Given the way the chase for big money has debased our national politics, there’s something truly precious about Arne Duncan’s lecture to the NCAA:
“The narrative for 2012 in college sports is all about the deal, it’s all about the brand. It’s about the big-time college football programs saying ‘Show me the money,’ ” Duncan told an audience of about of 500 NCAA delegates during the keynote luncheon. “Too often, large, successful programs seem to exist in an insular world, a world of their own. Their football and basketball players, sometimes even their coaches, are given license to behave in ways that would be unacceptable elsewhere in higher education or in society at large. Nothing, I mean nothing, does more to erode public faith in intercollegiate sports than the appearance of a double standard.”
Pot, meet kettle.
Then, again, what should we expect from a guy who “praised Emmert for his leadership, his promise of reform and the energy he has brought to the NCAA’s headquarters”? Talk is cheap.
Get The Picture 
Yeah, all that talk – somebody oughta make a rule that only written evidence is accepted. (Except in Alabama of course)
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Let me fix that for you, Arne…
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So for all of the readers who criticized the Senator as a liberal Democrat, here is a dose of reality.
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I think most know that whether Democrat or Republican, DC corrupts equally.
I can’t believe Duncan could actually say something like that knowing he is a political appointee. A speech writer somewhere just got canned.
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“DC corrupts equally”
Barbara Stanwyck: “We’re both rotten!”
Fred MacMurray: “Yeah – only you’re a little more rotten.” -“Double Indemnity” (1944)
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
and then, thanks to Newt
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/01/then-war-broke-out-in-republican-heaven.html
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There are posters who accuse any and all that they disagree with as having that label. That shows how out of touch they are and extreme in any kind of relationship, whether it be politics or blogging. It is trite, old fashioned and easily recognized by others as pome de rue. As long as they furnish comic relief to reality nowadays, don’t disturb the little trolls. I’m sure the Senator’s head is reeling from such accusations. Not.
Reform is a political word that conjures up lollipops in naive heads. The Senator’s food for thought here conjures up hypocrisy and that’s as good a word for sports and politics as the word “Reform”. It’s the followup activity after the “reform” has happened. That’s pretty much the picture I painted from his words and the political link.
Duncan could not have expressed the Senator’s position more than if Bluto wrote it. The Senator has been on a crusade that’s affixed to only one star with surrounding point subjects cting as planets. That star is the power of college football players and their welfare. His points are consistently aimed in that direction and although some of us disagree as to how to get there, we don’t disagree on the substance of his premise- a college football player’s right for power in this political morass called college football that is in full swing of creation. He wants something to emerge that represents the individual player’s power to dictate his/ her future choices similar to how it represents those receiving power over player’s lives and who receive benefits from the sweat of the player’s brow. Some of us disagree with the Senator on nit-pickin’ how to get there, but no one should make the mistake that we disagree on the basic principle he is espousing daily. It ain’t liberal. It is as conservative as human decency lifting a voice for the powerless. Isn’t that a principle for conservative politics as well as liberal?
My point is that let’s not let anything deteriorate the premise of the Senator’s principles (as he openly outlines and espouses) when blogging on the subject, but instead support and shape with argument those points he wishes to proceed with in his campaign for the players. If his readership is indeed as introspective and learned as he says, the least we can do for him is try to live up to it and help him in his campaign. Anyone with a brain in their head should see that he works his ass off to furnish us an opinion platform on affairs affecting our Dawgs. Sometimes people like me don’t show appreciation by sliding all over his blog and commenting willy-nilly with some humor and some sarcasm (none of it well done nor received as such), but I enjoy it and manage to have fun even though I’m sure his tolerant patience and sense of fairness is pushed to the limit. This is my chance to say “Thanks” for the platform and the chance to meet with many good people who write and express themselves well, Senator.
Please excuse the jerky handwriting.
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It’s been that way since Year 1 of Ronald Reagan’s First Four Year Plan
“The worst thing you could do would be to somehow take the most terrible people in the world, and make them even greater douches than they already are. Find a way to zero in on all of their ugliest faults and vices, and just… just amp them up beyond belief. That would be something.”
http://paulbibeau.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-was-shitting-you-people-message-from.html
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The squirrel committing suicide at the end of the Ann Rand bit was hilarious! Thanks.
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Sorry. “Ayn Rand”.
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Poor Bluto. Sitting there trying to figure out if he should write, “You dumb shit, you just screwed over my point concerning politics finding it’s way into the other evils that can befall college football as we know it. And you’re not even friggin’ funny!”
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The problem is that it is hard to be elected to any office and hold to your principles, assuming you had any.
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I detest agreeing with cynicism, but in this case you are correct.
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