Niblets for everyone!
- We’re starting to see the juniors-considering-early-entry-to-the-NFL-draft stories, some typical, some perhaps more interesting. I wonder how much of an impact the unsettled NFL labor situation will have on this. It’s something to keep an eye on.
- It sounds like there’s been some rough sailing in Gainesville over the last month.
- Junior gets compared to Nixon.
- Sure, this is rumor mongering, but it’s quality rumor mongering.
- George Will is a little too patrician for my taste when it comes to opining about sports, but when sports and politics intersect, he can have his moments. Like this one: “Barton believes in limited government, but not so limited that it cannot right outrageous wrongs, such as the absence of a playoff. Bipartisanship lives: Barack Obama, who wants to fix everything — health care, the climate, the pothole on your street, college football — also wants a playoff.”
- I share Rex Robinson’s frustration over the perception that Leigh Kiffin’s Tiffin’s year surpassed Blair Walsh’s.
- Why should we care what Charles Barkley thinks about Gene Chizik?
- Here’s an interesting riff off of a stats-driven post of mine.
- When Alabama complains, the SEC listens.
Get The Picture 
Leigh Tiffen?
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Tiffin, imo
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Jesus – talk about your Freudian slips. Thanks.
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Damn, I’ll quickly admit that Bama’s beef is legit, and it should certainly be addressed. Even if that happened to Mississippi State, it should be addressed.
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Come on guys, if it was happening to Georgia, you guys would be complaining too. Alabama will have to play the final 6 (that’s right, six) SEC games with the opposing team coming off a bye week. That is quite a disparity with the rest of the league.
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I don’t question that it should be addressed, but it’s not a sudden development either. In 2008, Tennessee got stuck playing every division opponent except Vandy off of a bye week and we didn’t hear much about it then.
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There ought to be a league rule about this. All SEC conference games should have to be played within a certain time and NOBODY gets any weeks off during the league schedule, period. FLA has been using this against UGA for years. That was the main trick Spurrier used to flip the UGA-FLA series in FLA’s direction. Only recently has the UGA Athletic Department wised up. As the Senator correctly pointed out, UT got snookered by this in 2008, which led directly to a 5-6 season and to the firing of CPF. Maybe the UT AD should have gotten the ax, too.
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Global War on Lane (GWOL) Crisis of the Day (COD) Piece: “Go Ahead. Make My Day. Compare Me to a President.” 16 December 2009
0930 hours, Continental breakfast, TraveLodge, Hogtown a/k/a Gainesville
Layla Two calls in the a.m. intel report to Lane who is holed up in Gainesville on way to Ft. Lauderdale on a recruiting mission. Lane thought as a practical joke that he might drop by and visit with Urban like the Patriots coach, the same guy who Nick hangs around, does so Lane could impart some of his knowledge to Urban based on Lane’s moral victory over him. So far every time he calls Urban’s office, the Urb’s receptionist hangs up on him. Except the last time when she told Lane that Urban is having enough problem with the rats fleeing the ship down here now
and the last thing Urban needs is a face-to-face with Lane. Lane asks why and the receptionist says it’s because Urb is afraid he would lose his trademark sense of humor with Lane and does not want to risk the bad PR.
Lane asks what’s up and Layla Two tells him that the New York Times is comparing him to Dick Nixon. Lane asks in what way and Two says she can’t get into the NYT link because she is too lazy to set up a user ID and password. Lane says that’s okay because he doesn’t like to be bothered with stuff like that either. Lane goes on to tell Two that it’s cool to be compared to a President. Two reminds Lane that Tricky Dick didn’t exactly leave under the best of circumstances when they extracted him from DC but Lane says who cares?
They tried to force out W. who like Lane was born was a silver spoon in his mouth as reported on by the Senator way back when. The Senator did that when his mind was not as preoccupied as it is now with Freudian Slips such as the one Tokyo Rose wore. Now W. is making the big bucks talking at Amway-like seminars and riding his bicycle around just like he did nothing wrong and to W. he didn’t but it was because W. was always like that since he could remember when he was a boy sticking M-80’s up in horned frogs asses, lighting the fuses and blowing them up.
Just like me, figuratively but not literally, Lane said. W. refused to go and what W. did makes Nixon look like a Nobel Prize winner. Lane tells Two that comparing Lane to W. rather than Nixon is the more apt comparison and that somebody wrote what they thought was some bad stuff about W. but Lane says you could take out his name and replace it with Lane’s had Lane slacked his way through HBS and Lane would still think it’s a good thing. You’ve always got to have a plan and work your plan especially when your plan is to be a dunce…
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/16/tsurumi/index.html
Back to the daily report, Lane tells Two that Lane has never heard or seen such outrageous and distorted reporting against him. Especially from the enemy correspondents throughout the league including but not limited to the Senator guy. Lane says what those enemy correspondents do and say about Lane is frantic and hysterical. Two asks Lane if he is mad at the correspondents.
Lane tells Two that, “One can only be angry with those he respects.” Two, perplexed, asks Lane again if he is mad at the enemy correspondents and Lane tells her, “Listen grasshopper, it’s a parable… I don’t respect them or any of the propaganda, misinformation and disinformation that those enemy correspondents dream up.”
Lane tells Two he’s got to get back to the Continental breakfast before all the croissants are gone because a church bus just pulled up in the motel parking lot and some hungry looking people are deplaning but Lane in a magnanimous gesture tells Layla Two, “I forgive them for they know not what they do…” Two hangs up and wonders why anyone would compare Lane to Nixon because at least Nixon had to work his way up before he was run out and at least the Chinese liked him…
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Tiffen being selected over Walsh as first team All-SEC is an indication the “Heisman mentality” is creeping in our direction. Other than he played on a team that won the SEC an had a better record, how is this a contest? Do you think ANY team would select Tiffin to make a kick, of ANY distance over Walsh? Not even Saban, and maybe not Tiffen’s parents.
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I suspect Will’s politics may have something to do with your views of him; he’s one of the more forthright and honest columnists out there, someone who doesn’t shill out for political parties and is therefore capable of providing honest analysis (admittedly from a conservative perspective).
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And I suspect that Will’s politics have something to do with your critique of my observation about him. 😉
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George Will may be beyond shilling for the remnants of the political parties as they exist today but most are still pretty sure that he’s not a left-winger. In fact, George has taken it to the next level because he now shills for special interests and, after all, who doesn’t?
In fact, this treehugger has already given a Platimum Award to George based on his fine work in smiting science while being the wing-man shilling for Big Oil courtesy of the Washington Post. Science is a big-time change for George from his past body of work and especially about the thing he knows most about but, unfortunately for him, fewer and fewer people care about: major league baseball.
Check out the picture of George in his role as a ‘scientist’ gathering facts for a column on climate change while watching a baseball game…
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Since the Senator described Will as “too patrician” I don’t think that ‘class envy’ should be so easily dismissed as a charge as well.
Time and again this page rails on about Ari Fleicher in seemingly equal parts about what he is PAID to say about the BCS system given his employment status as well as the author’s lingering resentment about Mr. Fleicher’s past employment. However, the Anti-BCS crowd has its own partisan political hack playing the role of mouthpiece as of late, none other than James Carville…a man who himself did the bidding of his own scandal ridden previous master. And yet nary a word about Mr. Carville. Equal treatment of the characters representing each side in the media would be a great improvement when this subject is discussed on these pages…better still would be a focus on that which is actually germane to the subject at hand.
In the end, the original caricature and all subsequent comments remind us that mixing politics with sports commentary only serves to assuage the writer’s ego and earn him plaudits from like-minded pundits rather than provide any substance to his readers.
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A pox on both their houses.
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Just curious – have you even bothered to search “Carville” in the archives at GTP?
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Perhaps I should have been clearer…”And yet nary a word about Mr. Carville” should have been “And yet nary a word about Mr. Carville’s political beliefs or performance reviews.”
To answer your question: Yes…”(F)ormer Clinton political operative” is the sum total of the comment of what Carville thinks, said, or did outside of his current comments on football.
As I stated above, equal treatment would have Fleischer decribed once every 7 articles as “former Bush political operative” without further comment on his past employment/performance. Politics and sports commentary are a bad mix…always have been, always will be.
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You honestly don’t see a difference between one being a hired operative and the other merely expressing his own opinion? To me, that’s an enormous difference. If Carville had been retained by, say, the Mountain West Conference to promote its agenda, his political background would be worth delving into and criticizing. Indeed, Fleischer hasn’t been worthy of mention here until he was retained by the BCS. I don’t see the equivalence there, quite frankly.
It’s pretty clear that you’ve got a political axe of your own to grind in making this criticism, and that’s alright by me. But I’ve got to tell you that your conclusion isn’t realistic, at least not during a time when we’ve got Congress, the President and at least one state’s Attorney General making noises about a college football playoff. I intend to continue to post about that, so if you want to skip over it when I do, I won’t be offended.
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You are making my point. Fleischer, as the PAID EMPLOYEE of the BCS, is saying what he is paid to say. That is his job description.
What he thinks today or five years ago and who he previously worked for has no bearing on the statements he is PAID to make as the BCS spokesperson.
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Interesting point. And if I were criticizing Fleischer for what he was saying, it might be valid. But seeing as I’m criticizing the messenger (really the people who thought it was a good idea to hire this particular messenger) rather than the message, it’s irrelevant.
Or are you saying that if somebody is paid to do something, he or she is beyond criticism, regardless of well the task is performed?
And let me remind you that the post you’re commenting about wasn’t about Ari Fleischer (you brought him into the discussion, remember), but something George Will wrote. Is he a paid spokesperson, too? If not, what’s your point?
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As a libertarian who is contemptuous of both parties with no dog in this fight, I would just like to point out that Robert Gibbs is a smug idiot as well. Can’t we just hire attractive women to be the WH spokesperson? It would be more tolerable to be talked down and lied to by a pretty face.
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Common ground at last… 😉
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By the way, that response is inaccurate.
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I’m willing to overlook your mild case of Bush Derangement Syndrome given the otherwise good works you provide us with, Senator;)
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**Sniff** I love you, man. **Sniff**
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I often overlook the Senator’s Bush Derangement Syndrome, but it does get tired and I hate that he often mixes politics with sports. I mean the entire discussion of Fleischer is so absurd. Virtually all persons in his position are shills and political hacks who have little intellecutal integrity. But I doubt you’d make an issue of it if it were a Democrat and harp on it all the time. You’re welcome to do it, but I can tell you that I doubt I’m alone in saying that people won’t keep overlooking it if you keep making it such a prominent part of your site. When I read the Will article a few days ago, I thought you might refer to it. Then I thought “maybe he won’t” because I knew that, given the comments in your blog, you lean pretty hard left. Then when I did see the reference, instead of just saying “Here is a good George Will article on the subject,” you add to preface it with the absurd comment about him being too patrician about sports (he’s also written, in addition to articles and books about baseball, articles about many other sports, including college football, that are hardly patrician).
Just say he wrote a good article and be done with it. When you add the commentary, you continue to mix the sports with your idelogical leanings, which really don’t come into play in the sports arena unless you’re one of those morons who thinks that hypocrisy is confined to one particular political party rather than politicans. I’ve always sensed that you’re a leftist, but I’ve never considered you to be a moron. And I still don’t.
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Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a lifelong libertarian. I’ve never voted for a Democrat for President – and that goes back to 1976.
You act like the word ‘patrician’ is insulting. Here’s the definition: befitting or characteristic of persons of very good background, education, and refinement. What part of that isn’t descriptive of Will?
All I’m saying is that he’s not the kind of guy I’m gonna expect to share a tailgate with, knocking back beers and eating fried chicken – and that’s more a reflection of me than him.
As for your if-he-were-a-Democrat-I-bet-you-wouldn’t point, feel free to do a check of the archives for “Obama” and get back to me.
The real problem, I think, is that you fans of Bush and others of his ilk are overly sensitive about it.
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Hah! Okay.
As for the notion that people are “Bush fans,” I’ll let others speak for themselves, but I’m decidedly not a Bush supporter. I’m very libertarian, which is why I’m pretty hard on Bush and even harder on Democrats (go visit CATO sometime and you’ll find that Libertarians tend to be harder on those who actually try to legislate rather than those who mostly pontificate). But your comments seem so one-sided that it certainly appears that you’re more anti-Bush (a position I can’t fault anyone for) than other politicians who deserve similar treatment. Our current President has interjected himself as much as any President before him on this issue, and the statement you have above “mocks” him like SNL mocks him, which is to say not at all. He’s trying to fix everything, including college football. Oh, the shame! And no, I’m not suggesting you mock him just to mock him. What I’m saying is that if you want to mock politicians and come across as someone who is politically disinterested, you don’t pick on one guy by joking about how he’s trying to do too much while assailing the others for being complete morons for bringing the issue up.
In any event, it was a futile gesture to bring the subject up, as it will have zero impact. That is a shame because I consider this to be a very good sports blog.
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First and most important, thanks for the blog praise.
Turning to the substance of your comment, though, I ask again – have you bothered to check my archives? Please type “Obama” into the search box and read what turns up. It’s always nice to find someone professing libertarian beliefs following my blog, but I can’t help but feel that either your memory is a bit selective on this subject, or you haven’t been reading here very long.
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Here are a couple of great quotes from Joe Barton addressing a bill to regulate the noise level of television commercials:
[i]Texas Rep. Joe L. Barton, the regulation-wary top Republican on the House committee that oversees telecommunications, asked rhetorically, “If we’re going to dictate the noise level . . . what about commercials that advertise products that we don’t particularly care for?” [/i]
[i]But Barton, suggesting Congress had better things to do, said sarcastically: “In this spirit of things that annoy us, I’d like Congresswoman Eshoo to introduce a bill soon to repeal the excessive-celebration rule in sports. It just really irritates me when my team scores a touchdown and they get penalized because they hold the football up.”[/i]
Awesome. Maybe John Barrow can read these quotes at Barton’s next BCS hearing.
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link, btw
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-loud-commercials14-2009dec14,0,4886590.story
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I’d just like to say, as an obsessive visitor to this blog and a committed leftie, I know the Senator ain’t in my camp. Anyone who is mistaking this commentary for liberal gibberish aught to ask a liberal what he/she thinks. From where I’m sitting, this site really needs to try harder before I consider it an endorsement of my politics.
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Thanks. I think. 😉
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Gute. abgerechnet wird. Wir sind nun alle Kommunisten!
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