatile sales tax basket.
Yes, Ron Paul was right on the Iraq war, but if someone (he says it wasn't him, and I believe him) managed repeatedly to slip racist tripe into his eponymous newsletters over the course of several years without him noticing, then why -- aside from an indefatigable urge to turn your dollars into gold! -- should he get to oversee the entire country?
As Massachusetts senators' endorsements go, Ted Kennedy sure has garnered a lot more attention and impact than John Kerry, who probably should have considered beating the guy who already had an approval rating slipping below 50 percent in 2004 if he wanted his opinion to mean much to this year's Democratic voters.
It's good to see Joe Lieberman finally letting his inner Republican roam free in public.
It's good to see Fred Thompson finally getting to enjoy that afternoon nap he's been wanting to take for so long.
In case this happens to be dispositive in your electoral decision-making, the muscleman endorsements look like this: Huckabee has the Nature Boy and Walker, Texas Ranger, McCain has the Governator and Rocky, and Obama has the power of Hulkamania running wild for him.

Stay tuned for more fun facts and actual, substantive discussion of the White House race -- or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.

I, I... I just saw that

2008-02-03T22:10:00.000-06:00

Eli Manning just played in the Super Bowl. And was on the winning team. And was the MVP for the winning team. And deserved it. Because he led a two-minute drill to win the game of his life. Over the team of the decade. Which was an unprecedented 18-0 at the time. And being billed as the greatest team in history. Ever. Kind of like a certain college football team was a few years ago.

Also, if I didn't know better, I'd think that toward the end of the game, I saw a commercial with a man jump-starting a vehicle via nipple clamps. But surely I had to be mistaken.

Things still happen in Alabama, too

2008-01-27T17:00:00.000-06:00

As much attention as the presidential race has gotten this month -- and I'll be sure to pile on some more in the coming days -- it never hurts to take a quick look around the home front. Here goes.

Crime and punishment: The two-year college scandal that led to a Pulitzer Prize for the reporter who unveiled it officially has blown wide open. Former Chancellor Roy Johnson has pleaded guilty to a host of corruption charges and agreed to tell federal prosecutors what he knows about others' transgressions. Johnson, 62, faces a substantial prison sentence for the 15 counts, but the U.S. attorney has promised not to charge his children.

Johnson was a one-time Democratic power player, and the scandal has served as a self-inflicted wound for a party that has faced an uphill battle in Alabama in the last two decades. The plea agreement, which says Johnson "used his official position" to help legislators and state school board members' relatives get jobs with the two-year system, doubtless has Republicans chomping at the bit to see how many big names Johnson will rattle off. Here's hoping, for the sake of fairness and justice, that the investigation continues until all public officials who have broken the law and abused the public trust are punished accordingly.

Time to put those polar bears to work for us: Alabama faces a budget shortfall of more than $800 million next year. The state's Medicaid agency is asking for an extra $150 million just to hold something roughly approximating serve. Gov. Bob Riley will request tens of millions of dollars in new spending on education initiatives but refuses to propose any tax increases to pay for them. So amid all this, what do House Republicans suggest? You've got it: tax cuts. The only possible theory I can see behind this is the hope that we can cut revenues so low that eventually global warming and its polar bear masters will have no choice but to intervene in our favor, scattering afternoon thunderstorms of pure, cold, hard cash all across our beautiful state.

Isn't this supposed to be a 'red state'?: GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee attracted an impressive 2,200 people to Samford University on Saturday for a campaign appearance that included a welcome from Riley. Hours earlier today, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama drew more than 10,000 people to a speech in Birmingham. I'll have plenty more to say on the White House race later, but until then, chalk this up as yet another indication that the "red state/blue state" divide is just as mythical as tales of Zeus and Loki.

Other play? What other play?: Alabama head football coach Nick Saban passed within about 30 feet of his predecessor, Mike Shula, last week in Mobile. Barely 30 minutes after a Birmingham News reporter noted the near-but-not-quite encounter on his blog, a commenter suggested that Shula, the man renowned for repeatedly calling plays that didn't allow a talented running back to show off his natural gifts, would be a fine choice for (*shudder*) offensive coordinator. The folks at Drunken Omelette responded accordingly: "Within seconds of that comment's posting, former Tide RB Ken Darby walked three steps directly ahead, jumped around to the left and the right, then fell forward in futility."

A message for our times

2008-01-21T13:55:00.000-06:00

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies -- or else? The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Enjoy your day, and do your part to break the chain.

Parking lot politics

2008-01-16T08:15:00.000-06:00

State Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, is truly sorry about throwing the Punch Heard 'Round the World at his Democratic counterpart Lowell Barron last year. Kinda. From a highly recommended Daily Mountain Eagle story -- seriously, read the whole thing -- wherein Bishop refers to himself in third person more than once:

"I'm not going to apologize for striking him -- only in the chamber that is owned by the state of Alabama, 'cause if I had been smart, I'd have turned and walked off -- and I'd caught him in the parking lot and kicked his butt good."

The Legislature is back in session in 20 days. Brace yourself.

Isn't this football great, football fan?

2008-01-09T00:30:00.000-06:00

The main thing I'll take away from Monday night's letdown of a national championship game isn't the memory of LSU viciously power-bombing Ohio State through a ringside table. It's that the BCS games, if we have to continue to be subjected to them instead of getting a playoff, must be aired, as soon as possible, on something -- anything -- that isn't Fox. Why? Glad you asked.

The announcing: Fox does a nice enough job with the NFL and baseball, but its college football broadcasts are so painful to watch that they make me wish I'd never seen a football -- or a college. The announcers step in to call the sport's biggest games after spending the season either calling low-level games or no other college football games at all. Thom Brennaman's BCS play-by-plays could send people to dreamland during three-OT classics. When I say I'd rather hear DAVE call the title game, I'm not kidding.

The pre-game and halftime shows: Joining us now are Chris Rose, Jimmy Johnson, and one or more random partisans of the participating teams. Or maybe whoever happens to be wandering by in the parking lot. Come to think of it, are you free tonight?

The band shots: Were you aware that marching bands often accompany college football teams? Oh, the novelty! Oh, the pageantry! Oh, the endless visual reminders that drum majors still are leading the band, just like the seven previous times we checked in on them! Hey, let's get some fans in those shots, too! Look, there's a close-up of every single fan in the stadium!

The music: There are themes appropriately tailored to make football games seem more epic than they are. Then there's Fox's BCS theme, whose overwrought, fight-scene sound makes me long for the dulcet tones of Alabama Attorney General Troy King's duet with Johnny Cash. (I wish as much as you do that I made that up.)

The Ohio State University: OK, this one isn't technically Fox's fault, but the fact remains that Fox has had the BCS contract for two years, and the Buckeyes have served as title-game cannon fodder for the SEC champion for that same span. Next season looks like Georgia's time, but I'm optimistic that Alabama soon will get its turn in the rotation of SEC teams teeing off on Ohio State to win the crystal football. Maybe it's not too much to ask for that chance before the 2012 Vanderbilt national championship that the Mayan calendar has predicted for all these thousands of years.

They're important because they say so

2008-01-08T22:20:00.000-06:00

Real-life circumstances have bumped that promised Friday update on the Iowa caucuses back a few days, so let's make the discussion about Iowa and today's New Hampshire primaries. So far, it looks like the space-time hole that engulfed college football this year will spend its off-season dallying in presidential politics.

Why you should care: Well, how else do you propose that we allow a few hundred thousand people you've never met to decide the presidential nominees for a nation of more than 300 million?

Who's still in it for the Democrats: Polls? What polls? When the campaign cranked up, Hillary Clinton was inevitable. When he cruised to a sizable victory in the Iowa caucus, Barack Obama was inevitable. Now, with Clinton rebounding from a third-place finish in Iowa to grab a solid win in New Hampshire, it's time to settle in for a high-dollar, back-and-forth battle for the Democratic nomination that might extend even beyond Super Duper Tuesday.

Commentators have floated plenty of hypotheses to explain Obama's win in Iowa and Clinton's comeback in New Hampshire -- the power of the independents, the ascension of the youth vote, the competing desires for change and experience -- but I've heard little about a powerful factor: regionalism. Obama is from Iowa's next-door neighbor Illinois, while Clinton lives in New York, right down the road from New Hampshire. Geography matters, and it's tough to read too much into each candidate winning a home game.

Who's still in it for the Republicans: Remember 2000? It's back again. John McCain has rolled to an easy victory in New Hampshire, baffling no less a political expert than Boston Legal's Denny Crane, who declared last year that McCain couldn't win because "he speaks Bush now." The Arizona senator joins Iowa winner Mike Huckabee at the top of the Republican pack, which still just barely has enough room for Mitt Romney, who stayed viable with a win last week in Wyoming, a sparsely populated, overwhelmingly white state that, unlike its hawkeye and granite brethren, apparently doesn't merit breathless media coverage.

The GOP race appears to be down to Huckabee, the choice of the religious right and social conservatives, and a non-Huckabee alternative on which the party's fiscal conservative and neocon wings have yet to settle. McCain looks like the most probable contender to fill that slot, especially given the national polls that have indicated he's the most electable option the Republicans have. But many in the GOP base see him as a RINO who's soft on immigration and too willing to compromise with Democrats, which leaves the door open for the cash-flush Romney if he starts to pull down a few of those gold medals he keeps touting. The question is whether Huckabee's opponents manage to consolidate behind a single candidate before Huckabee becomes unstoppable. I suspect they will, but not before a brutal intra-party fight.

Who's out for the Democrats: John Edwards polls very well in hypothetical general-election matchups, but he needed a win in Iowa or New Hampshire to get the dollars flowing. That didn't happen, so even if Edwards rebounds with a strong showing in South Carolina, he almost surely won't get the party's nod. Meanwhile, Bill Richardson would do well to reset his sights on a vice presidential bid. Despite his broad experience as a governor, congressman, and diplomat, he never got off the ground.

Who's out for the Republicans: Rudy Giuliani's campaign, hemorrhaging poll support amid multiple scandals, effectively has abandoned every race before the Florida primaries in late January. By then, it'll probably be too late to get any traction. Fred Thompson, as I've noted before, is the Wes Clark of the 2008 Republican primaries. Ron Paul has probably the most passionate supporters of anyone, but their numbers are too small to propel an anti-Iraq war candidate to a win in the GOP race.

Watch out for the wildcards: It won't happen any time soon, but Edwards could hand the Democratic nomination to Obama today if he dropped out of the race, because the candidates are drawing largely from the same pool of young and independent voters. Edwards' continued presence keeps Clinton's hopes alive and also pushes the race in a more populist direction than it otherwise would take. On the GOP side, Paul is getting the cash to stay in the mix for the duration and garner 8 percent to 10 percent of the primary vote, meaning he should have enough delegates to make things very lively indeed at the Republican convention. And don't discount the possibility that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could stir the pot by dropping a billion dollars or so of his own money on an independent campaign.

Not a promising campaign development: The good news for former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, is that he didn't finish last in the New Hampshire primary. The bad news for him is that he is about 200 votes behind U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who dropped out of the race last week.

Behind the numbers: Beneath all the endless dissections of the horse race and exit polling, one mathematical fact stands out: The Democratic vote totals in Iowa and New Hampshire, both of which historically are swing states, easily have surpassed the Republican turnout. Make of that what you will.

Getting a little musty in here...

2008-01-03T20:30:00.000-06:00

Time to clear out some of the undiscussed clutter that's been accumulating around here over the last month:

Must everyone treat tonight's Iowa caucuses as an end-all, be-all affair in presidential politics? It's a survey of maybe a couple of hundred thousand people in a state whose population is disproportionately rural and almost entirely white, conducted on a cold early January night at the same time as the Orange Bowl (which is shaping up to be one of the greatest wins in the Jayhawks' history as I write this post). Still, the Iowa results will prompt more than one candidate to drop out by next week. Why, I'm still not sure.
Must election pundits still act startled by Mike Huckabee's sudden rise in the Republican presidential polls? Huckabee is everything that the GOP's disgruntled social conservative base could have asked for: an affable Southern Baptist preacher with a populist streak and an unbroken track record of supporting their stance on social issues. Whether he'll be able to pull down dollars from the party's fiscal conservative wing largely will decide his electoral fate, but his ascent has been quite predictable ever since Fred Thompson's somnambulant campaign failed to launch.
Must congressional Democrats keep giving President Bush pretty much everything he wants in the budgets? Probably yes, actually. Bush is a wildly unpopular lame duck, but even lame ducks can be tough to beat when they still can flap a veto pen and maintain ground support from their congressional minority. Republicans' numbers on Capitol Hill have been robust enough to force Democrats to accept Bush's top-line figure on the omnibus budget bill and to block more money for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. As for Iraq war funding, no matter how unpopular the conflict remains, and no matter how much Democrats might bluster and posture and complain, they ultimately won't dare to withhold a single dollar in an election year for fear of getting nailed with the poisonous "unpatriotic" and "soft-on-terror" tags, with which many of their opponents will try to nail them anyway.
Must the Hollywood writers' strike go on forever? I really haven't missed prime-time television, but the absence of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report has been quite noticeable and, in a sign of the times, a bigger detriment to young voters' efforts to keep track of the presidential campaign than anyone cares to admit. It'd be heartening to see the two sides come to fair terms soon, but with the sides not even talking to each other right now, I'm skeptical.
Must every single Alabama football game be an edge-of-
your-seat heart-stopper decided in the last minute? With the exception of a glorious, take-no-prisoners rout of Tennessee in October, it appeared that way in 2007. The Independence Bowl was no exception, as the Crimson Tide shot to a 27-0 lead out of the gates, playing like a national title contender in the process, only to end the game looking like a 3-9 team praying for the game to end. Mercifully, the clock ran out before Alabama's lead did, giving the Tide a winning record and a much-needed mental boost going into what should be a very eventful off-season for a team that pretty much has to be better next fall.
Must Ohio State play, and lose to, a Southern team in the national championship game of every sport? Last year, the Buckeyes were slapped around in the title games in football (by Florida), basketball (Florida again), and soccer (Wake Forest). It's not an auspicious trend for the one and only Ohio State University as it heads into Monday's showdown with LSU for the crystal football.
Must you accept my belated wishes for a very happy new year? Well, no, but I sure would like it if you do.

I'll have more to say on the fallout from the Iowa caucuses later on Friday. Try to stay warm until then.

New year, same old me

2008-01-03T08:40:00.000-06:00

The bitter, blood-freezing winter wind that has crept stealthily to my home state has snapped me back into posting action after a month-long respite, just in time for those much-ballyhooed Iowa caucuses. More on those tonight, but until then, I'll be trying to warm back up, both on the site and in the real world.

Thanks to all of you who have e-mailed with your concern and to all of you who have kept logging regular visits despite my inexcusable failure to provide anything new for you to peruse. One day soon -- and I believe it shall be this day -- that will change.

After all, what else am I supposed to do when I wake up to find Alabama feeling like Green Bay?

Saturday live blog, Vol. 9

2007-12-01T11:00:00.000-06:00

The live blog has heard your rumors. It's watched you track those planes. It knows you've read every detail of its buyout. But the live blog wants to assure you that it's not planning on going anywhere. Well, at least not today. It's got some continual updating to do.

2:25 a.m. If this isn't the season that gives legs to that whole playoff idea, I don't know what can be. What I do know, though, is it's been great fun to watch and write about, and I very much appreciate your readership throughout the year.

I'll probably churn out some posts about the bowls before it's all said and done, but for now, the live blog is calling it both a night and a season. As always, thanks for reading, and Roll Tide.

2:18 a.m. Locker lofts up a perfect TD pass, but it bounces around to become an INT. Hawaii wins, 35-28, to defend the honor of a perfect season and earn a big-time bowl paycheck. And as wild as this season has been, a win over the big-name opponent to be named later could open the door for a share of a split national title. The last thing you want to do this year is laugh at that idea.

2:14 a.m. The regular season is not at all over. Locker shreds the secondary to get the Huskies inside the Hawaii 5. After a failed scramble, it's second-and-goal with 12 seconds remaining.

2:10 a.m. With 44 seconds left, Colt Brennan connects with Ryan Grice-Mullen for the biggest touchdown pass in Hawaii history. Warriors, 35-28. The only remaining task is to hold on tight.

2:07 a.m. First-and-goal for the Warriors after one of those exceedingly rare Hawaii rushing plays. Fifty-six seconds to glory.

2:02 a.m. Brennan is in the zone. Three quick passes have the Warriors at the Washington 27. Two and a half minutes to go. You can feel the BCS in the air over there from here.

1:59 a.m. Washington quarterback Jake Locker evades pressure and makes a ridiculous first-down play. Unfortunately for him, the officials differ with him on the issue of whether he crossed the line of scrimmage before tossing that beautiful pass. The Huskies punt, and Hawaii has 4:15 to make something of it.

1:51 a.m. At long last, Hawaii remembers what a touchdown pass is, and Brennan gets his fourth of the night. Tied at 28 with eight minutes to go. One of the loudest per-capita little stadiums in the country has erupted in sheer jubilation.

1:40 a.m. Hawaii misses that memo about the ~~TPS reports~~ field goals, just like it misses another field goal attempt. The festival of scoring has ground to a halt in Honolulu.

1:21 a.m. Yes, Hawaii, you can block a field goal. A blocked field goal isn't a touchdown pass either, but it doesn't seem to be covered by the scoring clause. It's still 28-21 late in the third.

1:11 a.m. No, Hawaii, you can't have a field goal. A field goal isn't a touchdown pass, and that's specifically all that you're allowed to have. Washington's lead stays at 28-21 as I ponder how it came to pass that Ron Franklin, ESPN's best play-by-play man, is calling a game that will end well after 3 in the morning on the East Coast.

1:05 a.m. Pass-happy Hawaii converts on a crucial fourth down with an option pitch. It's going to be a late night on the island.

12:39 a.m. The GameDay guys like LSU, too. Something tells me, though, that the only thing that will put the college football world back on its axis is Ohio State claiming that national title it missed out on last year. Or maybe we should crave the disordered splendor of a split title between a two-loss team and Hawaii. The Warriors are back within seven as the second half draws near.

12:23 a.m. Lou Holtz, speaking from the heart to the pollsters: "They don't trust me. They don't give me a vote." This brings me inexplicable sadness. The kind that only a pep talk can erase. (Note: Don't actually drink during the pep talks. You should be sober and completely aware to enjoy them to their fullest.)

12:18 a.m. We still could see Vili roaming around on Bourbon Street. Hawaii has slashed the Washington lead to 28-14 and is on the march again just before halftime.

12:04 a.m. Les Miles on the Michigan job after LSU's SEC title win: "I'm not going there. ... I've got a great place. I'm at home." All right, that's about as clear as words get. Now it's just a matter of getting his John Hancock on the dotted line down in the bayou. A virtual home game for the national title can't hurt on that front.

11:58 p.m. The ESPN talking heads at long last, seem to have absorbed the core, transcendent lesson that this football season offers everyone: None of us really know anything about anything.

11:53 p.m. The state of Alabama officially gets no nice football things this year: Valdosta State took down North Alabama in the Division II playoffs today, meaning it'll be yet another season with a championship game in Florence without the home team there.

11:45 p.m. Colt Brennan finally tosses a touchdown pass for Hawaii to cut the deficit to 21-7. Over on the original ESPN, College Football Final is beginning. This should be fun.

11:37 p.m. Washington 21, Hawaii 0 as the second quarter begins. There'll be no BCS berth for the Warriors at this rate. But Arizona State may get one after holding on to a 20-17 squeaker over its in-state rival tonight. Hey, look, another two-loss team!

11:34 p.m. Les Miles breaks out that "undefeated in regulation" argument for LSU again as ESPN gathers up the coach of every available two-loss to pit them in proxy verbal battle for a shot at the crown. Pete Carroll sounded much more relaxed, probably because he's resigned to the Rose Bowl after, you know, Stanford.

11:11 p.m. Over on ESPN, Georgia coach Mark Richt just finished pleading his two-loss team's case. The Bulldogs are playing the best football in the country right now and probably would win it all were there a playoff. But with that said, they shouldn't get a shot at the crystal football. They didn't win their conference, and that has to be considered a disqualifying factor under the current, badly flawed BCS system. The same goes for one-loss Kansas.

Of the two-loss conference champions, LSU and Oklahoma are the only teams that still merit real consideration. Virginia Tech is out after that stomping from LSU back in September. West Virginia is out after its loss to a sub-.500 team at home. And USC is out after dropping a home game to the singular Cardinal. I'd give the edge to LSU, because the SEC, for all its vicissitudes and multi-overtime chaos, still looks like the nation's toughest conference. If the Sooners slip in, though, LSU has no one to blame but itself.

11:07 p.m. Hawaii is losing 14-0 at home to a sub-.500 Pac-10 team, because the space-time hole won't even let your non-BCS Cinderella story be nice and tidy.

10:50 p.m. No. 1 has suffered No. 2's fate. Oklahoma has proved that the first time was no fluke by annihilating Missouri, 38-17. I think I'll just acknowledge the winner of the I-AA playoffs as the national champion. It's as good as anything else.

10:39 p.m. At least someone sent the Orange Bowl out in style. Florida International schooled North Texas, 38-19, to avoid a winless season and defend the home turf before it disappears.

10:18 p.m. "Boomer Sooner" is running on an endless loop in the Alamodome. Oklahoma is up 35-17, and it's just about time to call that Ohio State vs. Mystery Opponent matchup in the title game.

10:10 p.m. Oklahoma is up by 11 and inside the Missouri 10. It's the perfect ending for a beautiful disaster of a season.

9:57 p.m. The good news for the Mountaineers: They have two more points. The bad news: They have zero more seconds. Pitt caps the regular season in fitting fashion: with a humongous, 13-9 upset of a No. 2 team that makes no sense whatsoever.

9:51 p.m. It's incomplete out of the end zone on fourth down for White, and Pitt is a minute and a half from locking up a career win for Wannstedt. Over in San Antonio, the Sooners have a 14-point lead. Get ready for a two-loss team playing for the gold.

9:48 p.m. Missouri's Chase Daniel gets intercepted off a quite unfortunate ricochet that leaves Oklahoma with first-and-goal. West Virginia is mounting a furious comeback, but Ohio State may be about to clinch a championship shot anyway.

9:45 p.m. West Virginia gets it back with precisely three minutes left after a terrible no-call on obvious holding on third down.

9:42 p.m. Now Oklahoma retakes the lead down in San Antonio. You thought I was kidding about that Hawaii national title, huh?

9:38 p.m. The spark didn't ignite. Pitt stops Slaton a yard short on fourth down. Four minutes left until THE Ohio State University (not just any state university from Ohio, they'll have you know) clinches a national title shot from the comfort of its couch.

9:35 p.m. Best word to describe WVU's Noel Devine: fast. In italics. He returns the kickoff for 47 yards. And now Pat White is back in the game to play through the pain. It's about to get good.

9:31 p.m. Pittsburgh stalls out at the WVU 1 and has to settle for a field goal. Wannstedt is swinging crutches everywhere. Pitt, 13-7.

9:24 p.m. West Virginia's backup quarterback, in because Pat White is hurt, drops the ball milliseconds before getting annihilated by a blitzing Pitt defender. The Panthers recover. Steve Slaton has had a grand total of seven carries for WVU in this game. This prompts certain questions about the game plan.

9:18 p.m. ESPN announcer extraordinaire Mike Patrick: "First down for the Steelers." Moments later, he remembers that just because you see Dave Wannstedt, that doesn't mean it's the NFL.

9:05 p.m. Pittsburgh's LeSean McCoy dashes into the end zone to make it 17-7, but it's called back on a holding call of unclear origins. Wannstedt shares his sentiments with language that's not safe for a family website. Then Pitt, being Pitt, pushes the ensuing field goal try wide left. The game just turned on a dime.

9 p.m. The Versus cameraman takes the hardest hit I've seen all day and lives to tell about it. Wonder if he has any eligibility left?

8:58 p.m. Stanford leads the Big Game by 10 in the fourth quarter. The singular Cardinal is playing on Versus, which the school should enlist to televise all of its games if the past is any indication. Stanford is five minutes away from breaking Cal's five-game winning streak in the series. See there? Some teams can prevent their rival from taking six straight.

8:53 p.m. Someone really needs to start hiding the couches up in Morgantown. West Virginia punts after a comedy of errors. Elsewhere, Missouri scores just before halftime, goes for two, and ties it up on an absolutely delightful double-reverse gadget play.

8:45 p.m. PITTSBURGH LEADS THIS IS CRAZY WORLD MY CAPS LOCK IS BROKEN AND I'VE FORGOTTEN PUNCTUATION. Ahem.

8:33 p.m. Half an hour later, Nos. 1 and 2 are still in low-scoring slugfests. With White injured, West Virginia has let Pitt cut the deficit to four. Also, Missouri is down 7-6 in a championship game that bears a mighty close resemblance to its brother in Atlanta.

8:03 p.m. Oklahoma and West Virginia put up touchdowns within 10 seconds of each other. It's 7-3 and 7-0, respectively.

7:53 p.m. Missouri scores on a top 10 team -- it's only a field goal, but it still counts -- before its prospective national title game opponent scores on a team coached by Dave Wannstedt. Also, West Virginia quarterback Pat White appears to have injured his thumb. Hawaii's championship dreams yet live.

7:33 p.m. Dave Wannstedt is pacing the Pittsburgh sidelines and sporadically bashing his crutches into the turf. And this is with his team playing one of its best games of the year so far on the same day he got a three-year contract extension. Fear the mustache.

7:27 p.m. Oregon State stuffs Jonathan Stewart on fourth down in double OT to win the day's most entertaining non-Sun Belt game.

7:22 p.m. The Oregon schools swap field goals. Overtime, part two. Elsewhere, Pittsburgh and West Virginia are still scoreless because that's what happens in high-stakes rivalry games, Stanford is springing a mild upset of California because that's what happens in lower-stakes rivalry games, and Arizona and Arizona State are still waiting for ESPN2 to switch over, because that's what happens in rivalry games scheduled to air after other rivalry games. Also, Missouri has gone three-and-out to start the Big 12 championship, because that's what happens to No. 1 teams that are underdogs.

7:10 p.m. It's an oddball sequence in Eugene, where Oregon misses a 53-yard field goal attempt to win, only to get a free pass on a Beavers personal foul penalty. Then the Ducks move it to the middle of the field and flap around in all different directions trying to kick another field goal with no timeouts left. That one misses, too. Overtime. Who wants a December trip to El Paso more?

7:01 p.m. Well, it wasn't a missed field goal attempt; it was a blocked field goal attempt. Oregon gets it back with a minute to go.

6:59 p.m. West Virginia opens its play-in game for a national title shot with a drive for a missed field goal. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Oregon State has mounted a drive for what it hopes won't be a missed field goal attempt for the win.

6:45 p.m. Victory formation for LSU. The Hat grabs the SEC title and -- barring any more breaking news -- gets ready to wale away on Hawaii in the Superdome with his damn strong football team.

6:39 p.m. Ainge finds Arian Foster wide open for an enormous, momentum-changing strike to the LSU 15. Then he immediately throws an interception. Yeah, that's about right.

6:22 p.m. Erik Ainge gets in on some Error of Unspeakable Horror action, lofting a touchdown pass straight into the arms of Jonathan Zenon, who happens to be wearing an LSU uniform today. After the two-point conversion -- successful, unlike last week -- the Bayou Bengals lead, 21-14.

6:19 p.m. Oregon, playing with its third-string quarterback, has scored 28 points in that game they call the Civil War. To head off your inevitable question at the pass: Jonathan Stewart has more than 150 rushing yards on the day, that's how.

6:16 p.m. Tennessee is playing lights-on on defense but still leads by only one. The old-school SEC is back. Eleven minutes left.

6:02 p.m. Verne Lundquist joking about LSU trainers' work to keep the cameras from getting a peek at their healing efforts on quarterback Ryan Perrilloux: "They're secretive about their injury reports, but we all know it's a finger! Unless they're cutting it off..." You dare ask why Verne is the reigning voice of college football?

5:52 p.m. Another missed field goal for the Vols. Does either team want to go to the Sugar Bowl? Is Hawaii that fearsome?

5:46 p.m. Now that the space-time hole is a permanent fixture of the college game, it's somehow fitting that the team that totally dominated the Third Saturday in October would collapse into a heap and the team that lost would emerge as utterly bulletproof. Tennessee snags an INT from Ryan Perrilloux and is near scoring position. Again, stop asking for this to make sense.

5:41 p.m. Glad we got that Rammer Jammer in when we did, because now Tennessee is leading the SEC title game and looking like an entirely different kind of team. I'll begin bracing myself for that epic New Year's showdown with Hawaii now.

5:24 p.m. Now the Vols cap off a good-looking drive with a missed chip-shot field goal. What happened to those 80-79, seven-overtime classics you've been giving us all year, SEC?

5:13 p.m. Tennessee's defense absolutely drills Early Doucet, then forgets to cover Demetrius Byrd down the sideline. LSU, 13-7.

5:09 p.m. Any chance that Oregon could pick a uniform style and stick with it? Preferably one that isn't about four different colors all blended into one. The Ducks have scored but still trail the Beavers by seven. In other Pac-10 news, the Rose Bowl dream is dying across town for UCLA, which is fine, because, like a toucan with fangs and gills, that Rose Bowl dream just shouldn't be.

4:47 p.m. Any chance that guy from the Dr. Pepper halftime quarterback contest has some eligibility left? And some interest in an education from the Capstone? I'm just saying.

4:41 p.m. After its best-looking drive of the day, LSU pushes a chip-shot field goal wide right. Tennessee leads 7-6 at the half, and I have to look at Phil Fulmer's grinning orange-clad visage.

4:32 p.m. And the state of Alabama will get no conference championship love. The Troy comeback drive stalls at the FAU 30, and the Owls hang on for the road win. Meanwhile, LSU has more penalties (seven) than points (six). The ugly continues.

4:25 p.m. Two and a half minutes left. Troy is near midfield. The Trojans were down by 23 just minutes ago.

4:18 p.m. Troy has stormed back to cut FAU's lead to 38-32 with a little more than four minutes left. Meanwhile, LSU faces third-
and-35. Miles might want to get a fourth-down play ready. I suggest the punt. No, Les, not the fake punt. The real one.

4:06 p.m. Les Miles goes for it on fourth down? Never! That his damn strong football team didn't get it is of no relevance.

3:49 p.m. A man is rolling around Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium in a miniature plane with a giant Santa hat on its tail. I'll take this as a cosmic suggestion to watch the SEC title game again.

3:46 p.m. Tennessee is clinging precariously to a 7-6 lead. Virginia Tech has tasted revenge in front of many, many thousands of empty seats to capture the ACC crown. And FAU, up 35-12, is tearing Troy's hopes and dreams of playing in New Orleans' third most important bowl game limb from limb in that stadium that used to be named for certain HealthSouth founders who shall remain nameless.

3:33 p.m. On Sept. 8, Oklahoma State beat Florida Atlantic, 42-6. On Sept. 14, Troy beat Oklahoma State, 41-23. So of course, on Dec. 1, FAU leads at Troy, 28-12. It's irrational. Just accept it.

3:25 p.m. Five minutes into the game, LSU's Jacob Hester has 33 yards. He's on pace for 396. This isn't promising for a defense.

3:20 p.m. Since halftime, Troy has kicked another field goal. Unfortunately, those are worth less than touchdowns, of which FAU has notched another. Owls, 14-12.

3:17 p.m. The Tennessee band cues up that other song it plays that isn't "Rocky Top." Three minutes in, the Vols strike first. Tennessee, 7-0. Down the road in Jacksonville, the Hokies have seized the lead from the Eagles midway through the fourth quarter. The empty seats look on stoically.

3:08 p.m. The SEC championship begins with two displays of ugly. One is the hideous orange-on-orange getup that Tennessee is wearing, and the other is whatever that quasi-onside kick attempt was that LSU tried on the opening kickoff. Sorry, Les, but that can work on the Vols only when DAVE is calling the game. As far as I know, they aren't, unless it's for fun from the couch.

2:43 p.m. Central Florida has finished off Tulsa again. The de facto Sun Belt title game is at halftime. And the literal SEC title game is still about 20 minutes away. That leaves only the ACC title game, which is tied, but about which I still don't care. Break time.

2:27 p.m. Troy and Florida Atlantic have introduced the Sun Belt to the grueling defensive battle. The Trojans lead, 9-7, despite zero touchdowns on a cool, sunny Pike County day.

2:20 p.m. Six straight for Navy, which wins 38-3 and graduates another class of seniors who never lost to a service academy. Anchors aweigh, and enjoy that Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.

2:02 p.m. At some point a while back, Central Michigan finished off the original Miami to repeat as MAC champion. Of far more interest is the de facto Sun Belt title game, where Florida Atlantic leads Troy by a point but just missed a field goal. In other Florida school action, UCF is a touchdown away from mirroring the 44-23 winning margin of its first meeting with Tulsa.

2 p.m. Upon further review, here's the key line of the new ESPN story on the Les Miles situation: "Coach Miles and the chancellor have already worked out a contract that they're happy with, but it hasn't been signed yet." And until it is, nothing is absolutely final.

1:51 p.m. Navy blows the game wide open. Campbell finds the end zone for the second time today to put the Middies up 31-3. Army surely can't wait for Paul Johnson to load up the U-Haul.

1:40 p.m. I flip back to the ACC title game to spot a player with the ABC college football logo shaved into his hair. Words... words fail me. Virginia Tech promptly saves me from the imagery by scoring a touchdown. The game is tied at 16-16 just before halftime. The bad news: The stands still haven't started to fill up. The good news: The Hokies' quarterback, Sean Glennon, gets to wear one of his own team's jerseys for the fourth straight week.

1:30 p.m. Out of my viewing, Virginia Tech has executed that rarest of college football plays: the blocked extra point returned for two points for the other side. It's at least the second instance this weekend, though; Fresno State did it Friday night, too.

1:23 p.m. Half a yard away from a touchdown, Army coughs up the ball. Navy recovers. It's just not the Cadets' year.

1:14 p.m. If they have an ACC championship game and no one attends, does it really exist? Virginia Tech scores to cut BC's lead to 10-7 in a stadium that's way too full of emptiness for a game that allegedly matters. Somewhere, maybe someone cares.

1:04 p.m. So, um, that thing about Les Miles going to Michigan? That thing that's been a widely acknowledged certainty since Appalachian State struck a blow for I-AA teams everywhere? That thing that Kirk Herbstreit just confirmed as recently as three hours ago? Well, never mind. He's staying at LSU after all. Probably. In other breaking news: Yasser Arafat is still dead.

12:42 p.m. Campbell nearly breaks another kickoff return for a touchdown at the end of the half. Navy slips in a 51-yard field goal -- literally, it slides down the back side of the crossbar -- to take a 24-3 lead into the locker room. In other news, Central Michigan is in control, Central Florida leads by eight, and a TD has been scored in the ACC title game for the first time since 2005. BC, 7-0.

12:20 p.m. And things fall apart for Army. The Midshipmen recover a fumble inside the Cadets 10 and punch it in three plays later. Navy, 21-3. If Paul Johnson's guys are worried about his possible departure, it's not showing on the field.

12:14 p.m. Ninety-eight yards later, Navy goes up by double digits. Reggie Campbell drives a dagger by taking the longest kickoff return in school history to the end zone. Navy, 14-3.

12:09 p.m. Army's second try at a 28-yard field goal is more successful. Navy leads 7-3 in a hard-hitting defensive struggle in Baltimore that's quite the opposite of that North Texas basketball game on grass earlier this season.

11:59 a.m. Central Florida opened the C-USA title game with a 10-0 run, then choked away the lead. Now, early in the second quarter, UCF is back on top, 17-13. The winner goes to the Liberty Bowl, where Alabama conceivably could go, so perhaps I should try to care more. In all likelihood, though, the Crimson Tide is headed back to Shreveport, where the opponent, like last year, probably would be another 6-6 Big 12 team, this time Colorado.

Now is as good a time as any to get acquainted with the Buffaloes' starting lineup, and who better to introduce them than Eric Cartman? Yes, that Eric Cartman. And yes, it's real. Here's the Colorado offense, and here's the defense.

11:47 a.m. After a quarter of bending, Army's defense breaks. Zerbin Singleton breaks free from 38 yards out to put Navy up 7-0. I suspect the broadcasters are secretly disappointed that it wasn't a quarterback scramble by Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada, just so they could indulge in some transcendent joy by saying his full name yet again. For the record, that's 12 vowels, nine consonants, two hyphens, and a whole lot of fun to enunciate.

11:33 a.m. Need six yards on third down? Hand it to the fullback and make it work. This Navy offense is sick. I've heard you're interested in the SMU job, Paul Johnson, but honestly, I think you can do better. For that matter, I think you're doing better now.

11:26 a.m. Six minutes, 14 plays, a huge fourth-down conversion in the red zone, and a missed 28-yard field goal attempt for Army. That's the sort of thing that'd deflate a lot of teams.

11:21 a.m. Army has come out like a house afire. Five straight losses to your rival and constant talk about how it's going to be six will do that to a team. Well, some teams, anyway.

11:19 a.m. The ACC, C-USA, and MAC all will be playing their title games by noon. The primary game I'll watch during that time frame? Army-Navy. I feel sure it's the right decision.

11:10 a.m. OK, so I didn't post on the Iron Bowl last week. What do you want me to say? Once again, Alabama had momentary flashes of brilliance but ultimately lost another game to an Auburn team that's somewhat above average at best. Once again, Alabama looked pretty good for the first eight or nine weeks of the season before apparently forgetting how to play football in November. Once again, Sisyphus almost got to the top of the mountain before tripping over a dropped pass or a silly penalty and letting the rock roll back down over his foot. It'll take time, but sooner rather than later, that rock is going over the edge.

11 a.m. It's an hour until noon, and the MAC championship game is six minutes away from halftime over on ESPN2. I believe kickoff came before sunrise. At least it's not being played on a Tuesday morning. Or in Guam Memorial Stadium. Yet.

The Republican debate live blog

2007-11-28T19:00:00.000-06:00

I've slacked off on the political commentary, but I've churned out plenty of football live blogs lately. Here's hoping that live blogging translates to more than just the gridiron. I'll update continually throughout CNN's YouTube Republican debate.

9:15 p.m. Final thoughts: Huckabee gained the most from tonight. McCain regained (or at least solidified) some moderate street cred on non-Iraq issues. Giuliani held serve. Paul was, as always, unapologetically himself. Romney and Thompson struggled at times and could have had a much better night. And we're going to hear a lot about immigration from the GOP in the coming year.

9:10 p.m. It's descended to sports talk and bashing of the New York Yankees. Not that I mind those things, of course, but they mean it's as fine a time as any to shut 'er down for the night.

9:06 p.m. Fred Thompson has answered several questions tonight. He cracked a couple of jokes and delivered passable answers, but nothing was particularly memorable. The late entry and lack of on-stage fire are very much reminiscent of Wesley Clark's too-late, unsuccessful 2004 presidential run.

9:02 p.m. Romney manages to twist a question about the Confederate flag into a slam of Democrats in general and John Edwards in particular. Truly a linguistic work of art.

9 p.m. Huckabee goes partisan with a joke about sending Hillary Clinton to Mars. Two minutes later, it's back to bipartisanship with talk of outreach to black and Hispanic voters.

8:52 p.m. Chuck Norris is there. And watching. And waiting.

8:50 p.m. Let's hear some evidence that gay troops "destroy unit cohesion," or whatever the hell the excuse for upholding "don't ask, don't tell" is these days. Facts. Not assumptions or anecdotes, but facts. Booting good soldiers from the military in wartime for no other reason than that they're gay is beyond absurd.

8:40 p.m. MVP of the night: creepy cartoon Dick Cheney.

8:37 p.m. McCain vs. Paul, round two. This time, the crowd turns against Paul as he draws a parallel between Vietnam and Iraq. It's still the Republican debate, after all.

8:32 p.m. McCain closes the exchange with the definitive summation on waterboarding: "Life isn't 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques that are humane and effective."

8:30 p.m. McCain seems disgusted, as he should be, that anyone would think that waterboarding isn't torture. Romney isn't helping himself at all by continuing to dance around the issue.

8:25 p.m. Giuliani complains that none of the Democratic candidates "have used the word 'Islamic terrorism.'" Because if you don't use that exact phrase, you aren't serious about national security, or something. Also, it's two words, Rudy.

8:23 p.m. Two questions from Alabama so far. Represent!

8:18 p.m. Another crowd-pleasing response from Huckabee, this time on whether the Bible is literally true. (Yes, it was one of the questions, and yes, they lobbed it up to the field's resident Baptist preacher.) This guy is winning the debate pretty handily, and his easygoing style would make him dangerous in a general election.

8:16 p.m. Huckabee, after dancing around the question of whether Jesus would endorse the death penalty: "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office." Not bad as evasions go.

8:05 p.m. Hunter is glad to tell you about his gun. Very glad.

8:04 p.m. More than halfway through the debate, we've had three questions on gun control and zero questions on the Iraq war. Yep.

7:53 p.m. Huckabee is coming across as the most personable, down-home, aw-shucks GOP contender on stage, and his massive weight loss makes for a humanizing backstory. If he rides his Iowa momentum to bigger and better things, Democrats could have a bigger fight on their hands than they expect.

7:44 p.m. Grover Norquist? They billed this as a debate that allows everyday people to harness the democratizing power of the Internet to ask questions of powerful politicians and then picked a question from Grover Norquist?!?! Way to go, CNN.

7:42 p.m. McCain triggers Godwin's law, raising the specter of Hitler in a discussion of Iraq. The crowd seems split between McCain and Paul on the war. Interesting.

7:40 p.m. Loud cheers for Ron Paul's cry to "bring the troops home!" Louder cheers for Huckabee's cry to "get rid of the Internal Revenue Service!" Loudest cheers for Huckabee's call to scrap the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. Telling.

7:34 p.m. The 2007 version of John McCain is loose, cracking jokes, talking up fiscal conservatism, and appealing to bipartisan sentiments, just like the 2000 version. Too bad he's tied himself to the wildly unpopular Bush stance on the Iraq war.

7:30 p.m. Mike Huckabee with the crowd-pleasing line of the night thus far: "We're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." Now he's going after Romney. Meanwhile, a half-hour into the debate, it's still all immigration, all the time.

7:25 p.m. Duncan Hunter won't just build a border fence. He'll build a double border fence, and he'll do it in six months. He'll also get upwards of 1 percent of the primary vote.

7:23 p.m. Tom Tancredo: "All I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo!" Yep, that's about right.

7:20 p.m. So, um, just who does Fred Thompson regret hiring?

7:15 p.m. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have taken the gloves off already. It's getting very personal, and it's not helping that they're standing right next to each other. Anderson Cooper keeps trying, but he just can't peel them away from each other.

7:12 p.m. The first question is on immigration. Of course it is. It's the Republican debate, isn't it?

7:10 p.m. All the posing and hand-shaking and cutesy intro packages are finally out of the way. Actual substantive debate -- or some facsimile thereof -- may begin.

7 p.m. The crowd is enthused that more people submitted YouTube questions for the Republican debate than for the Democratic debate a few months ago. I'm not quite sure why, though. As hyped as the last debate was, and as near in time as the primaries are, it'd be a bad sign if there weren't more questions.

It's not just an abstract concept

2007-11-20T08:45:00.000-06:00

If you were one of the people who voted last year for Alabama's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, take a moment out of your day to visit Birmingham Blues and read this post.

Ask yourself why our state's laws should treat a man in such a dehumanizing way when he's trying to plan the funeral of the person with whom he lived as a spouse and whom he loved more than anyone else in the world. Then ask what you could have done to prevent that travesty, and what you could do in the future to keep it from happening again.

Saturday live blog, Vol. 8

2007-11-17T11:15:00.000-06:00

It's one of the various rivalry weeks that close the season. It's the year's penultimate edition of the Saturday live blog. (You honestly don't want to hear from me during the Iron Bowl.) And it'll be updated continually throughout the day. Enjoy.

12:25 a.m. College Football Final has drawn to a close, and with it go both the season's 12th week and the live blog's eighth installment. As always, thanks for reading, and Roll Tide anyway.

12:17 a.m. Thank you for making light of Kirk Herbstreit's jaunty little hat, Rece Davis. You bring joy on a day with so little of it.

11:57 p.m. The Tebow hasn't the time to listen to your attempts to find a reason he might not get the Heisman. He's too busy breaking SEC rushing touchdown records -- as a sophomore quarterback.

11:40 p.m. Say what you will about Lou Holtz, but I remember him getting mocked for being on the Kansas bandwagon weeks before it became the trendy thing to do. If I weren't already a temporary Jayhawk, I'd become one just to help Sweet Lou out.

11:33 p.m. From an outsider's perspective, going from LSU to Michigan would be a lateral move at best for Les Miles. But if mama calls, no one could blame him for answering. Either way, it'll be annoying to hear Michigan inserted into every single mention of LSU's national title run in the weeks and months to come.

11:14 p.m. The onside kick falls directly into Red Raider arms, and the upset is complete. It's field-storming time in Lubbock.

11:10 p.m. The Sooners get the ball with under a minute left and immediately complete a 46-yard prayer to the Tech 10. The next play is a touchdown pass with 31 seconds left. This game will not end. Red Raiders, 34-27. Oklahoma + onside kick = endless fun.

11:05 p.m. Oklahoma misses another last-ditch shot at a TD pass. Texas Tech faces the challenge of running off the final 3:10 with little in the way of a running game. This is why football is still on TV four hours after it started.

11:03 p.m. The Sooners have it back deep in Tech territory again with three and a half minutes left. It's officially the only active game left in the country, and it's officially fourth down again.

10:53 p.m. Oklahoma's comeback effort stalls in the left corner of the end zone after the officials rule that what looks an awful lot like a fourth-down touchdown is in fact an incomplete fourth-down pass. Fun fact: Just a few days ago, Mike the Pirate famously griped that Big 12 officiating decisions hurt his team against Texas.

10:46 p.m. BCS nightmare scenario: LSU loses to Arkansas or Tennessee. Kansas and Missouri both go down by the time the Big 12 title game is over. Hawaii wins out to clinch a BCS bowl. West Virginia loses to UConn. Arizona State finishes off USC before falling to its in-state rival in December. And Georgia Tech rises above Chan Gailey equilibrium to topple Georgia. Now, after the dust settles, swallow hard and brace yourself for the strong possibility of an Ohio State vs. Hawaii national title game. Breathe deeply and don't let them smell your fear.

10:25 p.m. Clemson's hopes and dreams for an ACC crown bounce harmlessly in front of the crossbar. What, you thought Tommy Bowden's team would end up with nice things? Have you learned nothing from the past decade of stark disappointment?

10:23 p.m. Except for that monster sack. Now it's a 54-yard field goal attempt that BC will get three opportunities to ice.

10:22 p.m. Down 20-17, Clemson converts on a clutch fourth down with 24 seconds left. A couple of plays later, it's down to 11 seconds with two timeouts in field goal range. No reason this shouldn't at least go to overtime.

10:18 p.m. Pain returns to Death Valley. A Clemson receiver drops a wide-open touchdown pass that would have sent the Tigers to the big show in Jacksonville. Still 38 seconds left.

10:16 p.m. Cincinnati put a late scare into the mountain men, but West Virginia escapes the Queen City with its Big East destiny -- and at this rate, maybe its national title destiny -- in hand. Meanwhile, BC is up on Clemson with a minute left, which probably somehow will lead to Matt Ryan getting the Heisman.

10:03 p.m. Clemson has a chance to achieve a meaningful goal -- an ACC championship game berth -- and isn't cracking under pressure. If you needed a final piece of evidence that we've slid through the wormhole into the parallel universe, there you go.

9:39 p.m. Oklahoma's players are getting injured right and left, its allegedly No. 4 team is getting trounced 34-10, and the ESPN on ABC, etc., broadcasters are joking around in the booth with Bobby Knight. All in all, not a very good night to be a fan of a team wearing red and white. I can sympathize.

9:31 p.m. I've tried to find something noteworthy to say about football in the last half-hour, but it seems Alabama has, at least temporarily, killed my joy for the game, and even Nick Saban's apology to the fans for the sorry performance today didn't bring it back. All it does is remind me of why Saban is apologizing.

9:01 p.m. Oklahoma mounts a drive deep into Red Raiders territory and the Texas Tech defense... holds?!? It's 27-10 with halftime knocking at the door. West Texas will be rocking tonight.

8:46 p.m. South Florida is schooling Louisville in the finer points of getting gored Pamplona-style by a bunch of angry, charging Bulls. It's 41-10, and it's not even halftime yet.

8:37 p.m. Texas Tech 27, Oklahoma 7. More evidence that you shouldn't trust undefeated teams that lack a rich tradition just because they win impressively every week. Besides, their coach weighs a lot. Better to vote for the names you know and trust.

8:33 p.m. ESPN on ABC, etc., just flashed up the following total yardage figures: Texas Tech 226, Oklahoma 38. And that was before the Red Raiders converted on another fourth down attempt. Any of those poll voters want to remind me why the Sooners, who lost at 5-6 Colorado, are so clearly superior to an undefeated Kansas team that won at Colorado?

8:20 p.m. West Virginia, emerging from the twisted, burning wreckage of a firebombed college football season, is casting a dazed look around the barren landscape and asking why it shouldn't get a chance to be king. The Mountaineers are trying out the scepter up in Cincinnati, leading the Bearcats 21-10 at the half.

8:16 p.m. Harrell hits a wide-open Crabtree in the right side of the end zone. Texas Tech, 20-7. Yarr, matey.

8:12 p.m. Oklahoma: a one-loss, top-five national title contender with an injured starting quarterback on the road in a nationally televised night game against a conference rival that plenty of observers have written off for the season. Sound familiar?

7:57 p.m. Amazing, sick cutbacks and speed from Texas Tech receiver Michael Crabtree puts Mike the Pirate's club at the Oklahoma 1-yard line after a touchdown is called back on review. Quarterback Graham Harrell sets it right on the next play to put the Red Raiders ahead, 13-7. I'm not sure why I'm so transfixed by this game with Boston College-Clemson and Cincinnati-West Virginia available elsewhere, but I'll chalk it up to the combination of Trump and Mike the Pirate feeling so... so cosmically right.

7:47 p.m. Texas Tech is hanging tough with the Sooners midway through the opening quarter. It's 7-6, and the Red Raiders' defense, far from complete system failure, has yet to allow a point to Oklahoma. Trump appearances must be a good luck talisman.

7:16 p.m. Donald Trump has introduced the Texas Tech offense. The Texas Tech offense has delivered a pick-six to Oklahoma on the opening drive. This stuff won't fly on The Apprentice.

6:54 p.m. It's been a football lull for the last 30 minutes or so. The options have been largely limited to Southern Miss-UTEP and Baylor-Oklahoma State. I chose going outside to soak up some night air instead. Indisputably, I made the right call.

6:17 p.m. Around the Big Ten: Michigan State rallied to claim its seventh win and lock up a bowl berth. Indiana saw a 21-point lead over Purdue evaporate, only to grab the Old Oaken Bucket with a last-minute field goal. Wisconsin held on to win a wild one over Minnesota, the best 1-11 rival it has. And Western Michigan improved to 4-7 by sending Iowa back to a .500 record that may not be enough for a bowl in a conference with 10 eligible teams.

5:58 p.m. While I was busy lamenting the Loss of the Century, Vandy was busy coughing up a big lead to Tennessee. A 25-24 comeback win leaves the Vols a game away from winning the SEC East. Both teams went in opposite directions after the Third Saturday in October, but it'd be impossible to tell which one won based on the way they've played since.

5:53 p.m. What's left of space-time stays intact. The Tigers pick off Schaeffer and gets it back deep in Ole Miss territory after a slew of penalties. Look, an LSU game being decided before the last play!

5:44 p.m. Colonel Reb isn't crying yet. The Orgeron sends Brent Schaeffa scurrying to the end zone with the footbaw to cut LSU's lead to 27-17. The space-time hole is weighing its options.

5:42 p.m. Around the ESPN on ABC in HD on TV in the USA family of networks: Kansas is easily taking care of business against Iowa State, something that it should be noted that Oklahoma didn't do until late in the game. Penn State leads Michigan State by three in a land-grant shootout. Virginia Tech is pouring Miami's latest cup of annihilation juice. And over on ESPNU, Wake Forest has a 10-point edge over a surging N.C. State squad.

5:32 p.m. Well, I can't maintain radio silence forever when I've promised continual updates, so here goes. LSU casually has built a 17-point fourth-quarter lead at Ole Miss as it cruises toward the national title. The $2.8 Million Man trails Western Michigan in the fourth quarter. Notre Dame notched a three-touchdown victory over Duke, which ordinarily wouldn't be that impressive except that the Fighting Irish's winning streak is now a full game longer than Alabama's. And the Crimson Tide isn't the only team suffering a season-ending collapse; California, once No. 2 but now staring into the face of its fifth loss in six games, trails Washington by 11 heading into the fourth quarter.

4:45 p.m. Alabama's worst loss of the 21st century -- and likely one of its worst losses of any other century -- is in the books. ULM wins, 21-14, and deserves every bit of it. The Warhawks wanted the win and played hard as hell and got it. Alabama turned the ball over four times and earned the right to lose to a sub-.500 Sun Belt team. Even when Alabama lost to Central Florida and Louisiana Tech and Northern Illinois in the last decade, those teams had good records and were dangerous, bowl-eligible squads. ULM, even after storming out of Bryant-Denny with a win, is still 5-6.

This was an utter disaster for the Crimson Tide, and right now, I don't see how the team can recover emotionally to put up much of a fight in the Iron Bowl. This team is probably going to finish 6-6 with a four-game losing streak. That's bowl-eligible, but it's not bowl-worthy. The rebuilding process will be much longer and harder than anyone ever imagined.

4:14 p.m. Jimmy Johns fumbles. The Warhawks recover. That's Turnover No. 4. Disaster. Distress. Depression. Darkness.

4:10 p.m. Tennessee is about three minutes away from losing to Vanderbilt. Wisconsin is 30 minutes away from losing to Minnesota. And Iowa is 30 minutes away from losing to Western Michigan. None of these things matter, though, because Alabama is six minutes away from losing to Louisiana-Monroe.

4:01 p.m. Official Iron Bowl prediction: Auburn 91, Alabama 3.

3:48 p.m. And Alabama ends the third quarter by 1) stalling out and being forced to try a field goal and 2) allowing the Warhawks to block aforementioned field goal attempt. I thought we got the Nick Saban first-year loss of unspeakable horror (he dropped the homecoming game to UAB in his first year at LSU) out of the way last week, but it's looking more and more like it's coming today. I'm wondering if Alabama will ever win in November again.

3:43 p.m. D.J. Hall is back now? I think I missed something. D.J. didn't, though. That was a big play at just the right time.

3:40 p.m. Touchdown, Warhawks. Late in the third quarter, it's Louisiana-Monroe 21, Alabama 14. This is officially the emotional low point of all of my years as a Crimson Tide fan. Unless it gets even worse. At this rate, it very well might.

3:36 p.m. ULM has driven the ball to the Alabama 6. I have no idea what in the blue hell is going on here. This is abysmal.

3:34 p.m. Coach O gonna put Brent Schaeffa in the game to play the footbaw and he gonna put a hurtin' on 'em, Jo Jo!

3:26 p.m. Alabama survives a serious Warhawk threat to preserve the tie. Seriously. Meanwhile, Notre Dame has a halftime lead. Over Duke. This shouldn't be huge news, but it is.

3:06 p.m. This Duke-Notre Dame game may be the worst thing I've ever seen purporting to be televised football. In fairness, though, Alabama-ULM isn't on TV this week.

2:57 p.m. Tied at halftime in Tuscaloosa. Disgusting. Meanwhile, in news involving SEC teams that aren't struggling with a Sun Belt also-ran, Arkansas is shredding Mississippi State with a balanced offensive attack. Georgia has done all it can to get a trip to Atlanta by knocking off Kentucky. And Vanderbilt is doing its part to make that happen, holding a 17-9 lead as the second half begins.

2:44 p.m. The defense finally holds, only for ULM to get the ball back at the Alabama 40 after the punt bounces off a Tide player's back. How is this the same team that almost beat LSU?

2:32 p.m. ULM methodically powers back down the field to tie it at 14-14. I know what I said about the Sun Belt, but I really hoped it wouldn't start playing out at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

2:25 p.m. Ohio State is going to the Rose Bowl again. Lloyd Carr is probably going to retire with a 1-6 record against the Sweater Vest and an 0-1 record against the Southern Conference. Buckeyes!

2:21 p.m. Terry Grant enters the game and provides a spark. Touchdown, Alabama. It's 14-7.

2:17 p.m. Barry Krause reporting from the sidelines: "The intensity down here is very much lacking." You don't say.

2:14 p.m. Touchdown, ULM. It's tied at 7-7. Not heartening.

2:10 p.m. A Wilson pass slides off the receiver's fingertips to become Interception No. 2. It's returned to the Alabama 1 as the first quarter ends. This would be a really bad day to keep turning the ball over, guys. A loss here could make the bowl bid disappear.

2:01 p.m. Syracuse is 2-8 and down 30-0 to UConn. Why is this on ESPN2 when both Arkansas-Mississippi State and Tennessee-
Vanderbilt are getting no TV love? Aren't Division II playoff games available, too? Get a camera to North Dakota posthaste.

1:58 p.m. Wilson lofts up a bad pass that the opponent snags out of the air. You wouldn't think this sort of thing would keep recurring after almost two years as a starter, but there it is again.

1:52 p.m. I shouldn't question the ways of motivational guru Mark Richt. Georgia has punched in three touchdowns to take control with 5:40 left in the third. Even if the Head Dawg calls for his fan base to show up to the Georgia Tech game in purple clown suits, I'll know better than to crack wise.

1:41 p.m. John Parker Wilson accounts for his first touchdown of the day. In a refreshing change from last week, this one is on the Crimson Tide's behalf. Alabama, 7-0.

1:38 p.m. Eli Gold on a monumental Andre Smith pancake block: "That was Pancake House. That was all of IHOP right there."

1:35 p.m. They've kicked off on senior day in Tuscaloosa. D.J. Hall won't play today due to an unspecified violation of team policy, but hey, Jimmy Johns will play. Eli and Snake will tell me about it.

1:30 p.m. It's not on TV and it's not homecoming, but the Alabama game against Louisiana-Monroe nonetheless is minutes away from kickoff. Why? Because Nick Saban thought it'd help to have a few more hours to rest up for Auburn next week. Further Saban justification: "Is somebody mad? Are we back at LSU now where if you don't play at night, we don't have enough to time to get ready for the game by drinking and eating all day and all that? If that's the case, I'll be glad to do it at night."

1:24 p.m. Michigan quarterback Chad Henne looks to be in excruciating pain, and not just the kind caused by trailing your main rival by 11 at home. You have to wonder how much longer he'll stay in the game with that shoulder flaring up.

1:17 p.m. The following is an actual exchange from the on-field halftime interview of Missouri coach Gary Pinkel. Pinkel: "We've just got to play better." FSN reporter: "And how do we do that in the second half?" Ladies and gentlemen, you're watching Fox.

12:54 p.m. It's a classic, old-fashioned, three-yards-and-a-cloud-
of-dust game up in Ann Arbor, where Ohio State leads 7-3 at the half. Meanwhile, in a game that improbably is of enormous national relevance, Missouri and Kansas State have been swapping the lead. Right now, it belongs to the Tigers, 21-15. In other news, Ron Zook's Fighting Illini are whipping Northwestern, and Zook's former nemesis, FSU, is easily handling the Maryland Terrapins.

12:35 p.m. Florida Atlantic is hanging in there with the Gators. Florida's lead is only 28-20 late in the first half in Gainesville. This is just two weeks after Troy took Georgia to the limit between the hedges. Remember when I pegged the rise of the Sun Belt as the shadow story of the season? I stand by that.

12:31 p.m. Dave (and also Dave) occasionally will refer to Dave as "Arch," even though he's just as much of a Dave as they are. Be not ashamed, gentlemen. Be bold. Be proud. Be DAVE.

12:25 p.m. I'd been under the impression that Harvard-Yale would be on WGN again this year. Naturally, though, when I consciously set out to watch a few minutes of a I-AA game, it's nowhere in sight. I have no hostility toward Lizzie McGuire, but the fact remains that she isn't playing for the Ivy League title.

12:18 p.m. Georgia is learning a valuable lesson: Motivational gimmicks lose their significance if you do them every week. After the Bulldogs stomped a mudhole in Auburn last week in the "blackout" game, Mark Richt called for a "red-out" this week. The results? A 10-0 Kentucky lead and a second quarter that just opened with Georgia's third turnover of the day.

11:53 a.m. I wasn't hallucinating when I heard the Coach calling a football game last week, because now he's back again. This time he's behind the mike for what's evolving into a Citadel blowout of VMI. No, I-AA football, you don't get Jim Ross. You don't deserve Jim Ross. You have to earn Jim Ross.

11:45 a.m. Through the benevolence of the artists formerly known as Jefferson Pilot, DAVE has been reunited this week as a single, unstoppable commentating unit. And through a quirk of television contracts, DAVE has ended up with Kentucky at Georgia, the day's marquee SEC game. Dave seems nonplussed about this opportunity, but Dave clearly is glad to be back with DAVE, and Dave barely can wipe the smile off his face. You'd think he just found out that DAVE is calling the Super Bowl. For all I know (and dream), DAVE might do just that.

11:37 a.m. Actually, Kirk Herbstreit, those Michigan seniors probably came back to try to win a national championship, not just to beat Ohio State, but I appreciate the effort.

11:32 a.m. If they're going to go down, Ohio State's backfield at least might want to force Michigan to expend the energy needed to tackle them instead of just sliding to the ground.

11:30 a.m. For the record, any suggestion -- from the Bristol types or otherwise -- that Michigan-Ohio State is the biggest rivalry in college football is completely off-base. The correct answer to that question is Alabama-Auburn, and the reasons are simple: We have to live with each other all year, and it's all we have. Michigan and Ohio State fans largely get to go back to their respective states to live among similarly minded people, and they also have a host of nearby professional sports franchises to divert their attention. In Alabama, though, the Crimson Tide and the Tigers are the sole focus of 12 full months of sports mania. No other rivalry can compete with that. Besides, you get bonus points when neither game participant has lost to a I-AA team.

11:15 a.m. Michigan and Ohio State have kicked off up in the Double A. Buckeyes! already has escaped Brent Musberger's lips at least three times. ESPN on ABC in HD on TV in the USA has made quadruply sure that we know that if five other teams lose and/or get decimated by a falling meteor, Ohio State will be right back there in line for a national title shot. So you most certainly should pay rapt attention to the Buckeyes!

Whither anything not made of pigskin?

2007-11-17T10:45:00.000-06:00

One of these days, things will settle down enough to allow a return to regular posts about things that require me to think a little bit. Until then, get ready for more college football.

Yes, the football posts basically have taken over the entire place this fall, but when you look at that "politics and sports" balance as a year-long average, it's not so bad. That's what I'll keep telling myself, anyway. Check back in another day or two if you're here for the political content, and thanks for your patience.

Saturday live blog, Vol. 7

2007-11-10T11:30:00.000-06:00

The College GameDay guys are at a Division III school today, but I'm right here. I'll update continually throughout the day.

12:30 a.m. Hawaii is pretty much on cruise control. Oregon State-Washington is a close game that nonetheless fails to move my spirit. San Diego State-UNLV has been mentioned twice now, which is two times too many. College Football Final has drawn to a close. Barring any unforeseen developments, I'm calling it a night for yet another installment of the live blog.

As always, thanks for reading, and Roll Tide.

12:27 a.m. A Nebraska quarterback throwing for 510 yards and seven touchdowns in one game? Where has that been all year?

12:20 a.m. Fun fact of the night: Four of the five highest scoring games in NCAA history have come in 2007. Lou Holtz is right: Global warming is everywhere, and it's on the attack.

11:42 p.m. Lou Holtz to Mark May at the end of a passionate discourse on why Kansas is No. 1: "My dad fought in the war so you can have the privilege to say dumb things." Rant, Lou, rant!

11:28 p.m. Other unfinished business from today: Arizona State survived in Pasadena to keep alive its hopes for a return visit in January. Out of nowhere, N.C. State is a game away from bowl eligibility after a hard-fought victory over North Carolina. It was a good day in Evanston, where Northwestern ensured at least a .500 season. And after a Cyclone-tastic start to the season, the $2.8 Million Man has Iowa back in bowl contention after a narrow win over its 1-10 rival, Minnesota.

11:11 p.m. Around Conference USA: Tulsa controls its destiny in the C-USA West after slamming a 56-7 wrecking ball into Houston. UCF leads the East after East Carolina inexplicably dropped one to 2-8 Marshall. Southern Miss found a way to choke away another game it had no business losing, this time to Memphis. And UTEP seems to be back in its past form, losing by 15 at Tulane.

11:05 p.m. With unidentified debris swirling around the field, as is often the case during Aloha Stadium games, Brennan fires off the 121st touchdown pass of his career to tie Ty Detmer's NCAA record, which is officially living on borrowed time. Hawaii, 31-7.

10:57 p.m. Instead of sending its own broadcasters to Hawaii, ESPN2 is streaming the feed from Fresno State's local telecast. My favorite added touch: This is labeled "bonus coverage" when it's very much a regularly scheduled broadcast. Guess you've got to give credit when it's due, even if that's during the entire game.

10:51 p.m. As we near midnight on the East Coast, three games remain on television. None of them are particularly engrossing -- San Diego State vs. UNLV doesn't exactly scream "must-see TV" -- but I can't say that I've seen much of Hawaii this year, so I'm giving it a shot. Colt Brennan came into the game needing three touchdowns to claim the NCAA record for touchdown passes. He'll probably get that out of the way in the first half.

10:45 p.m. KU wins, 43-28. I'm removing the "interim" from Kansas' No. 1 ranking. Their defense is a little too porous for my taste, and they probably won't end up as the nation's best team, but why not reward perfection at this point in the season? Mark Mangino actually came into this year somewhat on the hot seat. It's safe to say his job is safe for as long as he'd like now.

10:37 p.m. The one-loss teams have taken advantage of weak opposition this week to make their cases for climbing the national title ladder. LSU is cruising over Louisiana Tech, 58-10. Oklahoma shredded Baylor, 52-21. Missouri took down a backsliding Texas A&M squad, 40-26. And Oregon utterly dominated Bye State University without ever leaving its couch.

10:23 p.m. One game is the SEC's premier showdown of the evening. The other is the Pac-10's marquee prime-time matchup. Both are late in the fourth quarter. One game's score is 51-31. The other's score is 24-17. Bet you can't guess which is which.

10:12 p.m. Kansas got that memo about the ~~TPS reports~~ keeping the lead. Todd Reesing fires another TD pass to Marcus Henry. Jayhawks, 40-28. It's not pretty, but what has been this year?

10:07 p.m. Boston College is following the trail blazed by its predecessors: choking away the No. 2 ranking, and then losing again the next week, in this case to a .500 Maryland team striving for bowl eligibility. Play no heed to whatever the rest of the Boston area sports juggernauts may say: If it's good enough for California and South Florida, it's good enough for you, too, Eagles.

10:03 p.m. The Tebow has almost 400 yards of total offense by himself. Florida leads 44-24 with seven minutes to go. Remember when South Carolina was knocking on the door of the top five and the SEC title? It feels like forever and a Vanderbilt ago.

10 p.m. With Ohio State out of the picture, Kansas has a golden opportunity to make a statement tonight. First, though, it might want to work on this "hanging on to a lead" thing. The Jayhawks, once cruising by 19, are now up only 33-28 in the fourth.

9:41 p.m. For some bewildering reason, the Coach is inspired to say he likes Neil Callaway's call for an onside kick when his team is down seven with two minutes and change left. Naturally, the Blazers kick it straight to a UCF player. Moments later, Kevin Smith (the nation's No. 2 rusher, not the guy who gave the world Clerks and Chasing Amy) bursts free for his fourth TD of the game. UCF, 45-31. UAB is still a couple of years away from a breakout season, but it's coming. Tonight was an inspired effort against a team that took Texas to the wire earlier this season.

9:37 p.m. UAB is back within seven of UCF with two minutes and change left at Legion Field. Their record may say 2-7, but the Blazers are much better than a 2-7 team.

9:20 p.m. Brent Musberger is interspersing his play-by-play with questions about peak oil and the national water supply. This is so bizarre that it officially qualifies as postmodern performance art.

9:14 p.m. The score with two and a half minutes to go: Virginia 48, Miami 0. See ya, OB. Literally and metaphorically.

9:10 p.m. The Jayhawks break out a little rock and chalk to go with, well, themselves. Todd Reesing hooks up with Marcus Henry for an 82-yard touchdown pass to stretch the lead to 27-14.

8:59 p.m. The Coach (not) calling a failed UCF fourth-down conversion attempt: "I was actually looking down at my papers." Were Michael Cole and Joey Styles busy tonight or something?

8:52 p.m. UAB is on live television. And only trailing Central Florida by seven. And Jonathan Coachman has taken a break from the pro wrestling world to handle the play-by-play. And yes, the Blazers are only 2-7 this year, but I defy you to find any team whose punter has a more awesome name than Swayze Waters.

8:37 p.m. California-USC is being aired in West Coast oblivion, which means practically no one is getting to enjoy the Golden Bears' throwback uniforms. The Trojans are, though, because they lead the team that's wearing them 14-10 at the half.

8:34 p.m. Hey, don't be blue, Miami! Kyle Wright has connected on seven passes so far. That's six more than your other QB completed last week! I mean, sure, he's also completed three to the other team, but that's not a very optimistic way to look at it!

8:16 p.m. With the lone unbeaten team from a BCS conference locked in a back-and-forth battle on the road, Brent Musberger says he wants to go out eating with Rick Majerus and Mark Mangino. He also sounds like he means it. Buckeyes!

8:13 p.m. Speaking of Oklahoma State, the Sun Belt team that obliterated the Cowboys is now 7-3 after surviving a nail-biter up at Western Kentucky, which I'm guessing is, like every other obscure team in the entire country, better than I think.

8:07 p.m. You wanna come after someone in their own stadium, Kansas? You come after Mike Gundy! He's a man! He's up 14-10! And his age is roughly halfway between 30 and 50!

7:56 p.m. Well, at least someone is sending the OB out in style. Virginia is humiliating Miami 31-0 at halftime. I'm not saying the Cavaliers are both across the ocean and across the city tonight; I'm just saying the Hurricanes might want to consider scoring one more time before their stadium is turned into a pile of rubble.

7:53 p.m. Kansas has looked solid but not spectacular so far in surging to a 10-7 lead at Oklahoma State. Still, as wild as this season has been, if the Jayhawks escape undefeated, they without a doubt would deserve a national title shot. I'm even starting to feel the same would hold true for Hawaii. OK, just kidding. I think.

7:48 p.m. The bad news: Navy's defense surrendered 62 points tonight. The good news: The Middies scored 74. We have a brand-
new highest scoring game in Division I-A history, and they didn't even need overtime to get there. Final combined stats: 136 points, 60 first downs, and 1,315 yards. The Mean Green's quarterback had eight touchdown passes in a loss. Assuming the middies in attendance continued the tradition of a push-up per point after each Navy score, that would be 488 total push-ups during the game. That, at last count, was way, way too many.

7:45 p.m. The Tebow hasn't the time for not plowing down your ESPN cameraman on the sideline. He's too busy getting the lead back. It's 20-14 early in the second quarter as the SEC does its best to become what it used to accuse the Pac-10 of being.

7:31 p.m. It was a touchdown only in the official sense, but that's the only sense that matters. South Carolina finally gets its legs and seizes the lead, 14-13. Defense seems optional in this game.

7:23 p.m. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a time when the Florida Gators had living, breathing running backs who didn't take direct snaps from the center? Perhaps they should look into a return to those days, that they may convert fourth-and-shorts.

7:03 p.m. The Tebow is making South Carolina's defense look absolutely silly. Florida leads 13-0 after a missed extra point. I should mention they're four minutes into the game in Columbia.

6:58 p.m. After an epic drive, the Cavaliers are up 14-0 down at the OB. Did I mention I also never mind seeing a Miami loss? Can't imagine what would have prompted that sentiment...

6:50 p.m. Miami is playing its very last game ever in the Orange Bowl tonight. As dilapidated as it's become, the stadium is one of the most historic places in American football, and it'll be sad to see it go when city officials have it bulldozed next year. Virginia is ahead 7-0 right now, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Hurricanes win to send the place out in style. Now then, don't say I've never said anything nice about Miami.

6:38 p.m. Is it wrong that I'm super-geeked about seeing Kansas play tonight? Part of it is that the Jayhawks are the last real hope for a national champion that could fit the dominant champion mold. Part of it is that I get to hear Brent Musberger call a national broadcast less than two hours after the Buckeyes! went down to defeat. Part of it is the legitimate question of whether a team that got annihilated by Troy can knock off a title contender. And part of it is, of course, that Mike Gundy is a man! He's 40!

6:19 p.m. Virginia Tech's defense has turned on the turbo jets against FSU, notching that rarest of all scoring plays: the safety. The Hokies have rolled off 20 unanswered points since the Seminoles took a lead that was not long for this world.

6:08 p.m. It took every available second, but Brandon Cox slipped in that fourth INT against Georgia. Again. Buckeyes!

6:03 p.m. Turnover on downs for Auburn. That'd be Georgia, 45-20. No revenge for the Tigers this year. Meanwhile, while you weren't looking, Mississippi State became the second-best team in the SEC West. Bet you didn't call that one on Aug. 30, huh?

5:47 p.m. They're nearing the fourth quarter in Denton, where Navy has clawed its way to a 65-56 lead over the Mean Green in a defensive battle. Sooner or later, the offenses have to get in gear.

5:38 p.m. Uga VI tries to take a bite out of a guy on the sidelines. Two plays later, Georgia is in the end zone for an 18-point lead. A win tonight would make the Bulldogs undefeated since 1996 in games where their mascot has briefly reverted to primal self.

5:27 p.m. Goodbye, final minute of game clock. Goodbye, perfect Ohio State season. Goodbye, overrated Big Ten team in the national title game. Hello, classless post-game fight. Buckeyes! I'm officially naming Kansas the interim No. 1 team for a few hours, unless or until Mike Gundy proves that he's a man! He's 40!

5:20 p.m. There is no excuse for Georgia to have lost a game this season. None. Moreno is an absurdly fast and powerful runner. He looks better than Darren McFadden tonight.

5:17 p.m. Florida State, fresh off smacking around Boston College on the road, has just taken the lead at Virginia Tech. I no longer feel empty inside upon thinking about Alabama losing to Florida State. I can't say that about certain other Alabama losses.

5:15 p.m. Brandon Cox lofts up his own attempt at an Error of Unspeakable Horror, and Georgia gladly snags it. The Bulldogs have it near midfield as the third quarter begins to run out.

5:08 p.m. Sick, sick cutback on that Knowshon Moreno TD run. Georgia reclaims the lead, 24-20. Elsewhere, Illinois clings to a seven-point edge over THE Ohio State University.

5:05 p.m. Cincinnati leads Connecticut heading into the fourth quarter, 20-3. The universe of people who care consists of the people in attendance plus maybe a small percentage of the residents of those places. And some folks in West Virginia, where their team is about to claim a tie for the Big East lead. Hide your couches and crank up the John Denver tonight.

4:52 p.m. Halftime score: North Texas 49, Navy 45. The teams have combined for 36 first downs and more than 800 yards in the first half. Even PlayStation stat lines don't look like that.

4:48 p.m. Worthy of note: Auburn has rallied to tie Georgia at 17-17. This is not exactly an auspicious development relative to Alabama's chances of success in the Iron Bowl.

4:46 p.m. Not even NBC's green peacock logo can help Notre Dame. Midway through the fourth, Air Force is doubling up the Irish, 34-17. It's not necessarily that I agree entirely with this Slate article -- but I understand.

4:43 p.m. Four touchdown passes for Juice Williams. It's 28-14 for the Illini. Let's check in with Brent: "Buckeyes!" Thanks, Brent.

4:35 p.m. Illinois picks off Todd Boeckman in the end zone to halt what was shaping up as a lengthy Buckeyes touchdown drive. With this and Matt Ryan's meltdown at Boston College in the last two weeks, Heisman voters might have to back someone other than the quarterback of an overrated top-five team. Like Oregon's Dennis Dixon, whose top-five team isn't overrated.

4:22 p.m. Kentucky-Vanderbilt is the only conference game not being televised from the SEC today. So of course it would shape up as the most interesting game of the day. Yes, in football. The Wildcats have taken a 27-20 fourth-quarter lead as they look for their first win since last month's LSU upset. The Commodores are looking for another victory to become the SEC's 11th bowl-eligible team. In this wacky year, though, it'll probably take seven wins to cinch a bid. That means Vanderbilt could well qualify for a bowl for the first time in most of its students' lives but not get to go. And here you were thinking there were too many obscure bowls.

4:04 p.m. Juice Williams has connected on a third touchdown pass. The Illini have a 21-14 halftime lead in the No. 1 team's house. I hesitate to mention it in fear that it will flutter away like an endangered butterfly not meant for this world, but there it is.

3:53 p.m. Of course UCLA is winning against a top-10 team. Did you expect any different? Were you deterred by those three losses to teams that are a combined 8-20? Well, you shouldn't be. It's a game the Bruins aren't solid favorites to win, which means it's a game they can win. Don't ask questions. You won't get answers.

3:44 p.m. Neither Navy nor Notre Dame has rebounded well from that triple-overtime battle last week. The Midshipmen are down 21-3 early to a bad, bad North Texas team, while the Irish trail Air Force 24-10 at home, despite starting their 37th different quarterback for the 12th time this year.

3:37 p.m. Touchdown, Bulldogs! This time, I don't feel sick inside when I hear it. Georgia leads Auburn, 17-3, in black jerseys that I must say are quite a stylish addition to the uniform repertoire.

3:34 p.m. Illinois' Juice Williams has completed a forward pass. For a touchdown. Twice. Against that vaunted Ohio State defense. It's tied at 14-14. And now the No. 1 team in America is punting again. Cue the Brent Musberger soundboard: "Buckeyes!"

3:15 p.m. And we're back. Let us never again speak of the horror we just witnessed. Let us instead speak of other horrors. Horrors like the 73-31 vengeance that Nebraska is extracting from Kansas State, a perfectly good team that just happens to have the word "Kansas" in its name. Or horrors like Colorado, the only squad to beat Oklahoma this season, dropping one on the road to 3-8 Iowa State. Or horrors like 10 of the 11 members of the Big Ten being bowl-eligible, even though the conference still could crown a champion that lost to a I-AA team next week. (Yes, even after the loss to Wisconsin.) Let us contemplate no other brand of horror, most especially the brand that occurred in rural Mississippi.

2:43 p.m. And it ends in the most fitting way possible: with Wilson holding on to the ball too long and then getting sacked. Mississippi State wins. Again. Um, yeah, excuse me for a minute.

2:40 p.m. Finally a defensive stop. Alabama gets the ball with 38 seconds left, no timeouts, and no effective passing game today. This should be fun. Excruciating, agonizing fun.

2:34 p.m. MSU gets another first down. On a draw. On third-and-
10. Alabama deserves to lose if it's going to allow things like that. One more timeout, not that it really matters.

2:30 p.m. Mississippi State is running out the clock with a one-score lead. This hasn't happened since... well, last year. The Bulldogs are winning ugly, but they are, in fact, winning.

2:24 p.m. Leigh Tiffin is Alabama's lone bright spot on the day. Again, words I never thought I'd use and mean. MSU, 17-12.

2:23 p.m. Wilson takes off running on third-and-14. Why? Why?

2:20 p.m. The good news: Alabama is getting the running game going. The bad news: The passing game has been practically nonexistent. Wilson just now went over 100 yards on the day.

2:13 p.m. Alabama starts the drive in Bulldogs territory. Wilson throws it away three straight times. Punt. State is in the offense's head. Croom's guys look like they're going to win this one again.

2:08 p.m. Ryan Mallett hits a diving Adrian Arrington in the end zone to cut the Wolverines' deficit to two. The Michigan comeback begins. It'd be nice if the Alabama comeback would.

2:02 p.m. You know who I'm glad isn't here to have to see this right now? Dave. Also, to a lesser extent, Dave.

1:59 p.m. We're a quarter away from LSU having to share the Alabama state championship with Mississippi State. This is something that should never happen under any circumstances. And yet, because 2007 is what it is, it's very much real.

1:56 p.m. Well, the game almost ended there. By a few millimeters, Nick Johnson's fumble rolls out of bounds to allow Alabama to stay alive. This is not at all promising.

1:53 p.m. Around the blowouts: Tennessee has shut down the Arkansas running game and leads 27-6 over on Rocky Top, where the other two-thirds of DAVE is hanging out. Clemson has begun its annual rally to close the season strong, beating down Wake Forest 37-10 in the fourth quarter. And this season is bizarre enough that, for once, it's quite unexpected to see Nebraska annihilating Kansas State 38-10 in the third quarter.

1:49 p.m. Oh, great, Wilson gets to start a possession at his own 1-yard line? Surely this will end well.

1:47 p.m. MSU is playing smart, smart, ball-control football. Just milk the clock and wait for the other team to make silly mistakes. It has the Bulldogs up by eight late in the third quarter.

1:35 p.m. Rage. Numbness. Numb with rage. Feelings, words... They fail me. It's Shulaball all over again over in Mississippi.

12:59 p.m. Never mind, I do know what happened. It was the Official John Parker Wilson Error of Unspeakable Horror. A hundred yards later, Mississippi State leads, 10-9.

12:56 p.m. OK, Alabama is at the Bulldogs 1 with 27 seconds and a timeout left. The 1-yard line. If this one doesn't end up in the end zone, I officially won't know what's happening here.

12:53 p.m. MSU vaults a promising Alabama drive into the red zone with a late hit on John Parker Wilson. Both head coaches are enraged for different but slightly nebulous reasons.

12:44 p.m. Sylvester Croom watches game film. How do I know this? He's done whatever is necessary to kick away from Javier Arenas all day. This might seem an obvious strategy, but certain orange-clad and tight-hat-wearing coaches missed the memo.

12:41 p.m. It's bend-but-don't-break defense for Alabama today. Late in the first half, MSU gets in on the field goal festival with one of its own. Tide, 9-3. The fundamentals look good for Alabama's defense, but the offense just hasn't finished a drive yet.

12:38 p.m. Rashad Johnson has been lights out today. Huge interception at the start, and a big-time play to break up a deep pass just now. Hope I'm not cursing it by mentioning it.

12:31 p.m. Your first-half MVP: Leigh Tiffin. Now there are words I never thought I'd type in earnestness. Alabama still can't find the end zone but stretches the lead to 9-0.

12:28 p.m. The remaining Dave just suggested that the second quarter is winding down. Ten minutes remain in the second quarter. See what happens when you surround a Dave with a bunch of non-Daves? Please don't ever let this happen again.

12:26 p.m. I really don't like it when I hear cowbells. And I really don't like it when I see an artist-formerly-known-as-JP game that comes without my full complement of Daves. But I really do like it when I see Alabama in the red zone. Maybe we can turn it into a touchdown this time.

12:18 p.m. Michigan has scored to break the streak of utter Wisconsin domination that has constituted the first half thus far in Madison. The Badgers still lead, 17-7. Whenever I check in, I keep hearing the broadcasters call the name of Wisconsin receiver Paul Hubbard. As an avid follower of Alabama politics, this never fails to result in split-second disorientation.

12:14 p.m. Not the best first quarter I've seen, but not the worse, either. At least Alabama isn't wholly unprepared for the game, as it was under past coaches who shall remain nameless.

12:09 p.m. A pooch punt! Yeah! That'll show us, Sly! Thanks.

12:04 p.m. Carroll isn't quite as rattled as he was half an hour ago. That probably has something to do with him being in the shadow of the red zone. The defense needs a stand here.

11:53 a.m. A 51-yard field goal? Where has this Leigh Tiffin been? I'm hating the lack of touchdowns, but I'm loving the dead-center perfect for a change. Alabama, 6-0.

11:42 a.m. Mississippi State's offense looks scared and confused thus far, too. Alabama promptly broke Wesley Carroll's string of passes without an interception, but a couple of dropped and errant passes meant the Tide only turned it into a field goal. Alabama, 3-0. Time to keep the momentum going.

11:30 a.m. I don't start these things sooner than kickoff of the Alabama game whenever the Crimson Tide starts playing before noon, and things are no different today. Except on television, that is. Lincoln Financial has a split telecast today, and where there should be three Daves, I only see one. They've separated DAVE, ladies and gentlemen. Who's going to fill the time between the Daughtry promos now? I'm so scared and confused.

The down home news compendium

2007-11-10T11:00:00.001-06:00

What have I learned from the last couple of weeks? For one thing, I've found I shouldn't make any sort of promises as to how frequently I'll post around here. For another, I've realized that the Alabama political world is just as sublimely bizarre as it was at last check. Some highlights:

After decades of back-and-forth squabbling, our state's water wars with Florida and Georgia ended once and for all last week -- at least for a week, until Florida called off the ceasefire due to concerns for the state's mussel and human populations. Their governor also appears to be the only one of the three who hasn't publicly called for prayers for rain. Coincidence? It's called giving peace a chance, guys.
Attorney General Troy King seems to need to appear in headlines at least once a week, no matter what it takes. Call for parole to be abolished without suggesting where to get the money for the extra prisons that would necessitate? Check. Ask a judge to bar a district attorney from testifying on behalf of the AG office's position? 10-4. Talk about how his office will do "everything they can" to keep former Gov. George Wallace's shooter in a Maryland prison, even when Alabama officials obviously can do nothing about it? Yep.
State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, R-Slocomb -- last seen associating her name with the governor's race in between bouts of not doing much of note in the Legislature -- has emerged as the early favorite for the Republican nomination in the 2nd Congressional District. But don't worry, political wonks: Fob James' son may well be along to make a race of it yet. And the Democrats might even decide not to forfeit their shot at a rare open seat.
State Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale -- he of "bury the gay books" fame -- spoke to a meeting of his local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. No, really. Gotta commend the fearlessness, if nothing else.
The state's political future is bright. SGA leaders at the University of Alabama have launched a research group on an issue of utmost importance: getting the school a live elephant for football game days. An enormous, living, breathing elephant that would have to live somewhere, and that presumably would demand its own private dorm bathroom and no suitemate. At least one freshman was skeptical: "You can't just throw an elephant in the middle of the Quad. It has to be thought through."

Given that it's the only thing I've managed to update with any sort of regularity around here, why not do another Saturday live blog? It's next. Hope you enjoy it.