This is lame …

… and this is laughably stupid (I mean, it’s Tony Little, what more do you expect?) …

… but this, is just plain wrong …

Two things killed Donald Trump’s Apprentice franchise; getting rid of any judges whose last name wasn’t Trump, and a severe decline in the quality of the candidates.  Now, I believe, the Celebrity Apprentice series is at a similar crossroads.

Once again, contestant quality is the key.  Season 1 of CA was awesome because it featured strong AND enjoyable personalities.  Gene Simmons was the king of all Apprentice candidates.  The only shame there was that the same qualities that made Simmons fun, also saw him leave way too early.  No problem, though.  Piers Morgan quickly picked up the slack.  Even if you didn’t like him before the show, his one-on-one battles with Omarosa (a never-been, ill-matched among a collection of has-been’s and still-are’s) made him an instant hero.  In short that was one great season, besting the later seasons of the original Apprentice series.

Unfortunately, last year’s CA was as bad as the first season was good, and again the cast was the driving force.  The main problem was that the men were soft, or drunk, and the women took the show over.  And before I really get in trouble, it wasn’t just that it was the women leading the way, it was WHICH women took control.  You had Joan Rivers, her daughter Melissa and Annie Duke who turned out to be a white Omarosa, with the only difference being that Duke has real life accomplishments.  The show quickly turned caustic and stayed catty to the end.

So, another season is queuing up, and in looking over the celebs, I’m concerned.  There are possibilities, but no one who jumps right out as sure-fire.  The gang …

Summer Sanders:  An Olympian, kind of like Jenny Finch in season 1.  Finch was pretty and capable enough, but uninteresting and not up to the ruthless element of the game.

Sinbad: Oh man, remember the good ol’ days.  You know, when Sinbad was funny.

Holly Robinson:  I’ll always remember her as the smoking hot, light chocolate detective from 21 Jump Street.  So, if it were 20 years ago this might be compelling.  Hard to picture her adding much entertainment value today.

Cyndi Lauper:  OK, She Bop is one of my guilty pleasure songs from the 80’s.  However, when she’s not squeaking out her bubble gum pop hits, Lauper is a little off.  Not Gene Simmons off.  Crazy old guy who lives in a weed-covered shack and only comes out every 20 years off.

Brett Michaels:  OK, possibilities here.  I could see this guy being a lot of fun.  And young, blonde, well-endowed hoochies flock to him like flies to dung, so there are always possibilities there.  But here’s the question:  Is headwear appropriate in the board room?  The thing with Michaels is that his cowboy hat and bandanas tend to make his hair look longer … A LOT longer if you, ahem, catch my drift.  Some of us have conceded that battle, but then some of us aren’t rock stars.

Darryl Strawberry:  Interesting.  I want to root for this guy.  But I’m just not sure if he’s genuine and has gotten his life on track.  Was his tell-all book therapy, or a cash grab?  If he turns out to be another Rodman, for whom CA 2 was a mere detour en route to Dr Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, I’ll be supremely disappointed.

Rod Blagojevich:  One thing’s for sure – he’s going to be one of the main cogs in the hype machine for this season.  And I guess I’d be more excited about this choice if he didn’t have sleaze oozing from every pore of his body.

Sharon Osbourne:  The surest bet in the group, and my pre-season favorite.  She’ll be strong, fun, and able to mix it up with any three Trumps you care to throw at her.  My only reservation is that if the show starts to go the route of last year’s version, it will almost be beneath her.

So, I’m eager to give the new version another shot.  Please, the Donald, don’t disappoint me.

Guidos:  OK, they are welcome in the 10’s, but can we just leave them on the Jersey shore and off TV.  Admittedly I don’t watch, but it seems like every time I slide by MTV, there it is, enough hair gel to power a third-world country for a year.  I did watch when they first did this a couple years ago.  The featured Guido on there had a temper and I was hoping to see him get tazed in some kind of run-in with the police.

Mid-Major Rationalization:  As I write this I’m keeping an eye on the TCU – Boise State game, and it’s just a mid-major love-fest.  On each play we don’t just hear what happened, but also praise for the players’ knowledge in making the play.  It’s like we’ve got 22 Tim Tebow clones running around out there with all the fawning from the booth.

These guys don’t play a champions’ schedule, and I’m sick of hearing the contrived statistics that are used in an attempt to rationalize that.  The latest is that TCU beat 6 teams who won their bowl games.  Half of division I goes to bowl games.  Big freaking deal.  Each year, the teams that are up for the National Championship play 2-3 other teams who could win it all before they even get to the final game.  The Boise State’s and TCU’s don’t play any.  Playing a few carefully selected mediocre teams from the major conferences amid a schedule full of cupcakes doesn’t elevate a team to elite status.

Lame Beer Commercials:  Coors Light, Bud Light, you’re letting us down.  Those Coors Light spots where they splice in clips from football coach press conferences jumped the shark at inception.  And the “Too Light / Too Heavy” spots … another idea that seems like it should have possibilities but suffers mightily in the execution.  Come on guys.  I still remember the golden days with Bob Uecker in the “Less Filling / Tastes Great” spots for Miller Lite.  Those are some big shoes to fill.

Politicians Who Don’t Govern The Way They Run:  I know, now I’m just getting greedy.

More media madness and another disappointing fall from grace.  Actually I’m pretty fortunate not to have had the time to sit down and weigh in on this one sooner.  I’d have wound up taking back a lot of what I would have said a week ago.

Tiger – the Real Surprise:  You know, what is / was really out of joint isn’t what’s happening now.  It was the perception of Tiger prior to now.  I’ve previously contended that we don’t really know famous people.  This was especially true of Woods.  Has there ever been a less forthcoming superstar athlete?  You can’t get the guy to say anything substantial about golf, yet somehow he was made out to be a straight arrow.  And this isn’t a mystery either.  In a world where a new scandal seems to break every week, the absence of dirt is all the proof most people need.

On Infidelity:  I don’t endorse it.  It’s very disappointing.  But this is the world we have to live in.  I’ve long since reconciled myself to the fact that a lot of the athletes and entertainers that I see, and for that matter probably some of the people I encounter when I’m out and about are cheaters.  If that’s going to be a deal-breaker, if I were to try to steer completely clear of these folks, then I might as well go live in a cave.

Silence:  So, I guess that’s why I’m all for Tiger keeping quiet on this.  I don’t need to know the details.  I don’t want to know them.  Just shut up and golf.  Besides, what would Tiger gain by an open confessional in front of the media?  Especially now that we see the true scope of this thing.  An isolated affair, a few instances of bad judgment, sure.  Again, I don’t condone it, but in this media-saturated world, you can get out in front of that and head off the idle chatter with some humble talk and apparent contrition.  But this dude is a hound.  There is nothing you can say to gloss over that.  Batten down the hatches and let the tongues wag.

The Rumor Mill:  So, I had to laugh at the early media pleas for Tiger to call a presser and come clean.  This was the only way, it was said, to head off the rumor mill.  Only one problem.  It was the operators of said rumor mill who were saying this.  So in essence the deal is … give us something juicy or we’re going to make it up.

Tiger – the Real Disappointment:  As I said, I understand that infidelity is pervasive in our world, especially among the famous.  What really disappoints me is that this whole thing refutes some things that we have seen in Tiger, the awesome golfer, over the years.  The judgment.  The care.  The commitment.  The absolute mastery that he applies to his craft, it turns out, is 180 degrees out of phase with his reckless, chaotic, ill-advised approach to his personal life.

One question:  The one thing I wonder is why all these women didn’t come forward sooner.  I mean, if they were willing to dime Tiger out … and really, if you can’t trust someone who is willing to carry on an affair with a married person, who can you trust?  I digress.  If they had this in them, why the wait?  It’s not like the scandal industry suddenly sprang up after Tiger crashed his Escalade into that tree.  Naughty texts, and damning voice mails will always be in demand.

All that said, this thing is dead by the time Tiger takes to the links again.  This has all sprang up within two weeks time.  One side effect of that is that we’ve quickly become de-sensitized.  If another woman comes forward tomorrow, already the reaction will be “ho hum, another one?”  It’ll get a little play because there is always more air time than there is legitimate news to fill it.  But unless we discover that Woods is also a heroin addict, the shock has already peaked.

I’m sure some will try to bring it up the first few times Woods is back out in the public domain.  But as I’ve already mentioned, Tiger has been dodging attempts to pry substance out of him for better than a decade.  He’ll manage.

This isn’t to suggest that damage hasn’t been done.  He has gone from “great guy” to great golfer, and well, that’s really where the perception should have been in the first place.  At the end of the day this is just another example of the universe sorting itself out.

So, it looks like this getting together for a beer thing is going to happen.  I was really hoping the FOP would convince Sgt Crowley not to be a part of the charade.  He’s selling his soul.  We’ll have to watch Obama hold himself up as the great arbiter.  And trust me, despite what “we” really means, when O says, “now guys, I think we over-reacted a bit” he means everyone but himself.

This whole thing has me spun up, and thinking about this circus … there is already bile in the the corners of my throat.  Oh, and sorry channel 48, but this is where the Jackson coverage ends.  The Messiah is having a beer with “the guys.”

Anyway, do tell us about teachable moments.  Really.  I’d be curious to hear the President’s counsel regarding taking a position on an issue about which one is uninformed.  Do tell.

I’m going to slap the next person who throws out the “I can’t believe you want to talk about this with two wars going on, and double-digit unemployment, and the economy struggling and a health care battle in progress …” dodge.  All of that crap was going on when Obama first decided to broach the subject, and all that crap will still going to be going on when they get together for this photo opp, errr, “beer.”

And by the way, yes it was Obama’s decision to go there in the first place.  What?  You think last week the Administration suddenly decided to stop planting questions in their pressers?

So, ok, if Crowley is being made to endure this, fine.  Do it right.  Bust out the beer bong.  Or better yet, challenge the two candy-ass Harvard Mary’s to a game of quarters.  You want to play “regular guy” for the cameras, let’s see it.  Man up.  I don’t want gratuitous pics of Obama with a 3/4 full mug all afternoon.  I want video of him pounding followed by a spontaneous Taco Bell run.  And he needs to top it off by going upstairs and getting bitched at by Michelle because he was supposed to take the dog out and now there’s a mess on the carpet because he was too busy tying one on … that’s “regular guy.”

OK, so this is probably going to be a pretty disorganized rant.  It started simmering back when the Sanford thing broke, and then there was the Young Republican thing last week.  Add in the ongoing stream of dumb-assery that flows from “Republicans” and “Conservatives” in the various corners of online and my pot is about to boil over.

I’ve been watching with great interest how things are trending.  It seems like opportunities abound for the opposition party.  I can’t even call them Republicans because I’m not sure what that means right now, because THEY, those who call themselves Republicans, don’t know what that means.  So, opportunities abound for someone.

But then I read the Sanford thing, other scandals, a recounting of what went on with the YR elections last week, and I just have to shake my head.  And, by the way, I don’t join with the crowd wondering why Michael Steele didn’t get involved in that.  I applaud the man for having the sense to steer clear of that red herring.

The main problem is that “Republicans” for some reason are having trouble grasping that the key missing ingredient here is leadership.  Even if you buy into the line that says you can’t have a central leader when your party is out of power, fine.  The troubling thing is that the party doesn’t appear to have anyone standing by who is ready to fill that role once it does come available again.

Leadership is consistent.  The Republican Party is not.  From the voter on main street, to the senior positions on Capitol Hill, there is no correlation between words and deeds.  It started under GWB when the party that championed fiscal conservatism seized the reins of power and were anything but fiscally conservative.  So I guess the message was, this is the way it should be … except for us, … except right now.

Then you have the various scandals … Sanford was the blow that hurt.  And, btw, I don’t consider what Palin did as a scandal.  Call it a questionable strategic move, a sincere desire to get her family some breathing room, or the first act in a new grand plan that we have yet to see.  Could be any number of things, but certainly not a scandal.  The problem with Sanford is that he let himself become one of the more prominent party leaders in recent months.  Because of that prominence, this was a damaging hit to the party.  So, you know, values, integrity, all good, “except for me.”

But oh, this doesn’t stop there, voters, you who keep returning the same dismal legislators back to Washington every two years.  Don’t even bother telling me about your extremely low approval of this bunch.  The polls that mean something are taken on the second Tuesday in November.  But they are also taken during the spring and early summer months which is where voters are falling short.  They aren’t thinking, aren’t engaging early enough or whatever.  Bottom line is that incumbents are getting through the primaries leaving voters with a hopeless choice.  On the one hand you have an incumbent who sucks, and on the other you have worse … a Democrat.  Too bad.  All across American districts are, in ways that are inconsequential, voicing their disapproval of Congress, except for their Representatives and Senators.  Really, morons.  With your lack of diligence that is exactly what you are saying.  So, apparently every Congressional District in the land is represented by the one good legislator in all of Congress.

So, instead of leading, finding a message, articulating a message and generally being a consistent demonstration of the values they espouse, Republicans continue to play “zinger” politics.  I am astounded to find otherwise intelligent voices still beating the “birth certificate” drum.  Like, if they can just make this thing stick, what?  Seriously, what do you expect for all this effort?

And yes, it can be rightly argued that that’s how the Democrats play, and anything I’ve said here could just as easily apply to them.  Very true.  The difference is, Democrats play that way because they can thanks to the media that they have blocking for them.  When a Democrat is inconsistent, they aren’t really inconsistent, they are “progressive,” “nuanced,” and “out of the box” thinkers.  A Democrat can afford to work at convoluted, petty accusations because once crafted, the media will beat them into the heads of viewers and listeners so persistently that they will gain widespread belief if only by default after no one can even remember that there was another side to the story.

Remember how you felt, about halfway through the third year of GWB’s first term when you heard someone throw out the “stole the election” line?  Remember suddenly realizing what a hack that person was?  Remember the disgust and utter disrespect you had for them?  Well, “birth certificate” crowd, that is what you are already inspiring in those who cross your path.  Move on.  Move on to something substantial.  Move on to something that has a chance of advancing the cause.

Most of all, if you call for it, you’d better be ready to carry that weight.  If you hold yourself out as a leader, then lead, and do so by example.  If you hold yourself out as someone who knows what the hell they are talking about and who is dissatisfied with the job any one of their elected officials are doing, then step up and do something about it!

I was glad to see, today, that some networks still have their eye on the ball and have not let Walter Cronkite’s passing distract them from the very important work of continuing to vet the Michael Jackson story.

Fox headline:  “As Death Toll Rises, Marines Stay Focused in Afghanistan”

I’m surprise to hear of this.  I had forgotten there even was a death toll.  Seems the media stopped providing the daily and running casualty totals back in, roughly, … January!

This is one of the things I need to catch up on from when my sites were down over the weekend.

I’m watching Fox and they’re talking to a Tea Party organizer.  Organizer talks about her event and calls it a gathering of conservatives or something along those lines.  Fox anchor is puzzled.  She observes that a lot of Tea Parties don’t want to be affiliated with a political party.  But this organizer has used the word “Conservative.”  Do they not mind being tied to the Republican Party?

Yes, even on Fox, although admittedly it was the holiday weekend so the “B” team was on.  But in their tiny, photogenic brains, the need for simplicity trumps accuracy.

Conservative = Republican

This is easy to “understand” and doesn’t require a lot of thought or analysis.  In fact it actually requires that there not be a lot of thinking going on.  Because if one were thinking as they observe they might notice, as many of us have, that Conservatives haven’t been fairly represented in Washington, or the media for that matter, in a long, long time.  Upon observing this and then thinking, one might become confused.

Just to be very clear, in case there are any aspiring weekend news anchors reading.  I am a Conservative.  Not a Republican.  OK, actually I am a Republican because in KY you have to be affiliated to participate in the primaries.  But, I am not a locked in Republican vote just because I am a Conservative.  On this front right now the GOP is only marginally favorable to the Democrats, and it is a party in flux trying to find its way, so who knows where we’ll be down the road.  But whatever happens, the calculation remains the same.  My vote follows my Conservative worldview.

So Sarah Palin has stepped off the fast track.  That should make things easier.  Now the MSM can concentrate on crucifying Bobby Jindal.  Well, that and really getting tough with the Press Secretary about whose questions the President is answering.  There’s important work to be done here and Sarah Palin was a mighty distraction, what with the public stubbornly refusing to believe that she was Satan in a red dress.