Barack Obama and the College Football Playoffs

Barack Obama said on "60 Minutes" that he knows of no serious fan of college football who is against a playoff system. Well, I suppose we've never met, but a playoff would ruin college football and would not even add fairness.

The way the system works now, the only way a team can assure itself a shot at the national championship is to win all its games. Lose one, a team may still have a chance. Lose two: no chance. This system means that every game is critical, including the games early in the year. In the NFL, by contrast, a team can lose its first game and its second, and few more, and still make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. In other words, every team has four or five games it can easily afford to lose.

In the college game as it stands, every week is do or die. It's as if the entire season were the playoffs. Sure a team one-loss teams like USC or Florida can argue it is better now than undefeated Texas Tech or Alabama. But if USC is so good, it should not have lost to Oregon State this year or Stanford last year. But when every team knows it has to win every week, then the entire season is like a playoff. And that's what makes every game exciting-- unlike the pros.

Also, why is it more important-- and more a sign of quality-- to win the last week of the season as compared to the first. An inferior team can get lucky or have a good day and win the playoffs, especially when it's a one game playoff. A team that wins every week (or every week but one) is not just lucky, it's good and it has earned its championship.

Is Africa a continent or a country? Discuss

Here is Sarah Palin defending herself in today's Times:

'I remember having a discussion with a couple of debate preppers,' she said. 'So if it came from one of those debate preppers, you know, that’s curious. But having a discussion about Nafta — not, "Oh my goodness, I don’t know who is a part of Nafta."'

'So, no, I think that if there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about Nafta, and about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context,' Ms. Palin said. 'And that’s cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks, if they came away with it taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It is not fair and not right.'

If our culture, even our political culture, were not so celebrity obsessed, no one would even be discussing whether Palin might be able to "rehabilitate herself" or whether seh might someday be ready for national office. Any adult who needs a debate prepper to discuss "the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there" would otherwise be ruled out.

Whether or not she asked for the clothes or kept the clothes, whether or not she was a diva, Palin's idea that she, despite her ignorance, might be somehow qualified for high office bepeaks a sense of entitlement that's off the charts.

Fortunately, Palin seems to be cementing her status as a national joke. Her real goal, not actually denied, seems to be a talk show gig. But she may even be too dumb for that.

The Real Media Bias: Closer than You Think

Anyone who's ever watched a football game on television (or any othe sport) should be familiar with announcers who keep pointing out the path by which the losing team can come back. The Cowboys may be down 15 points with five minutes left but stay tuned because they only need two scores plus a two-point conversion to tie. Not only is a comeback a good story, it keeps the eyeballs on the ads.

So it goes with debate and campaign coverage. As I watched the debate last night, I though Obama clearly won. And he's way ahead in the race. But everyone on CNN was saying that it was McCain's best night, that he was the aggressor, yada, yada, yada, even if it may not have been a game changer-- at least until the polls showed that American saw Obama winniing big. When David Gergen said that McCain is really out of options, the other folks on st laughed because Gergen is really not supposed to say that.

The media's real bias is not left or right, it's to hype the story. Nothing in the news is as important as it seems to be when you are watching it. (Also true of life, by the way.) Thus all campaign coverage must be viewed with the knowledge that the TV networks want -- need -- viewers to think this is stlll anyone's game.

Associations and Double Standards

Unlike the ralliers and screechers on talk radio, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, makes a serious case that Barack Obama's associations with "unrepentant terrorist" Bill Ayers (as well as convicted felon and the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright) is a serious issue. The idea is that we choose our friend and the choice speaks to character.

But what the attacks on Obama's association with Ayers (who I believe is repentant as to his methods, but not his goals) omit is the context of their association. Had Obama known and supported Ayers at the time he was planting bombs, of course, that would say something about Obama. But that's not what happened. The two were associated in the educational work of the Annenberg Foundation, work that was not only legal, but laudable. Many others in the Chicago establishment were involved in that work as well. Are they all now tarred by what Ayers had done a generation earlier?

Of course not: the very idea implies that we are all responsible for vetting the life records of everyone we work with and that, even if we know our colleagues' past, there is no such thing as rehabilitation or second chances. To say that is un-American.

There is also a huge double standard at work.

John McCain associated with convicted felon Charles Keating. Not only that, he did so when Keating was committing his crimes, and even carried water for him. But no one says that this old association disqualifies McCain.

McCain is also associated with his wife, whose father Jim Hensley was a convicted felon. Hensley's crime happened many years before McCain met Cindy, but by the Ayer's analogy, McCain should still bear some guilt.

Also: If Michelle Obama's father had gone to jail, that would be a huge issue.

Sarah teen-aged Palin's daughter got pregnant. If Obama's daughter had done the same, people would wonder a lot more about Obama. (Though I suppose in Palin's case, there are so many bigger problems to marvel at.)

Finally, McCain led the charge to make peace with Vietnam, a nation that killed thousands of Americans (and nearly McCain). But we take McCain's work to be to his credit. By the Ayers analogy, McCain would be an associate of unrepentant murderous communists, and not just one, but thousands.

The Idiot from Wasilla is Graded on a Curve

The punditocracy has declared (here, here and here) that Sarah Palin “passed” her big test in her debate with Joe Biden. By that they mean she didn’t sound like a blithering idiot the way she did talking to Katie Couric. True, she was not that bad.

But when the school dumbs the test down enough, anyone can pass, but there’s a catch. People know the standards are low so at the end of the day they don’t give much credit for meeting them. Besides, there were a few moron moments, such as when Gov. Palin was discussing the Constitution as it applies to the vice presidency, the office she seeks:

MODERATOR GWEN IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also. [See full transcript.]

Those founding fathers—God bless ‘em.

It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations applied to candidates for national office.

The Latest Lawsuit Against the TLC

Another lawsuit against the TLC was filed today, this one challenging the TLC's hybrid cab rules, a program pushed by Mayor Bloomberg. The case is being prosecuted mainly by taxi fleet owners, not taxi drivers, who I have represented. The fleets say that the hybrid cars have nit been tested against the rigors of 24-hour driving on NYC streets. Legally, the major claims are that the TLC's rules regarding minimum mileage standards for taxi cabs are preempted by federal laws that mandate that only the federal givernment may regulate gas mileage standards. The lawyers on the case are from Emery Celli, a prominent civil rights firm that has some recent successes in strip search class action cases.

Given that NYC taxis drive almost exclusively in dense urban traffic, where a hybrid's advantage in mileage is most pronounced, why are the taxi fleets so adamantly against Mayor Bloomberg's plan? The answer is taxi economics.

While the taxi fleets (and other non-driving taxi owners) purchase and maintain cars, the taxi drivers pay for gas. So the fleets bear the costs of maintaining more expensive vehicles, which may be more costly to maintain, but the drivers get the benefit of better mileage. And the fleets have never much cared about drivers.

In stark contrast to the draconian programs that affect drivers, which have been enacted without any legitimate process, it is clear even from the complaint in the fleet's action that the TLC, in promulgating the mileage regulaitons, allowed for public hearings, notice and comment.

Two reasons why Giuliani hates community organizers

Former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani got a big laugh when he mocked community organizers. But it's not a trivial point. Republicans dislike community organizers because they reject the idea of collective solutions. If you need a park, get a backyard. if you need a job, get it yourself, or, more accurately, from your family and social connections.

Giuliani's distaste for community organizers is less political and more visceral. Community organizers try to help people without power, and themselves have little power. Giuliani's style is to mock the powerless and his belief is that he knows what's best so input from unelected types (or even lesser elected officials is entirely unwelcome.

McCain and the Base

It seems to me that Sarah Palin is more popular with the delegates (and perhaps the hard core base) than is John McCain. The fact is McCain is minority candidate in the party. If there had been a single right wing stalwart (like George Bush) instead of the four headed doofus of Romney, Huckabee, Thompson and Giuliani, he would have lost. So now he is not even particularly popular with his party. So he needs Palin and the Christian right, who he used to attack.

The Company He Keeps

Listening to the Republicans laud Senator McCain and especially his heroic biography, it's pretty convincing. The problem is that as McCain has neared the nomination, the quality of his company has deteriorated. Now he sucks up the the Christian right, to the creep Giuliani, and to the anti-science Sarah Palin. And the people in the hall ...

Palin is "electrifying" the crowd by saying that you can trust McCain never to waiver, but by picking Palin, he has done just that, turned back on his principles and beliefs.

The Third Best Palin

I know as much about these others as I know about Sarah Palin, which is to say next to nothing. But if John McCain was looking for a woman governor to run with, there are two others who seem superior to Palin. Jodi Rell of Connecticut has been governor for four years and was lieutenant governor before that. She is even married to a former navy pilot. She's popular and has been re-elected. Problem is: she's considered a liberal Republican.

Or McCain could have gone to the other extra-continental state, Hawaii, and picked Linda Lingle. Lingle was elected in a very Democratic state, unlike Alaska. Lingle served as Maui County mayor, councilmember, and chaired the Hawaii GOP. As of November 20, 2006, her approval rating stood at 71% with only 24% disapproval, according to Answers.com. But Lingle is jewish. So picking either Lingle or Rell would, in a way, have been a slap at McCain BFFL Joe Lieberman.

How do you say Quayle in Alaskan: Palin

It's wrong to say that McCain picking Palin is like Bush I picking Quayle. Palin is more like someone Quayle would pick.

I expect that there will be some sort of scandal or gaffe will force Palin off the ticket before long.

At least everyone will have a compelling interest in keeping McCain, 72, healthy and alive.

Historically nuts.

80,000

It's fantastic that Obama can get 80,000 folks to a political rally. It's obvious that he has a huge lead in enthusiasm. And maybe McCain can't get 10,000 or ven 5,000 to his events. But here's the thing: an unenthusiastic, even apathetic vote counts just as much as a heartfelt one. Maybe it shouldn't. But it does.

We are Family -- or Maybe Not

Why did the Democratic Convention change the lyrics of "We Are Family"?

The lyric written by Sister Sledge goes:

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing

The convention changed it to:

We are family
I got everybody with me...

Is "sisters" too black?

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State

Since Barack Obama selected Joe Biden (and before that too) the party faithful and the pundits have mused mightily about why he did not select Hillary Clinton instead. After all, she is the only one out there with a large base of voters. To me the answers are obvious: (1) After the strain of the primaries, Obama just did not like Hillary; (2) choosing Clinton would show weakness, not strength in that Obama would seem to need Clinton and would be overshadowed by both Hillary and Bill Clinton; (3) the Republicans would be able to run ad after ad of the VP candidate attacking Obama. They already did this truck with Biden, but with Clinton it would be much, much worse.

Because Hillary Clinton does have support and because she is very smart and knowledgeable, Obama should give her something else: Secretary of State. If Obama announced this appointment at the convention, it would mollify and energize Clinton's supporters. And, more important, Clinton would be a great representative of the U.S. to the world. It would be a great appointment.

The Real Olympic Medal Count

The Olympic medal count is unofficial, not something officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Still, the count is universally reported and widely known. (Even the IOC puts the count for each games on its web site, but says: "The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only.") Officially, medals are awarded to individuals, though these individuls do represent national teams.

During the Cold War, Americans fretted they were losing ground to the Soviet Union, which won the medal race between 1972 and 1992, after which the USSR team broke up into teams representing Russia and the various former republics. (The USSR itself disbanded before 1992, but in the 1992 Barcelona games, there was a "Unified Team" of the ex-Soviet Union.)

Unofficial though it may be, the medal count is of great interest to Americans and other nations. This year, the U.S. won the count with 110 medals, though China scored by far the most golds. If the counting is to be done, there should be some division along with the arithmetic. Huge nations like China and the U.S. will naturally best smaller countries like Cuba or Australia. But if one divides the totals by population, a far different standing emerges. Here is a medal count that includes the 37 nations that won at least six medals, divided by population. (It's hard to read in blogspot, but the last column is the he number of medals won per million people in each nation listed.)

Rank Country GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL POP. (millions) Medals per Million
1 Jamaica 6 3 2 11 3 3.667
2 New Zealand 3 1 5 9 4 2.250
3 Australia 14 15 17 46 21 2.190
4 Cuba 2 11 11 24 11 2.182
5 Armenia 0 0 6 6 3 2.000
6 Norway 3 5 2 10 5 2.000
7 Belarus 4 5 10 19 10 1.900
8 Georgia 3 0 3 6 4 1.500
9 Netherlands 7 5 4 16 11 1.455
10 Denmark 2 2 3 7 5 1.400
11 Slovakia 3 2 1 6 5 1.200
12 Hungary 3 5 2 10 10 1.000
13 Azerbaijan 1 2 4 7 8 0.875
14 Kazakhstan 2 4 7 13 15 0.867
15 Britain 19 13 15 47 61 0.770
16 Switzerland 2 0 4 6 8 0.750
17 South Korea 13 10 8 31 48 0.646
18 France 7 16 17 40 64 0.625
19 Czech Republic 3 3 0 6 10 0.600
20 Ukraine 7 5 15 27 46 0.587
21 Russia 23 21 28 72 142 0.507
22 Germany 16 10 15 41 82 0.500
23 Italy 8 10 10 28 60 0.467
24 Spain 5 10 3 18 46 0.391
25 Romania 4 1 3 8 21 0.381
26 Kenya 5 5 4 14 38 0.368
27 United States 36 38 36 110 305 0.361
28 Poland 3 6 1 10 38 0.263
29 North Korea 2 1 3 6 24 0.250
30 Uzbekistan 1 2 3 6 27 0.222
31 Japan 9 6 10 25 128 0.195
32 Argentina 2 0 4 6 40 0.150
33 Canada 3 9 6 18 128 0.141
34 Turkey 1 4 3 8 71 0.113
35 Ethiopia 4 1 2 7 79 0.089
36 Brazil 3 4 8 15 186 0.081
37 China 51 21 28 100 1326 0.075

Jamaica, with just three million people and 11 medals, not surprisingly wins this medal count thanks to the strength of Usain Bolt and its amazing sprinters. Small but sports mad New Zealand, Australia and Cuba come in second third and fourth.

Among the big nations, Russia does best with just over a half medal per million in population, followed by the U.S. China comes in last.

Of course there are many ways to sort the results, and none of them are fair. No matter how many people there may be in the U.S., it can still field just one basketball team and one team in each of the relays. China can only field one gymnastics team and one ping pong squad, though if China or the U.S. could field more athletes, it would win even more prizes. But it still seems to me that there has to be some accounting for population or other metrics. That's when the true sports powers emerge.

USA Olympic Hoops: Clueless in the half-court

Watching the first half or USA v. Argentina, it is startling to see how clueless the U.S. team is in any half-court offense situation.  Whenever they are five-on-five, the U.S. players stand around and maybe pass the ball on the perimeter.  They don't cut to the basket; the don't move without the ball; they don't post up.  Unless someone throws up a three-point shot, the USA seems at least as likely to turn the ball over as to score (or even get a shot off).

By slowing the game down, Argentina was able to cut a 20-point deficit to six.  Of course, these failures are endemic to NBA basketball.  If it weren't for their huge advantages in steals and rebounding (especially offensive rebounding) the team would be in trouble.

Olympic Magic Marker

Am I crazy or were the letters 'USA' on the U.S. relay team bibs written in magic marker?  That's how it looked.  The other teams had printed letters on their bibs.  Is this symbolic of lack of training for the race?

 

Olympics: a history of dropping the baton

It's basically ridiculous to link national fortunes to Olympic success, but the fact that both the U.S. sprinters, both the the men and the women, dropped the baton in the first round of the 4 x 100 meter relay gives me the chills.

It's hardly the first time.

The U.S. men dropped the baton in the 2005 World Championships.

Some history from Sports Illustrated:

At the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden, John Drummond and the very
inexperienced Tony McCall botched the second handoff in the first round and
the U.S. team did not advance. At the 1997 Worlds, the very inexperienced
Brian Lewis and Tim Montgomery botched the first handoff and the U.S. team
did not
advance. (We won't even mention a similar problem at the 1988
Olympics in Seoul,
because that was a very long time ago).

S.I. attributes the pattern to inexperienced runners. But no one who make an Olympic team is inexperienced. They have all run in college and in high school and before that and after that internationally. It's unsettling. Perhaps because dropping the baton is a metaphor for a big mistake in life. And despite Jamaica and Usain Bolt, the U.S. is so deep in sprinting (as in basketball) that its should never lose a relay, but it often does by making mistakes that high school kids should not make. Maybe other countries have the same problem and we just don't notice. I don't know. But we notice when we do it and it take us back.

Olympics: Phelps Double Counting and Phony Medals

No one can say that Michael Phelps is not a great swimmer. But best Olympian ever? The fact is Phelps basically does two events, but gets eight medals out of it. He sets world records while winning, but so does nearly every other gold-medal swimmer. It's a function of technology: the new swimsuits and the faster pool:

Here are Phelps's races-- basically the 100 and 200 meter freestyle or butterfly four times over:

1. 100-meter butterfly: Phelps swims 100 meters using the butterfly stroke (a stupid stroke, which no one would swim if the goal was to get across water)

2. 400 freestyle relay: Phelps swims 100 meters freestyle

3. 400 individual medley: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly and 100 meters breastsroke; with two other strokes

4. 200 butterfly: same as 1 and 3, only longer

5. 200 freestyle: same as 2, only longer

6. 200 individual medley: butterfly and freestyle, with backstroke and breaststroke tacked on

7. 800 freestyle relay: same as 4

8. 400 medley relay: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly, same as 1

Three of the medals are in relays, so he is down to five. (Spitz won relays, too, as did Carl Lewis, but only one.) Really Phelps deserve three medals: the 100 meter butterfly, 200 meter butterfly and 200 meter freestyle. He is not the best at anything else. As for the medleys, no other sport has them. Indeed no other sport has strokes. (Who invented the butterfly?) It's as if Usain Bolt was entered in the 100 meters-while-waiving plus the straight 100 meters.

This double counting is especially annoying given the presence of the dolphin kinc, which is used in every race regardless of stroke. On the initial dive and with every turn, the swimmers abandon the assigned stroke and scurry under the water. As the announcers made clear, Phelps gets a tremendous advantage from the dolphin kick. Maybe they should add that stroke.

USA Olympic Basketball: Great but not Good

USA basketball seems to be back on track, winning games by 30 or more. The difference is the players seem to have remembered how to shoot. When I last looked at the numbers for the Wall Street Journal in 2003, NBA teams were shooting on average 44% from the field, an all-time low. Last year, they averaged 46%. While the U.S. team actually shot poorly early in the 2008 Olypic tournament, against Australia the team shot 57% from the field and 41% from three-point range en route to a 116-85 blowout.

Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.

Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.

Olympics: the Great Saytiev

Michael Phelps has been hailed as the greatest Olympian on the strength of his eight gold medals. Phelps is great, no doubt about it, and I guess he is the greatest swimmer. But basing conclusions on medal counts is ridiculous. Swimmers by nature can get multiple medals. There are four races at some of the same distances using different strokes. The same guy can get three four medals by doing the same 100 or 200 meter freestyle: two individual races, the freestyle relay and medly relays. The result is multiple medal winners proliferate. Just this year, at least 30 swimmers won more than one medal. Five swimmers won at least four medals.
Compare that to track and field where just two men (Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis) have ever won four medals in the same games. And a wrestler or boxer can win just one. There are no relays, leta alone multiple relays, to boost the medal total. So counting medals by itself is a a ridiculous measure.

If one is searching for greatness, consider Buvaysa Saytiev. Today, Saytiev won his third gold medal in freestyle wrestling. Only the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved, who won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, has done the same. Medved has the advantage because he won in three different weight classes. But Saytiev, unlike Medved, had to beat fields that include wrestlers from former Soviet republics, which now have their own terrific teams. In the finals, Saytiev beat Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan. One bronze-medalist is from Belarus. (The other is from Bulgaria.) There are great wrestlers from Georgia, Armenia and Kazahkstan. It's as if the USA basketball team was broken up and there were individual teams from California, New York and Ohio competing with the U.S. team. In general it's impossible to compare athletes in different sports. But in terms of outdistancing the field, Saytiev stands with Phelps.

Olympics: How they ruined wrestling

I was a wrestler in high school (of no distinction whatsoever). But I am a student of the sport and have followed it ever since. It seems that the FILA wrestling's chiefs are continually frustrated that the sport is not commercially popular. Wrestlers are fanatics about their sport and they can't fathom why not everyone is. As a result, they keep changing the rules, hoping that the newest wrinkle will add action and improve the ratings. It never works. And the more recent rule changes are ruining the sport.

This year in the Olympics, FILA has instituted a three-period format, where the wrestler who "wins" two period out of three wins the match. I am not sure, but I guess the idea is that a wrestler who falls behind early, that is is the first period, can come back by winning the second. This means that the leader can't sit on a lead, so there will be more attempts to score.

But the result is the opposite. Now a wrestler can score a single point in a period and he has every incnetive to stall for the rest of the round. It also means that a wrestler can win the hout by compiling a 2-0 lead over four minutes-- at that point the third period is eliminated. Wrestling is supposed to be about strength, endurance and toughness. Winning 2-0 in four minutes shows nothing. Four minutes is too short. The trailing wrestler should have a chance to come back.

Also, in recent years, FILA has added off-mat judges who must confirm scoring calls made by the mat official. This ref-by-committee may make scoring more accurate. But it also leads to conferences that break the action, which gives wrestlers the chance to rest, which negates the role of endirance. The real problem with the judging is that back points are so subjective, as a wrestler can gan them by "exposing" the back even if he isn't controlling his opponent. It all results in defensive, reactive wrestling. The rules should reward aggression, control and scoring. Now they do the opposite.

Prosecution by leak

What’s really disgusting in the Spitzer mess is the use of the press to force a plea bargain where there are no charges. If the stories are true that the feds are negotiating with Spitzer, and they may not charge him if he resigns, that raises the question of why he has not been indicted yet. The organizers of the prostitution ring have been indicted. Spitzer is mentioned, though as Client 9 and not by name. If there was some crime committed by Spitzer (and suggestions about the Mann Act and money laudering sound pretty weak) they should be in an indictment or a criminal information. It could be under seal. But to leak his name and to link him to crimes that are not charged and may not be chargeable strikes me as a clear case of abuse of prosecutorial power. Sure, Spitzer may have done this kind of thing himself (did he? it’s not clear). But even if so, it doesn’t make it right.

Elliot Spitzer is right: This is a private matter

The criminal complaint charging members of the now-famous Emperor’s Club prostitution ring does not charge Gov. Spitzer with anything. It doesn’t even name him. (See http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20080310spitzer-complaint.pdf) That means that someone leaked confidential grand jury material to the Times. This happens all the time. But the fact remains that the information was supposed to be private. I don’t think Spitzer is even a hypocrite. Did he ever prosecute clients of prostitutes? This is no different from the Lewinsky mess. I hope, like President Clinton, he fights and doesn’t resign.

Embarrassment of Embarassments?

For most of this primary season, the standard refrain was that the Democrats suffered (if that’s the word) from an embarrassment of riches. They had a half-dozen terrific candidates, it was said, and I don’t deny it. The last two standing, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are not just excellent, but historic, groundbreaking. Either would be a vast improvement over the incumbent.

All true—except the incumbent ain’t running in ’08 and that’s the rub. The embarrassment of riches has real potential to turn into an embarrassment of embarrassments.

In spite of themselves, the Republicans have selected John McCain, their most electable candidate by far. Many Democrats see McCain as essentially in line with his party, and that may be true, too, the talk radio yahoos notwithstanding. But tarring McCain with Bush won’t be easy since McCain has often been a Bush antagonist. His vote on the taxes and his bitter 2000 GOP primary class with the president are just two examples, and two is probably enough.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, for all his strength, has huge weaknesses, mostly glaring. No matter how much one questions the value experience, the fact that Obama has been in the Senate for just four years. Abraham Lincoln, another gangly lawyer from Illinois, had even less experience in office—this is true. But Lincoln was a national leader of the anti-slavery movement. Obama was never a national leader before winning his Senate seat.

While Obama has run a terrific primary campaign, he has never won a tough general election. People forget it, but Obama won in 2004 only after his opponent Jack Ryan, an investment banker turned schoolteacher, dropped out in late June after a nasty sex scandal involving him and his ex-wife the actress Jeri Ryan. Amazingly, the Illinois Republicans could not find anyone to take Ryan’s place, so they bussed in perennial candidate Alan Keyes, who of course lost badly to Obama.

Obama is even more untested as a public servant. While he had some success in the Illinois legislature, that’s not the stuff of national campaigns. We often hear of his days as a community organizer. But what did he do? He was a civil rights lawyer, but tell us a case he won. He taught law school, but was never a full professor.

But he was right on the Iraq war—give him that. But after months about being defensive on the war issue (and rightly so) Sen. Clinton has herself has put Obama’s anti-war record in perspective: I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say — he’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience,” Clinton said a few days ago. “I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

Of course, McCain won’t concede Obama was right, as Clinton has. This could wind up hurting McCain, but it could also help him in one of two ways. He could convince the voters that his position—the surge—is correct now, even if the war was a mistake initially. Or he could impress the voters as a man of staunch principle, McCain’s specialty, his ace in the hole, even if it’s not true.

McCain has a proven ability to attract independents. The fact that he is hated by the clownish right only helps in this regard. Then there is the 3 AM question, that Clinton has famously made. It must be said at the outset that the 3AM question is idiotic. The president is not a fireman or a cop or a soldier. The president makes decisions after deliberation—at least 99.9% of the time—not when he is roused from slumber. The one split second call a president may have to make is whether the military should fire on a target, such as if the CIA learned where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. But even then, the decision would have been grounded in intense and extensive prior discussions. The one recent exception is President Bush’s immediate reaction to the 9-11 attacks—and remember how inept it was.

Still, if the voters (or some voters) take the question seriously, McCain wins the point over a junior senator who no one ever heard of until four years ago.

To be sure, Obama has huge strengths; McCain has obvious weaknesses (his age, his part affiliation, his advocacy of even more war). It may not happen, but the prospect for a Democratic collapse in November is very real.

Last chance to bribe McCain

McCain-Feingold who?

"But this victory ought to allow John McCain to raise a lot of money in a hurry from people who see the train leaving the station and want to get on board," GOP consultant Whit Ayres said, just after the Florida primary.

Bloomberg for Vice

While most everyone likes Mike, the idea of a billionaire buying his way into office-- or even contention-- is unsettling in a democracy. Since Mayor Bloomberg has at least held public office, his self-financed candidacy would not be as wacky as Ross Perot's, to say nothing of the absurdist contentions of Steve "the inheritor" Forbes.

But still. It would be better if Bloomberg could help someone else gain the presidency. It would be less vain, and would acknowledge that Bloomberg, despite his mayoralty, has relatively little experience in public life. Campaign finance laws make it hard for billionaires to finance others, but there is a way.

Bloomberg should run for vice president and draft Al Gore for the top of the ticket. Mike and Al are sympatico on the issues-- Bloomberg empahasizes global warming. He could free Gore from the drudgery of fundraising and the need to compete in primaries. Meanwhile Bloomberg would not seem like an egomaniac. Since he would be on the ticket, he could pay for the whole thing. And after servinge as vice president, Bloomberg would be a credible candidate--indded the front-runner-- for the presidency following Gore. Moreover, a Gore-Bloomberg ticket could actually win.