Picturing…

… the people walking around the harbor today with the “Green Monstah” T-shirts leaving the stadium quickly and quietly.

… people watching the game at the Tam in Boston paying their tab, walking to the T and whining about Masterson, Saito, Papelbon…

… being at the game tonight surrounded by obnoxious Red Sox fans at “Fenway South” at the moment Jason Bay swung through strike 3.

Wish I’d been there.

Slow news day?

You wouldn’t think so… I mean, Norm Coleman conceded to Al Franken giving Democrats a 60th vote, U.S. troops are withdrawing from Iraq, and in the biggest news of all, my Orioles are 1 out away from winning a game against the Red Sox in which they had trailed 10-1.

Still, none can match the entertainment value of three headlines featured on CNN.com:

1. Squirrel pops out of cleavage
2. Naked flight crew creates safety video
3. Guy jumps from helicopter onto marlin?

Guess the guy on the helicopter missed the the safety video.

Last out!  Orioles win!

How ’bout legislating from the legislature, for a change?

I like Judge Sotomayor.  I think she was a great pick, think she is likely to be confirmed without too much trouble, and I’m not the least bit surprised (or outraged) by any of the back and forth about her.

But, I start getting philosophically tangled up when the general debate on court appointees breaks down along the “don’t legislate from the bench” vs. “living, breathing document” dichotomy.

Happy Days are Here Again

What a fun turn the Republican Party has taken…

Over the weekend, Lindsey Graham was heckled at the South Carolina Republican Convention for urging the Party to embrace moderates who can “win in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.”  Interesting, but not surprising.  Of course, it does make for an odd Senate delegation from South Carolina: Jim DeMint said recently that he would “rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”  Guess that would exclude Graham.

Hey Republicans, want him back?

Watching Arlen Specter on Meet the Press right now: this is one of the least confidence-inspiring interviews I’ve seen on this show.

Specter seems to so intent on “proving” he won’t change his positions, that he has absolutely nothing to say to Democrats.  He’s still against the Employee Free Choice Act, would oppose (seemingly any) comprehensive health care plan, and denied a quote in the Wall Street Journal in which he assured the President he would be a “loyal Democrat.”  He bragged about voting against Obama’s budget the day after he switched parties, and when asked what his core political values were, he said: “Freedom and a woman’s right to choose” before launching into a story about his father. Really encapsulated the Party there, Arlen.

Oh yeah, and he thinks he’s “entitled” to maintain his seniority in the Senate and leapfrog actual loyal Democrats like Tom Harkin for Committee assignments.  In fact, entitled might be the word I’d use to describe his entire attitude.

I hope Sestak does jump into the race.  I know Obama and Reid and Rendell are all backing Specter, but I would think a sizable enough percentage of Pennsylvania Democratic Primary voters are seeing this the way I’m seeing it, and could make it an interesting race.

Only bright spot?  He did take a passing shot at the Club for Growth… but even that was a criticism for going after Republicans in Primaries rather than hitting them for their actual message in governing.

The Truman Anomaly

This is actually a mini-project I started working on a while back and then forgot about…

As Bush was preparing to leave office, his Cabinet/staff/friends/allies were working to defend his legacy in the face of historically low public approval numbers. There were the inevitable comparisons to the rising stock of Harry Truman who left office with a 31% approval rating, and is now considered to be one of the greatest Presidents in history, ranking 5th on the all-time list in a survey done by historians in January. Truman has ALWAYS been the example for politicians burdened by low approval ratings and looking for some consolation in a potential legacy.

The Far Right

Just an annoyance:

I’ve been watching some of the fallout from the Specter switch on MSNBC and I can’t help but notice a complete disconnect between my definition of the far-right Republican base and the commentators’ definition of the Party’s base. Let me see if I have my facts right: 1) Arlen Specter was being challenged in the Republican Primary by Pat Toomey, former director of the Club for Growth; 2) The Club for Growth is an economically Right-wing group that came out of the libertarian CATO Institute; 3) Specter had come under attack from Republicans for voting in favor of Obama’s stimulus bill.

Arlen Specter (D-PA)

Lindsay Graham: (on the pressure conservatives are putting on moderate Republicans) “I don’t want to be a member of the Club for Growth.”

Guess he won’t be doing too many fundraisers for Pat Toomey…

Best sign to Teixiera: “Severna Park Hates You”

There were too many things going right with this sentence not to pull it out…

“For one day, and probably only one day, Baltimore’s Camden Yards was transformed from the funeral home of a bumbling franchise to the raucous center of a populist rebellion.”

Actually, the full column (by Ken Rosenthal) is worth a read (even if he did mean it snarkily).

Other favorite people yesterday:

Adam Jones – for the game and the pre-game quote
The guy who did the Jeffrey Maier impression for Cesar Izturis
Mark Teixiera, for having the decency to fail miserably in his Yankee debut
Ernie Tyler – 50 straight Opening Days!
Joe Biden, for throwing out the first pitch and then greeting Ernie Tyler
Orioles fans, for outnumbering Yankee fans at Camden Yards for a day

Surprising allies

Thomas Frank was right this week when he wrote “the commentariat has always thought ‘populism’ to be faintly ridiculous, a thing of mobs and pitchforks and windbag leaders more demagogue than CEO.”

Not unexpected from Frank (or David Sirota, Bob Borosage, Michael Kazin, or even Pat Buchanan…), but the Populist argument did get some unexpected support (and not just from Chuck Grassley.)