Some are calling yesterday’s fiasco the “Beer Summit” because, well, the media would be loathe to let such a gratuitous pander-fest pass without slapping some kitschy label on it. Personally, I prefer to use the other, more common and time-worn b.s. phrase. Far more accurate.

Really, I both love and hate events like this. I love it when politicians try to stage photo opps that attempt to make them look like a “regular guy doing regular stuff,” because the situation usually serves to underscore the opposite – that the guy couldn’t be less regular, or less versed in the activities and mindset of regular folk.

Yesterday’s B.S. was no exception. Couple of guys sitting around having beers. Couldn’t be more All American, right? Well, it could have been if they had all just fetched their own long-necks out of the fridge or taken turns at the tap instead of having some servant in a 3 pc suit walk it out to them, one mug at a time on a silver platter. And, by the way, everyone in the group doesn’t normally get to pick their own brand. You drink what the host has, or what someone brought. The criteria go in this order: cold, free, brand. When the top two are met the third is irrelevant.

And then, of course, it would have helped if they hadn’t been in their suits and ties. Seriously, in the middle of summer, 4 guys sitting around dressed for Sunday? That doesn’t say “chillin’” That says, “Oh my God, when is this going to end?!”

Also, I don’t care if Joe Biden is the one in the group who most looks like he’s had a beer or two in his day, as many have observed. Joe Biden is also the one who talks like he’s had a beer or twenty in the last five minutes! So, you cringe when he shows up because now you have to listen to his stories.

So, in summary on the “love” part, thanks to B.O. and his lap dog media for the B.S. … as usual.

Since I clearly enjoy mocking, what is there to hate about these charades? Simple. The second intended purpose of these things is to distract from, or flat out ignore the obvious hypocrisy. As I’ve already observed, B.O. laments what a big issue this has become and how the need for a race “discussion” (who would have thought I’d come to hate the word “discussion”) still exists, yet he’s the one who blew the issue up, and he’s the one who contributed mightily to making it all about race.

Paul at PowerLine summed it up best:

“Yet when the rubber met the road, Gates didn’t hesitate to level baseless charges of racism in an extremely aggressive manner. And Obama didn’t hesitate to attack the white police officer before he had the facts.

This suggests to me that, as far as African-Americans are concerned, “race politics” will continue unabated, as if Obama had never been elected president.”

Whew.  I finally filled in the missing piece(s) on my __ & Haddad mystery.

Turns out it was “Whitman, Price and Haddad” who were frequently hailed as “last season’s winners” by Richard Dawson’s character in The Running Man.  I guess Haddad stuck with me because it was not as plain as “Whitman” and “Price.”  Who knows?

One thing I do know – now that I have re-established this information I’ve sentenced myself to another 20 years of this taking up brain space that might be better used for remembering whether or not I remembered to close the garage door.

OK, this is driving me nuts.  With any luck I can spread it around.  I just had to process something for a person named “Haddad.”

This got me thinking, naturally, of Running Man, where Richard Dawson kept talking about the two runners who had been successful, supposedly, and were now basking on a beach somewhere.  Of course Ahnuld cracked that case.  Anyway, their names were __ and Haddad.  Fill in the __.

This also solves another mystery … why sometimes I couldn’t find my car keys if I were holding them in my hand.  It’s because I’ve got fragments of useless 20-yr old trivia taking up space in my brain.

If I’ve been able to plant a mental pea under the mattress of anyone’s afternoon calm, this will all have been worth it.

P.S.  I’ll Google it and post the answer later.

Michael Vick is back in the NFL … sort of.  Two pre-season games, and then week 6 he can cleat up in earnest.  Of course there’s a little matter of finding an employer.  But, even if the pickings are slim at first, by week 6 some team will be desperate enough (ahem … Cincinnati, you know they’re already drooling over his rap sheet resume) to take a flyer on him.

So, there’s a lot of “he’s already paid his debt to society” talk going around, most notably from a certain Buffalo WR who has a vested interest in lenience among NFL fans.  And it is true.  He has paid his debt to “society,” which is why he is out of prison and free to circulate.  So he is now free to play football … in Canada, Europe, Japan (they have it there now, weird), the Arena League or the UFL (which I don’t even know what that is, but they were talking about it on SportCenter).

But he won’t.  He wants back in the NFL.  Why?  Because that is the bluest chip of all sports leagues.  Commissioner Goodell is trying to maintain that by keeping a tight rein on his problem children.  Once again, even before the whole dog-fighting business came out Vick was a repeat thug.  Honestly, I never saw what he did on the field that bought such grace.  He was quite dazzling in leading his team to mediocre finishes most seasons.

To his credit, Vick has taken the right tack so far.  He’s been seen and not heard.  His is not one of the complaining voices.  When all is said and done, I doubt Goodell’s remedy will have made much difference.  Two years away from playing at NFL-speed … what are the odds Vick would be ready to flash and dash week one anyway?

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.”

The moment I realized Rickey Henderson was something special:

We had tickets for the Yankees vs. Brewers.  Great seats, a few rows back halfway between the third base dugout and home.  I mention this only to say that we were up close and personal.  First inning, first pitch of the game … crack!  You know, one of those perfect hits.  A strong hitter might not even be aware that he has hit the ball.  Henderson’s smooth power sends a line drive into the left field bleachers.  It was a rope, still ascending when it got lost in the crowd.  And like I said, that’s when I realized, this is a baaaad man!

You know about the speed.  The base-stealing.  You know he’s the consummate leadoff hitter.  But that day I looked at him and noticed that the guy was built just as much for power if he wanted it.  But why, when he goes on runs where he’s as good as on second half the time that he steps to the plate.

He may have evolved into somewhat of a screwball personality-wise, but Henderson was a pure athlete.  If you’re starting a team and can have anyone in history, this is the guy you want tormenting opposing pitchers from the get-go.

Henderson was elected to the Hall with 95% of the votes, his first time on the ballot.  It’s pretty overwhelming by Hall voting standards, but I would still love to pick the brains of the other 5%.

First of all, I’m the NRA and I vote … and carry a gun.  However I don’t join my fellow conservatives and 2nd Amendment causists who lament this week’s defeat of the Thune Amendment which would have forced states to honor the concealed carry licenses granted by other states.

I’ve go to admit, it can be a pain in the ass.  On my phone I have a chart that outlines which states will reciprocate my KY license and what the others’ policies are.  But that’s ok.  The 2nd Amendment grants me the right to bear arms – it doesn’t promise that it should be easy.  And in this day and age, I’m ok with someone having to jump through a few hoops before they can lawfully carry a deadly weapon.  As long as it is reasonably possible I don’t have a quarrel with the ground rules a state may enact.

When it comes to my fellow conservatives I just have to shake my head and continue to wait.  Wait for them to get it.  Wait for something resembling core values to emerge.  You know, principles that remain firm, regardless of the situation.

In other words …

ARE YOU FOR STATES’ RIGHTS OR NOT?!

We don’t want the Feds jamming government-run health care down our throats, but a wide open gun policy imposed by Washington is ok?

Let me just remind everyone, for the umpteenth time, that this is how we got to where we are.  This same double standard.  We become fiscal conservatives when the other party has the checkbook, but when we’re making the purchases it’s an orgy of government spending.

So, I continue to wait and watch my fellow conservatives, hoping to detect a little something I like to call consistency.

I guess whether or not you consider President Obama a great orator, or public speaker or whatever depends on how you define those terms.  When I think of an orator, I think of someone who was involved not just in the delivery but also the formulation.

Has it not become clear that about all Obama is good at is the very last step – the reading of the speech.  His ventures without a teleprompter have been disastrous.  When fielding questions that haven’t been pre-screened he stammers for five minutes and still finally blurts out ridiculousness.

But his latest presser reveals just how amateur he is as a speaker.  He had, or should have had one single goal, one basic purpose for that hour:  to drum up support for public health care.  He failed miserably.  Even when he was actually talking about health care he failed.  He couldn’t resist getting in some digs at Republicans, which did nothing to advance his cause.

But then, in his grand blunder, he allowed himself to be lured into on last question about the Cambridge Police story.  OK, actually that part was probably set up in advance, making it that much more of a blunder.  Setting aside the substance of the case, it was a mistake simply because it distracted from what he said about health care.  OK, had he said something about health care that he would have wanted people to dwell on, it would have been a mistake.  The point is, the day after this great pep rally, half the conversation was about the Cambridge story.  Well played.

I’m just laughing.  Laughing at all the hubbub, the uproar.  Some SEC coach had the nerve, the audacity, nay, the unmitigated gall to not vote Tim Tebow for the preseason, all-SEC first team.  Gasp!  Perhaps less surprising, that coach was Steve Spurrier, the Ol’ Ball Coach!

Spurrier has since back-tracked and blamed the error on an assistant who filled out his ballot which disappoints me.  I would have really loved it if he had done this on purpose just to stick his thumb in the media’s eye.  And yes, this is about the media, not Tebow.  In the ensuing storm, every coach at SEC media days wound up having to talk a fair bit about Tebow.  Hilarious.

This is why people are so sick of Tebow – because it is no longer good enough to simply acknowledge his excellence and move on.  No, the media insists on going over the top and hunting to the farthest reaches of the SEC anyone who won’t join them. 

It’s a shame because people are forming all these bad feelings about a guy who by all appearances is a class act.  He can’t help it the media is an army of unimaginative dorks.  So here’s rooting for Tebow and the Gators to kick ass this season, but also promising to keep the discussion proportional.

When the Roethlisberger story broke, his legal team wasted no time in getting to the microphones and proclaiming his innocence.  Of course with a statement like this one, you wonder if they might have been wise to pause for a moment:

"Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone, especially not Andrea McNully."

I guess I’m just wondering how one goes about taking it to a whole other level of … not rape.

There are people Roethlisberger generally didn’t rape but then there is this select list of women that he really outdid himself in not raping.  It’s got to bother a QB somewhat.  After putting all that extra effort into not raping someone and this is the thanks he gets.