Why We're Angry

It’s the question all the Washington elites are asking, why are they so angry? Well, here’s why…

All across America we are seeing failure.

The economy is drowning, and big business and Wall Street are the only ones receiving a life jacket. While the tried and tested backbone of our economy, small businesses and workers are being ignored and demagogued from Washington.

The Gulf is drowning in oil due to a failure of a big corporation, and the same government tasked with fixing the problem is too busy getting marred in bureaucratic paperwork and environmental standards. We see more photo ops than tankers in the gulf.

We are addicted to oil from a dangerous part of the world and yet the Department of Energy, whose sole reason for existence is to wean us off of oil, has failed for almost four decades to do so.

The most basic act of budgeting is ignored. It was at least something when Congress ignored the budget, now they don't even bother writing one! Meanwhile, the deficit grows larger, the debt grows out of control, while my future and my kid's future is being recklessly spent away. It seems preserving any amount of fiscal prudence for my generation has been lost. The next generation, be damned!

We see a national security apparatus so laden with agencies and turf wars that terrorists are able to penetrate are our defenses and kill Americans if not for their own incompetence.

Our southern border is not secure and Washington is unwilling to lift a finger, yet they’re quick to file a lawsuit against a state that actually is tackling the problem they ignore.

Big bureaucracies across the board are failing us, whether in corporate America or in government. Yet Washington’s answer to a failed bureaucracy is to appoint another to oversee the failing one.

Common sense would dictate that when a crisis hits, you handle the crisis. Instead, we see more time paid to public relations and how much political capital can be garnered. They’re not letting said crisis go to waste instead of simply fixing the problem.

We don’t see government as the enemy. It has its place. But we see that when government delves into things it shouldn’t, it ignores the things it is already been tasked with doing. We now see that large and cumbersome bureaucracies fail, where smaller, more agile operations succeed. We know that when the American people have more of their own money to spend, prosperity will follow.

We know these things are true. We know these things work. Why are we angry? Now you know.

American Inheritance

If it’s been said once it’s been said hundreds of times by Barack Obama and his administration, “I inherited (blank)”. The term has been the automatic refrain when it comes to the unemployment rate, the financial system, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, America’s global image, and now the BP oil spill. It was all George W. Bush’s fault and President Obama inherited the problems.

For once though I’d like to see the President give a speech that tells of the other things he inherited. There have been 43 presidents previous to him and he has inherited them all. He inherited the legacy of the greatest nation on Earth. He inherited a world devoid of German Nazis, Italian fascists, Imperial Japanese, or Soviet communists. He inherited a world where slavery is banned, institutionalized racism in America is no more, and the American people have elected him, an ethnic minority to be its Commander in Chief.

The world has come a long way in the past 234 years and so has the Untied States of America. The truth about the Presidency is that every President inherits his predecessor’s problems the same way they inherit the White House as their home, the Oval Office as their work space, and a Limo and Air Force One as their travel. To blame past President’s for one’s problems ignores all the good the past 43 President’s have done. When you put your hand on the Bible and recite the Presidential Oath, you get everything, including the problems.

President Obama has had almost 17 months and it’s high time he accepts responsibility for the office he sought over 3 years ago. If he wanted to be President, he has no excuses when he gets the job he wanted, perks and problems in all.

Great Moments in Presidential Leadership

Here a video I made that chronicles the best of President Obama's quotes during the BP Oil spill...

A 21st Century Pastime

If I may, let me take a break from political commentary and turn to America's pastime, baseball. It's a sport I dearly love. My being from St. Louis and part of America's best fan base only heightens my enthusiastic feelings toward the game.

More than anything, baseball is a game of moments. Little bits and pieces of the game that are captured and remembered for all time. What happened last night when Tiger's pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from completing one of the hardest feats in sports, pitching a perfect game, was a moment that should be a turning point for America's pastime.

h/t NYT

After Mike Redmond grounded out to shortstop, Donald bounced a ball between first and second. Miguel Cabrera fielded it and threw to Galarraga covering.

The ball got there in time. So did Galarraga. He seemed to catch the ball near the top of the webbing; perhaps Joyce did not hear the telltale thwack of ball meeting leather before he heard Donald’s foot cross the base. He spread his arms — safe, an infield single.

The botched call being one of the worst many have ever seen. The play beat Donald by a good foot, but Umpire Jim Joyce missed it. It would be easy to demonize Joyce but he actually is extremely upset by the incident and feels sorry for costing the pitcher the perfect game. I can accept that.

As all baseball fans do on every call we disagree with. The line goes that umpires are "only human" or ironically "not perfect". Many fans could except that around the turn of the 20th century, through the 1950's, and even into the 90's. But why in the year 2010 do baseball fans have to put up with horrendous calls like Joyce's Wednesday night?

The solution, simply allow Joyce to take a whole 10 seconds to peak at a monitor and correct his mistake. The story today would be, "Pitcher has perfect game saved by replay". It happens in almost every other sport, why not baseball?

The answer that many who oppose instant replay give is the nostalgic element. That somehow having umpires make mistakes is a unique and special element to baseball that we need not give up. Ridiculous. The reason fans had to deal with it back in the 60's is because replay wasn't existent, much less "instant". Now, it would have taken an umpire a fraction of time to make sure he was right. The convenience is there where it wasn't for over a century.

Another argument is the oddly that the moment last night was bigger because of the botched call, and it will be remembered longer than a simple perfect game. That may be correct, but remembered for what? For the call that was wrong and couldn't be rectified, or more correctly, wouldn't be rectified.

This asinine view that clings to some sick sense of historical precedent, where we play the game like they played it in 1900 because we've got to preserve something about the game. If that were true, baseball in the 40's would have said no to African Americans because it might ruin the "continuity" of the game. Or maybe we should except steroids in baseball to preserve the records those athletes set. Sure, they cheated but cheating is part of the history of the game. Absurd.

We don't have to put up with bad calls anymore. Busch Stadium plays a replay after every hit, why not play one in the rare case when there's a close call. It would be a minor change in the scheme of things and would progress baseball into the 21st century. We're not changing the rules, we're ensuring the rules be enforced correctly and without mistakes. I fail to see the problem with that.