When Mitt Romney announced today that he was suspending his presidential campaign, I could only shake my head in shame and disgust, because I know the real reason why.
The former Massachusetts governor has too much dignity and grace to publicly admit the truth behind his decision to no longer seek the republican nomination for president. It’s not because our nation is at war, as he suggested in his announcement earlier today.
No.
The real reason—the one Mitt Romney doesn’t want to admit in public, and the one nobody else wants to admit to themselves—is because Mitt Romney is a Mormon and most of the country is not.
Bottom line.
I am not a Mormon. But I am ashamed of other conservatives in my party who did not and would not cast a vote for Mitt Romney simply because of his religion.
While I can say with a clear conscience that my decision to support another candidate had nothing to do with Mitt’s faith, I admit that I wrote him off at the very beginning of the race, because he is a practicing Mormon. I just assumed that he would never get the party nomination, much less be elected president, because of his religion. I figured that there were just too many negative stereotypes about Mormons out there to keep Romney from succeeding.
The scary thing is that I was right on all counts.
Mitt Romney did not finish the race because he knew that, as a Mormon, he would ultimately fail to win the support of conservatives. He knew that even if he was to somehow win the party nomination, there would be even more animosity toward his religion coming from the political left, and he would end up spending the vast majority of his time defending his faith from a corner in the ring.
Mitt Romney understood and finally came to grips with the reality that Americans, both liberals and conservatives, are not ready for a Mormon president.
For a nation that has made so many strides toward racial and gender equality in recent decades, we still have a long way to go before achieving religious equality.
This is not to be confused with religious freedom, which every American enjoys courtesy of the Bill of Rights. Equality is not granted by the Constitution, but rather through the charity of men’s hearts.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this when he fought for civil rights in the 1960s. He realized that although his people had the right to vote and the freedom to pursue opportunity, these liberties were not the same as equality. The latter is dependent upon how one is treated; not how one is regarded by the law. As a result, he fought hard to see to it that his people would eventually bear the dignity and respect of equality.
Unfortunately, the United States has not extended the same courtesy to religion as it has race, ethnicity and even gender.
It is not up to the government to bring about equitable change for religious minorities. That responsibility is ours alone to bear. Only when we can reconcile the hatred that exists within ourselves for those who are different from us can we hope to give a man like Mitt Romney a fighting chance.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Is a Rhino really better than a Jack Ass?
What do you get when you cross an elephant with a donkey?
Answer: John McCain.
Well, actually, it’s a rhino, but let’s not split hairs here.
Now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has suspended his 2008 presidential campaign, the door is wide open for Arizona Sen. John McCain to secure the republican nomination for president of the United States in the November general election.
Romney was McCain’s chief competition. Even though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee showed strong on Super Tuesday, he was still ranked third in the delegate count at the end of the day, and is way behind McCain in this respect.
Don’t get me wrong: I support The Huckster above and beyond McCain. But the fact of the matter is that McCain widened his lead after Super Tuesday and is several lengths ahead of Huck. For the latter to close the gap on the former and ultimately get the nomination would be a formidable task. While anything is possible, it’s just not likely.
Although Huckabee has done exceptionally well among southern states, he’s trailed both McCain and Romney out west and in the north. There aren’t that many more southern delegates left unclaimed, except for Texas, which is probably Huckabee’s last open-door opportunity to make this a real horse race.
All variables aside, though, John McCain will, in all likelihood, be the republican nominee for president in November. Assuming this holds true, I’d like to know what the difference will be between McCain and his democrat opponent—either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—besides party affiliation? What is it that distinguishes McCain from liberal democrats, other than the fact that he wears the suit of an elephant instead of a donkey?
In matters of policy and ideology, McCain is a lot closer to liberal democrats than he is conservative republicans, who happen to be the base and core of his own party.
He has allowed our southern border to remain open and unprotected, rather than tightly enforced. In 2007, he joined liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, in drafting a bill that would have granted amnesty—what amounted to a free pass—to at least 12 million illegal immigrants who entered our country unlawfully.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, McCain teamed with Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, another liberal, to draft and ultimately pass campaign finance law that, ironically, ended up hand-cuffing mostly contributions to his own party and its ability to raise money. Oddly enough, while this same bill put a stop to a lot of republican soft-money contributions, those of democrats were largely unaffected because many contributions to the latter come from IRS-designated and so-called non-profit organizations.
To top it all off, McCain even approached liberal democrat Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, about becoming his vice-presidential running mate in the 2004 general election. Yup, you heard right: John McCain, this year’s republican presidential front-runner, actually considered defecting to the democrat party ticket four years ago.
And we are supposed to believe McCain’s hogwash about reaching out to conservatives in an effort to unite the Republican Party? Bologne.
The only reaching McCain has ever done throughout his quarter-century in the U.S. Senate is across the party aisle to his liberal friends in donkey suits.
He will do as much for his conservative base as George W. Bush has in his eight years as president. Yeah, I know, Bush proposed a ban on partial-birth abortions. Sure, he has been strong on defense and in the War On Terror. And yes, he has been fair on taxes.
But he has also allowed Congress to spend like drunken sailors—the way it always does. He has allowed our borders to go unchecked, undefended and ultimately unprotected from terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, millions of people have crossed our borders illegally. And not all of them are the honest, hard-working sort, either.
Furthermore, Bush has recently supported providing government relief to millions of people who had to default on their mortgages and foreclose on their homes. In other words, he supports paying people for their buying mistakes.
Bush even identified himself in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative,” which is code for being decidedly more liberal than conservative.
Conservatives have been largely abandoned by Bush and many other Republican Party leaders, among them Sens. Lindsay Graham, Trent Lott and McCain, to name just a few.
If John McCain actually governs as a conservative, should he be elected president, then I will eat my words here. But I don’t count on that for a second. He’s about as true blue as a red-state republican can be without being a blue-state democrat. In fact, if he were to lose his trunk and instead grow donkey ears out the side of his head, I doubt anybody would be able to tell the difference. I mean, McCain might as well just end this whole charade as a rhinoceros and dress in his true colors.
I’m sure John Kerry would agree: the Jack Ass look is quite becoming.
Answer: John McCain.
Well, actually, it’s a rhino, but let’s not split hairs here.
Now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has suspended his 2008 presidential campaign, the door is wide open for Arizona Sen. John McCain to secure the republican nomination for president of the United States in the November general election.
Romney was McCain’s chief competition. Even though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee showed strong on Super Tuesday, he was still ranked third in the delegate count at the end of the day, and is way behind McCain in this respect.
Don’t get me wrong: I support The Huckster above and beyond McCain. But the fact of the matter is that McCain widened his lead after Super Tuesday and is several lengths ahead of Huck. For the latter to close the gap on the former and ultimately get the nomination would be a formidable task. While anything is possible, it’s just not likely.
Although Huckabee has done exceptionally well among southern states, he’s trailed both McCain and Romney out west and in the north. There aren’t that many more southern delegates left unclaimed, except for Texas, which is probably Huckabee’s last open-door opportunity to make this a real horse race.
All variables aside, though, John McCain will, in all likelihood, be the republican nominee for president in November. Assuming this holds true, I’d like to know what the difference will be between McCain and his democrat opponent—either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—besides party affiliation? What is it that distinguishes McCain from liberal democrats, other than the fact that he wears the suit of an elephant instead of a donkey?
In matters of policy and ideology, McCain is a lot closer to liberal democrats than he is conservative republicans, who happen to be the base and core of his own party.
He has allowed our southern border to remain open and unprotected, rather than tightly enforced. In 2007, he joined liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, in drafting a bill that would have granted amnesty—what amounted to a free pass—to at least 12 million illegal immigrants who entered our country unlawfully.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, McCain teamed with Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, another liberal, to draft and ultimately pass campaign finance law that, ironically, ended up hand-cuffing mostly contributions to his own party and its ability to raise money. Oddly enough, while this same bill put a stop to a lot of republican soft-money contributions, those of democrats were largely unaffected because many contributions to the latter come from IRS-designated and so-called non-profit organizations.
To top it all off, McCain even approached liberal democrat Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, about becoming his vice-presidential running mate in the 2004 general election. Yup, you heard right: John McCain, this year’s republican presidential front-runner, actually considered defecting to the democrat party ticket four years ago.
And we are supposed to believe McCain’s hogwash about reaching out to conservatives in an effort to unite the Republican Party? Bologne.
The only reaching McCain has ever done throughout his quarter-century in the U.S. Senate is across the party aisle to his liberal friends in donkey suits.
He will do as much for his conservative base as George W. Bush has in his eight years as president. Yeah, I know, Bush proposed a ban on partial-birth abortions. Sure, he has been strong on defense and in the War On Terror. And yes, he has been fair on taxes.
But he has also allowed Congress to spend like drunken sailors—the way it always does. He has allowed our borders to go unchecked, undefended and ultimately unprotected from terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, millions of people have crossed our borders illegally. And not all of them are the honest, hard-working sort, either.
Furthermore, Bush has recently supported providing government relief to millions of people who had to default on their mortgages and foreclose on their homes. In other words, he supports paying people for their buying mistakes.
Bush even identified himself in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative,” which is code for being decidedly more liberal than conservative.
Conservatives have been largely abandoned by Bush and many other Republican Party leaders, among them Sens. Lindsay Graham, Trent Lott and McCain, to name just a few.
If John McCain actually governs as a conservative, should he be elected president, then I will eat my words here. But I don’t count on that for a second. He’s about as true blue as a red-state republican can be without being a blue-state democrat. In fact, if he were to lose his trunk and instead grow donkey ears out the side of his head, I doubt anybody would be able to tell the difference. I mean, McCain might as well just end this whole charade as a rhinoceros and dress in his true colors.
I’m sure John Kerry would agree: the Jack Ass look is quite becoming.
Where is this mandate for change?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In spite of a so-called mandate for change being perpetuated by the mainstream national news media, seasoned Beltway politicians Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are in the driver’s seats of their respective parties seeking nominations for president.
McCain, a D.C. insider with more than 25 years experience in the U.S. Senate, holds a commanding delegate lead over Beltway outsiders and former state governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Clinton, meanwhile, leads in the delegates count toward the democratic nomination and has won many influential, political states on her march toward the White House. She has seven years in the U.S. Senate plus eight more pulling the strings of her husband’s White House administration during the 1990s.
By contrast, Barack Obama, her chief rival, is a relative Beltway newbie, having only completed half of a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
If change is so important this election season, then why have voters been marking their ballots for the same old D.C. dinosaurs instead of newer, fresher faces on the scene? I just don’t see the mandate for change that supposedly exists out there. Yet, I continue to get an earful of it everyday.
The loudest voices for change have come from the Democrat Party. Both Clinton and Obama claim to represent change—the former because she is a woman, and the latter because of his brand of hope. Obama, in fact, has made change a central theme of his campaign and has been perhaps its most ardent zealot throughout the 2008 presidential race so far.
Clinton, while claiming her gender qualifies her as a change agent, smugly believes that simply being a woman means bringing better ideas to the Oval Office. A little sex-centric, are we, Hillary?
I believe gender to be neither a qualifier of intellectual capability nor a benchmark for ideas and policies. Hillary and her supporters are way off base here.
But I digress: Having said that, the only changes Hillary would bring to the White House are her feminine tastes in fashion and interior design. There will be skirts, blouses and brassieres hanging in the First Closet as opposed to suits and ties.
Otherwise, Hillary will not bring the kind of change to Washington that this so-called sweeping public mandate demands. She is a D.C. insider, like McCain, who has her hands in the trough of a national political machine.
Frankly, I don’t think even Obama’s concept of change is really change at all. He advocates the expansion of government via universal health care and other social programs. In fact, he has even stated his plan for financing universal health care through deficit spending. So, he plans to spend money that the government doesn’t have. How is this change from the way government already does things?
Even if the so-called change agents of this campaign were serious, they would not be able to affect real, meaningful change in Washington. Standing in their way are the likes of McCain and Clinton.
Others before them have tried, and instead learned that to get what they wanted done, they had to compromise with the establishment. Ronald Reagan learned this in the 1980s. In order to put his economic and military policies in motion, he had to compromise with Congress and lobbyists who wanted other things.
Don’t get me wrong here: While I think the idealism of change is a good thing, it is still a pipedream that dies quicker than a D.C. cherry blossom in a hail storm.
Both Clinton and McCain understand the myth of change and why it is so powerful with voters. Even they have jumped on the change bandwagon, because they know it is what voters want. But they are savvy enough to recognize that the only real change in Washington, D.C., is who sits where and for how long. It is like one big game of musical chairs: When the music stops, somebody is left without a chair. Hence, we have change.
Changes in party power, between the legislative and executive branches of government, is just about all any Beltway insider can stomach. Anything more will upset the apple cart, rock the boat, and throw a wrench into the Beltway Machine. In spite of voters, the last thing any Washington, D.C., insider wants is too much change.
Look what happened to the Republican Party after the 1994 elections, which awarded both the House and Senate to the GOP after 40 years of democrat control? Within a few years, the republicans went from beginning to honor the tenets of their “Contract With America” to shunning their conservative base during the last years of the Clinton Administration through increased spending and avoidance of key social issues.
No sooner had a conservative element seized control of Congress in 1994 then the assault on conservative leaders like New Gingrich was launched by the liberal Washington establishment. In a short time, Gingrich and other conservatives were demonized as cold-hearted, uncompassionate extremists who wanted to see people suffer. As a result, the “Contract With America” was never completely fulfilled and conservative republicans were bullied back into the shadows of political insignificance.
Later GOP Congresses would continue to pass spending bills and ignore social mandates of their conservative base; the last straw being in 2006 when illegal immigration was chief among the issues conservatives wanted the republican majority to address. But Congress sat on its thumbs while scandals perpetuated by the news media surrounded the GOP leadership. As a result, nothing of substance got done and conservatives did not vote for their republican incumbents. Consequently, the GOP lost control of Congress altogether.
Now that the democrats are back in power, we see again that little has changed. Other than party affiliation, what is the difference between the Congresses of 2006 and 2007? Where is this change the democrats promised a year ago? Indeed, what, if anything, has changed, besides who sits where and for how long?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
McCain, a D.C. insider with more than 25 years experience in the U.S. Senate, holds a commanding delegate lead over Beltway outsiders and former state governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Clinton, meanwhile, leads in the delegates count toward the democratic nomination and has won many influential, political states on her march toward the White House. She has seven years in the U.S. Senate plus eight more pulling the strings of her husband’s White House administration during the 1990s.
By contrast, Barack Obama, her chief rival, is a relative Beltway newbie, having only completed half of a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
If change is so important this election season, then why have voters been marking their ballots for the same old D.C. dinosaurs instead of newer, fresher faces on the scene? I just don’t see the mandate for change that supposedly exists out there. Yet, I continue to get an earful of it everyday.
The loudest voices for change have come from the Democrat Party. Both Clinton and Obama claim to represent change—the former because she is a woman, and the latter because of his brand of hope. Obama, in fact, has made change a central theme of his campaign and has been perhaps its most ardent zealot throughout the 2008 presidential race so far.
Clinton, while claiming her gender qualifies her as a change agent, smugly believes that simply being a woman means bringing better ideas to the Oval Office. A little sex-centric, are we, Hillary?
I believe gender to be neither a qualifier of intellectual capability nor a benchmark for ideas and policies. Hillary and her supporters are way off base here.
But I digress: Having said that, the only changes Hillary would bring to the White House are her feminine tastes in fashion and interior design. There will be skirts, blouses and brassieres hanging in the First Closet as opposed to suits and ties.
Otherwise, Hillary will not bring the kind of change to Washington that this so-called sweeping public mandate demands. She is a D.C. insider, like McCain, who has her hands in the trough of a national political machine.
Frankly, I don’t think even Obama’s concept of change is really change at all. He advocates the expansion of government via universal health care and other social programs. In fact, he has even stated his plan for financing universal health care through deficit spending. So, he plans to spend money that the government doesn’t have. How is this change from the way government already does things?
Even if the so-called change agents of this campaign were serious, they would not be able to affect real, meaningful change in Washington. Standing in their way are the likes of McCain and Clinton.
Others before them have tried, and instead learned that to get what they wanted done, they had to compromise with the establishment. Ronald Reagan learned this in the 1980s. In order to put his economic and military policies in motion, he had to compromise with Congress and lobbyists who wanted other things.
Don’t get me wrong here: While I think the idealism of change is a good thing, it is still a pipedream that dies quicker than a D.C. cherry blossom in a hail storm.
Both Clinton and McCain understand the myth of change and why it is so powerful with voters. Even they have jumped on the change bandwagon, because they know it is what voters want. But they are savvy enough to recognize that the only real change in Washington, D.C., is who sits where and for how long. It is like one big game of musical chairs: When the music stops, somebody is left without a chair. Hence, we have change.
Changes in party power, between the legislative and executive branches of government, is just about all any Beltway insider can stomach. Anything more will upset the apple cart, rock the boat, and throw a wrench into the Beltway Machine. In spite of voters, the last thing any Washington, D.C., insider wants is too much change.
Look what happened to the Republican Party after the 1994 elections, which awarded both the House and Senate to the GOP after 40 years of democrat control? Within a few years, the republicans went from beginning to honor the tenets of their “Contract With America” to shunning their conservative base during the last years of the Clinton Administration through increased spending and avoidance of key social issues.
No sooner had a conservative element seized control of Congress in 1994 then the assault on conservative leaders like New Gingrich was launched by the liberal Washington establishment. In a short time, Gingrich and other conservatives were demonized as cold-hearted, uncompassionate extremists who wanted to see people suffer. As a result, the “Contract With America” was never completely fulfilled and conservative republicans were bullied back into the shadows of political insignificance.
Later GOP Congresses would continue to pass spending bills and ignore social mandates of their conservative base; the last straw being in 2006 when illegal immigration was chief among the issues conservatives wanted the republican majority to address. But Congress sat on its thumbs while scandals perpetuated by the news media surrounded the GOP leadership. As a result, nothing of substance got done and conservatives did not vote for their republican incumbents. Consequently, the GOP lost control of Congress altogether.
Now that the democrats are back in power, we see again that little has changed. Other than party affiliation, what is the difference between the Congresses of 2006 and 2007? Where is this change the democrats promised a year ago? Indeed, what, if anything, has changed, besides who sits where and for how long?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Would you trust the word of a high schooler?
Either would I, especially after being played for a fool.
Apparently enough people in Fernley, NV, believed Fernley High School senior Kevin Hart to come away looking like they'd just been duped into buying a bridge.
Last week, Hart announced in front of the entire student assembly, during a formal school ceremony in his honor, that he was accepting a full-ride scholarship to play Division I college football for the University of California, Berkley.
The event was significant, because Hart was supposed to be the first FHS student athlete to receive a full-ride athletic scholarship to a Division I school.
The problem was that Hart didn't receive a scholarship offer from Cal. In fact, he never received a scholarship offer from any Division I program, much less from any other school.
After an official investigation was launched by the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, it turns out that Hart had made the whole thing up himself.
Hart fabricated his story, because he wanted to make his dream of playing Division I college football a reality; even if it was only in his own mind. And he apparently was willing to drag his family, coach, school and community through the mud just to satisfy his own pre-occupation with something that wasn't.
In all fairness to the kid, he is just a teenager: immature and capable of doing anything stupid.
I should know.
When I was 17 years old, I shoved a 12-pound shot put into my mouth and tried to take a bite out of it, because I was angry. Major reconstructive dental surgery and about $1,500 later, I learned that teeth were not meant to bite into iron. I am lucky to still have a pair of front teeth and parents who love me. Other than a lot of contrite shame and embarrassment, though, the episode passed and I was able to move on with my life sans further consequence.
Unfortunately for Hart, his little stunt here may cost him any chance whatsoever of playing football beyond high school, and it might even prevent him from obtaining any type of gainful employment in the area.
Now that everybody within about a million square miles knows what he did, who can possibly trust him within three time zones?
I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hart, but you may well end up paying for your hoax years down the road. Oh, maybe it won't be all that bad. I mean, people may eventually forget...after you've been stuck hefting boxes in a warehouse for 10 years.
Who knows? If you hadn't pulled your little stunt, you probably would have been able to find scholarships to smaller schools and likely play college football at one of those. Then again, perhaps you thought that anything less than Division I was below you.
Every year, thousands of high school athletes accept scholarships to small four-year colleges and even two-year junior colleges just to get a chance to continue playing their sport while getting a free education. It doesn't matter to them how big or important the school is. What's important is the chance to go to college and continue doing what they love to do.
Besides, many more small college athletes have to work their way up the ranks toward Division I. Most never get to the highest level, but those who do have earned it with a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice.
Have you ever heard of Rudy Ruettiger, perhaps the most famous Notre Dame football player in the past half-century? He wasn't a scholarship player. He wasn't even a starter, much less a bench warmer. Rudy spent four years struggling to survive on the practice squad, taking brutal hits, just so he could earn the right to suit up for one game. The effort and hard work he put into every practice earned him so much respect from all the other players that every team member went to bat for him in front of the coach, demanding that Rudy be allowed to suit up for the last game of his college career.
Rudy's story was so inspiring that Hollywood even made a movie about it. I suppose a film could be made about your story, too...perhaps something along the line of "Dumb and Dumbest."
I realize that nobody wants to settle for second-best where their dreams are concerned, Mr. Hart, but sometimes we have to go the long way around to reach our goals. Unfortunately, I doubt that any respectable post-secondary institution, from Division I to JC, would even consider you now, because you have demonstrated to everyone a serious lack of judgment and integrity.
Had you actually looked and applied for scholarships, instead of waiting and hoping for one to come to you, then perhaps you would not have been so desperate to realize a dream that you would make a complete fool of yourself.
But enough about the boy. I've chided him enough here. He did a stupid thing and he is going to reap the consequences.
But now, a word or two about the gullibility of everyone else involved here: How did a teenage kid manage to dupe his parents, friends, coach and school into believing that he had a bonafide scholarship?
I know from experience that any legitimate scholarship offer goes through the parents, the high school coach and/or athletic department, because we are dealing with minors here. If the kid had a real scholarship offer, the coach and the parents would have been among the first to know; probably even before the kid knew.
Strange that the alarm didn't go off in his coach's head. The little red light apparently didn't come on in his parents' heads, either, because they seemed equally surprised by the news of the faked scholarship. The parents should have suspected something was amiss when they never received any direct communication from the coaches recruiting their son.
Furthermore, what kind of news reporting would take the kid's story on face value without checking with the school athletic director (A.D.) or the coach first? I actually spent a year covering FHS and other Lyon County high schools for the area newspaper there. My first contacts would always be to the school first, then to the parents, followed by an interview with the kid. Both the school (the coach and/or the A.D.) and the parents would have been notified directly by the college coach recruiting their child that there was a scholarship offer on the table.
In fact, the schools would even submit press releases to me of students who had received formal letters of intent and official scholarship offers.
I don't know whether or not the news reporters verified the information with the school and the parents first. I'm unsure why they took this story for granted the way they did. But the information they got probably looked and/or sounded legitimate enough, so they picked up the story and ran with it...knee-deep into "oops."
Fernley High School ought to be ashamed, too, because it put on a great, big show for this kid, who, unbeknownst to anyone else apparently, was milking the attention for all that it was worth.
Why didn't the A.D. or even the kid's coach, for that matter, pick up the telephone and call the schools that were supposedly recruiting him? Wouldn't they want to know? Heck, wouldn't the coach want to speak with any prospective coaches interested in his player? Moreover, didn't it even cross the coach's mind that the recruiting coaches would want to speak with him? Didn't he find it the least bit strange that he never had any contact with the schools offering this kid scholarships?
Indeed, where were the school officials when all this was supposed to be happening?
Nevertheless, a lot of people came away with egg on their faces and looking like suckers who had just been had: the parents, coach, school and local news media.
But not the least of which is Hart himself, who will find it hard to look people in the eye from now on and convince them he's telling the truth.
Who is going to believe him?
Apparently enough people in Fernley, NV, believed Fernley High School senior Kevin Hart to come away looking like they'd just been duped into buying a bridge.
Last week, Hart announced in front of the entire student assembly, during a formal school ceremony in his honor, that he was accepting a full-ride scholarship to play Division I college football for the University of California, Berkley.
The event was significant, because Hart was supposed to be the first FHS student athlete to receive a full-ride athletic scholarship to a Division I school.
The problem was that Hart didn't receive a scholarship offer from Cal. In fact, he never received a scholarship offer from any Division I program, much less from any other school.
After an official investigation was launched by the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, it turns out that Hart had made the whole thing up himself.
Hart fabricated his story, because he wanted to make his dream of playing Division I college football a reality; even if it was only in his own mind. And he apparently was willing to drag his family, coach, school and community through the mud just to satisfy his own pre-occupation with something that wasn't.
In all fairness to the kid, he is just a teenager: immature and capable of doing anything stupid.
I should know.
When I was 17 years old, I shoved a 12-pound shot put into my mouth and tried to take a bite out of it, because I was angry. Major reconstructive dental surgery and about $1,500 later, I learned that teeth were not meant to bite into iron. I am lucky to still have a pair of front teeth and parents who love me. Other than a lot of contrite shame and embarrassment, though, the episode passed and I was able to move on with my life sans further consequence.
Unfortunately for Hart, his little stunt here may cost him any chance whatsoever of playing football beyond high school, and it might even prevent him from obtaining any type of gainful employment in the area.
Now that everybody within about a million square miles knows what he did, who can possibly trust him within three time zones?
I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hart, but you may well end up paying for your hoax years down the road. Oh, maybe it won't be all that bad. I mean, people may eventually forget...after you've been stuck hefting boxes in a warehouse for 10 years.
Who knows? If you hadn't pulled your little stunt, you probably would have been able to find scholarships to smaller schools and likely play college football at one of those. Then again, perhaps you thought that anything less than Division I was below you.
Every year, thousands of high school athletes accept scholarships to small four-year colleges and even two-year junior colleges just to get a chance to continue playing their sport while getting a free education. It doesn't matter to them how big or important the school is. What's important is the chance to go to college and continue doing what they love to do.
Besides, many more small college athletes have to work their way up the ranks toward Division I. Most never get to the highest level, but those who do have earned it with a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice.
Have you ever heard of Rudy Ruettiger, perhaps the most famous Notre Dame football player in the past half-century? He wasn't a scholarship player. He wasn't even a starter, much less a bench warmer. Rudy spent four years struggling to survive on the practice squad, taking brutal hits, just so he could earn the right to suit up for one game. The effort and hard work he put into every practice earned him so much respect from all the other players that every team member went to bat for him in front of the coach, demanding that Rudy be allowed to suit up for the last game of his college career.
Rudy's story was so inspiring that Hollywood even made a movie about it. I suppose a film could be made about your story, too...perhaps something along the line of "Dumb and Dumbest."
I realize that nobody wants to settle for second-best where their dreams are concerned, Mr. Hart, but sometimes we have to go the long way around to reach our goals. Unfortunately, I doubt that any respectable post-secondary institution, from Division I to JC, would even consider you now, because you have demonstrated to everyone a serious lack of judgment and integrity.
Had you actually looked and applied for scholarships, instead of waiting and hoping for one to come to you, then perhaps you would not have been so desperate to realize a dream that you would make a complete fool of yourself.
But enough about the boy. I've chided him enough here. He did a stupid thing and he is going to reap the consequences.
But now, a word or two about the gullibility of everyone else involved here: How did a teenage kid manage to dupe his parents, friends, coach and school into believing that he had a bonafide scholarship?
I know from experience that any legitimate scholarship offer goes through the parents, the high school coach and/or athletic department, because we are dealing with minors here. If the kid had a real scholarship offer, the coach and the parents would have been among the first to know; probably even before the kid knew.
Strange that the alarm didn't go off in his coach's head. The little red light apparently didn't come on in his parents' heads, either, because they seemed equally surprised by the news of the faked scholarship. The parents should have suspected something was amiss when they never received any direct communication from the coaches recruiting their son.
Furthermore, what kind of news reporting would take the kid's story on face value without checking with the school athletic director (A.D.) or the coach first? I actually spent a year covering FHS and other Lyon County high schools for the area newspaper there. My first contacts would always be to the school first, then to the parents, followed by an interview with the kid. Both the school (the coach and/or the A.D.) and the parents would have been notified directly by the college coach recruiting their child that there was a scholarship offer on the table.
In fact, the schools would even submit press releases to me of students who had received formal letters of intent and official scholarship offers.
I don't know whether or not the news reporters verified the information with the school and the parents first. I'm unsure why they took this story for granted the way they did. But the information they got probably looked and/or sounded legitimate enough, so they picked up the story and ran with it...knee-deep into "oops."
Fernley High School ought to be ashamed, too, because it put on a great, big show for this kid, who, unbeknownst to anyone else apparently, was milking the attention for all that it was worth.
Why didn't the A.D. or even the kid's coach, for that matter, pick up the telephone and call the schools that were supposedly recruiting him? Wouldn't they want to know? Heck, wouldn't the coach want to speak with any prospective coaches interested in his player? Moreover, didn't it even cross the coach's mind that the recruiting coaches would want to speak with him? Didn't he find it the least bit strange that he never had any contact with the schools offering this kid scholarships?
Indeed, where were the school officials when all this was supposed to be happening?
Nevertheless, a lot of people came away with egg on their faces and looking like suckers who had just been had: the parents, coach, school and local news media.
But not the least of which is Hart himself, who will find it hard to look people in the eye from now on and convince them he's telling the truth.
Who is going to believe him?
Monday, February 4, 2008
Give me a reason to vote for Hillary
Several reasons come to mind that dissuade me from voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for president of the United States. I’d only be repeating myself from other blogs I’ve written to explain them all again here.
So, please, give me just one reason to vote for her…other than because she is a woman.
I mean, really, come on now.
Hillary Clinton’s gender is self-evident, but it has nothing to do with her ability to preside over the most powerful nation on earth. The fact that she is a woman neither qualifies, nor disqualifies her as a candidate. Truth be told, gender should be immaterial; it shouldn’t even matter. Moreover, it shouldn’t even be on her resume.
But it is. In fact, gender is Hillary’s leading qualification. It is the dominant headline of her candidacy; the first bullet point on her resume. And gender is the primary reason her supporters give for their vote.
It’s true.
Hillary has secured many of her supporters on the basis of gender alone. I distinctly remember listening to National Public Radio the morning after the New Hampshire primaries when I heard one woman say she decided to vote for Hillary at the last minute, because the latter is a woman and it seemed like the right thing to do in support of women’s rights.
What?
So, in other words, this person voted for Hillary to make a political statement, rather than an informed decision. Hello?! This is a presidential election, the idea behind which is that you vote for the person, not the gender. The idea is that you vote for the person who you think most closely represents your beliefs, supports the issues most important to you, and who you believe will do the best job carrying out the duties of commander-in-chief.
Yet, Hillary-backers around the country are rallying to her side chiefly because she is a woman.
Huh. Somehow, I expected more from Hillary’s camp. I would have thought that “the smartest woman in the world” could attract voters with more substance than this.
I mean, how much brain power does it take to cast a vote for someone based on what they look like? Those voting for Hillary because of her gender are doing just that. And it does not speak well for Hillary if her supporters are really this shallow.
The same charge can be leveled at Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, many of whom are voting for the Illinois democrat just because he is black.
If I were to vote for a candidate because he is a white male, then I’d be equally as shallow. The difference being that I would be labeled a sexist, racist bigot if I did. But it is apparently okay for women to vote for another woman because she is a woman, or black Americans to vote for another black because of the color of his skin.
End the sexism and racism already! I’m so tired of hearing how bad women and other so-called “minorities” or “protected groups” have had it in the past and how they have suffered throughout history. I’m sure we can all make a case for pulling out the violin at one time or another in our lives. But some of us don’t spend our time brooding about it.
So, get over it already, and get on with the business of electing the president of the United States. In case you weren’t aware, we elect people to office; not their skin colors or their genders.
But if you’d prefer, I can put my dog on the ballot. Who knows? If she pulls over enough Hillary and Obama backers who’d vote for her because she’s a dog, then lobbyists will be lining up outside the Oval Office with dog biscuits instead of money bags.
So, please, give me just one reason to vote for her…other than because she is a woman.
I mean, really, come on now.
Hillary Clinton’s gender is self-evident, but it has nothing to do with her ability to preside over the most powerful nation on earth. The fact that she is a woman neither qualifies, nor disqualifies her as a candidate. Truth be told, gender should be immaterial; it shouldn’t even matter. Moreover, it shouldn’t even be on her resume.
But it is. In fact, gender is Hillary’s leading qualification. It is the dominant headline of her candidacy; the first bullet point on her resume. And gender is the primary reason her supporters give for their vote.
It’s true.
Hillary has secured many of her supporters on the basis of gender alone. I distinctly remember listening to National Public Radio the morning after the New Hampshire primaries when I heard one woman say she decided to vote for Hillary at the last minute, because the latter is a woman and it seemed like the right thing to do in support of women’s rights.
What?
So, in other words, this person voted for Hillary to make a political statement, rather than an informed decision. Hello?! This is a presidential election, the idea behind which is that you vote for the person, not the gender. The idea is that you vote for the person who you think most closely represents your beliefs, supports the issues most important to you, and who you believe will do the best job carrying out the duties of commander-in-chief.
Yet, Hillary-backers around the country are rallying to her side chiefly because she is a woman.
Huh. Somehow, I expected more from Hillary’s camp. I would have thought that “the smartest woman in the world” could attract voters with more substance than this.
I mean, how much brain power does it take to cast a vote for someone based on what they look like? Those voting for Hillary because of her gender are doing just that. And it does not speak well for Hillary if her supporters are really this shallow.
The same charge can be leveled at Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, many of whom are voting for the Illinois democrat just because he is black.
If I were to vote for a candidate because he is a white male, then I’d be equally as shallow. The difference being that I would be labeled a sexist, racist bigot if I did. But it is apparently okay for women to vote for another woman because she is a woman, or black Americans to vote for another black because of the color of his skin.
End the sexism and racism already! I’m so tired of hearing how bad women and other so-called “minorities” or “protected groups” have had it in the past and how they have suffered throughout history. I’m sure we can all make a case for pulling out the violin at one time or another in our lives. But some of us don’t spend our time brooding about it.
So, get over it already, and get on with the business of electing the president of the United States. In case you weren’t aware, we elect people to office; not their skin colors or their genders.
But if you’d prefer, I can put my dog on the ballot. Who knows? If she pulls over enough Hillary and Obama backers who’d vote for her because she’s a dog, then lobbyists will be lining up outside the Oval Office with dog biscuits instead of money bags.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Justice is served
Even if nothing more ever comes of the NFL's infamous "Spygate" scandal, the New England Patriots got their come uppance.
Tonight the AFC juggernaut was denied a perfect, undefeated record—a milestone achieved only once in NFL history.
The Patriots, who had completed only the second undefeated regular season in league history, could not finish what they started back in week one of the 2007 regular season.
But somebody upstairs has a sense of humor—not to mention a propensity for the ironic.
Fittingly, it was a team from New York that defeated the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLII title. It was a team from New York against which the Patriots were caught cheating on their own sidelines at Gillette Stadium in Foxsboro, Mass., in the season opener. Television cameras caught members of the Patriots spying on New York Jets coaches and players with cameras of their own, in a cheap effort to expose the latter’s playbook. Unfortunately, the Patriots were the ones exposed.
Even though it got caught, the New England ball club barely even received what amounted to a slap on the wrist for what is the equivalent of industrial espionage—a white collar crime and a felony.
The Patriots ended up winning the football game, followed by the next 17 games in a row. Yet, they were denied the last and most important win of all: the Super Bowl championship.
This is a New England team that had won three Super Bowl championships since 2001 and was en route to becoming only the fourth franchise in NFL history to win at least four Vince Lombardi trophies.
But every dog has its day. Cheaters never prosper, the old saying goes, even those who go 18-0.
I was prepared to write a column about the only NFL world champion with an asterisk beside its name. But thanks to the New York Giants, I am able to write about the world champions that the New England Patriots neither are nor deserve to have been after “Spygate.”
The Patriots thought “Spygate” was no big deal. It kept them neither from going undefeated during the regular season nor from the Super Bowl.
But “Spygate” did keep them from winning the most important football game of the entire NFL season. It kept them from becoming champions of the professional football world. And it denied them a perfect, unblemished record en route to a world title.
Well, actually justice did all that.
I hope the New England Patriots are hungry tonight, because justice is served—along with a heaping slice of humble pie. Don’t worry, though: the Pats have the next six months to digest it all.
Maybe next time, the idea of going 1-0 to open the regular season won't mean so much to the Pats that they would resort to cheating. Maybe 18-0 isn't all it's cracked up to be if you leave the biggest game of the year 18-1. Yeah, I know that 18-0 is pretty impressive. But the Giants, not the Patriots, are champions of the football world now. In the end, after all the money has been counted, winning the big one is what matters most.
And if you think you have to cheat just to win your first game, then you don't deserve to win your last.
Just ask the 1972 Miami Dolphins, still the only undefeated team in NFL history. The only undefeated regular season team? No, the Patriots share that honor with them. But not the honor of being the only undefeated world champion. That alone still belongs only to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who proved that you don't have to cheat to go undefeated. You just have to work hard and play by the rules.
Actually, Super Bowl loser befits the New England Patriots best this year, because true champions don't win by cheating; they win by being better than the rest. Tonight and for the next year, the New York Giants are the best. Neither did they have to go undefeated nor cheat to do it. They just played like the best.
Note to Pats: The champagne flows freely in Miami tonight for 35 seasons in a row and still counting...
Tonight the AFC juggernaut was denied a perfect, undefeated record—a milestone achieved only once in NFL history.
The Patriots, who had completed only the second undefeated regular season in league history, could not finish what they started back in week one of the 2007 regular season.
But somebody upstairs has a sense of humor—not to mention a propensity for the ironic.
Fittingly, it was a team from New York that defeated the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLII title. It was a team from New York against which the Patriots were caught cheating on their own sidelines at Gillette Stadium in Foxsboro, Mass., in the season opener. Television cameras caught members of the Patriots spying on New York Jets coaches and players with cameras of their own, in a cheap effort to expose the latter’s playbook. Unfortunately, the Patriots were the ones exposed.
Even though it got caught, the New England ball club barely even received what amounted to a slap on the wrist for what is the equivalent of industrial espionage—a white collar crime and a felony.
The Patriots ended up winning the football game, followed by the next 17 games in a row. Yet, they were denied the last and most important win of all: the Super Bowl championship.
This is a New England team that had won three Super Bowl championships since 2001 and was en route to becoming only the fourth franchise in NFL history to win at least four Vince Lombardi trophies.
But every dog has its day. Cheaters never prosper, the old saying goes, even those who go 18-0.
I was prepared to write a column about the only NFL world champion with an asterisk beside its name. But thanks to the New York Giants, I am able to write about the world champions that the New England Patriots neither are nor deserve to have been after “Spygate.”
The Patriots thought “Spygate” was no big deal. It kept them neither from going undefeated during the regular season nor from the Super Bowl.
But “Spygate” did keep them from winning the most important football game of the entire NFL season. It kept them from becoming champions of the professional football world. And it denied them a perfect, unblemished record en route to a world title.
Well, actually justice did all that.
I hope the New England Patriots are hungry tonight, because justice is served—along with a heaping slice of humble pie. Don’t worry, though: the Pats have the next six months to digest it all.
Maybe next time, the idea of going 1-0 to open the regular season won't mean so much to the Pats that they would resort to cheating. Maybe 18-0 isn't all it's cracked up to be if you leave the biggest game of the year 18-1. Yeah, I know that 18-0 is pretty impressive. But the Giants, not the Patriots, are champions of the football world now. In the end, after all the money has been counted, winning the big one is what matters most.
And if you think you have to cheat just to win your first game, then you don't deserve to win your last.
Just ask the 1972 Miami Dolphins, still the only undefeated team in NFL history. The only undefeated regular season team? No, the Patriots share that honor with them. But not the honor of being the only undefeated world champion. That alone still belongs only to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who proved that you don't have to cheat to go undefeated. You just have to work hard and play by the rules.
Actually, Super Bowl loser befits the New England Patriots best this year, because true champions don't win by cheating; they win by being better than the rest. Tonight and for the next year, the New York Giants are the best. Neither did they have to go undefeated nor cheat to do it. They just played like the best.
Note to Pats: The champagne flows freely in Miami tonight for 35 seasons in a row and still counting...
Voting is a responsibility, not just a right
In every election, there are millions of Americans who could care less about exercising their Constitutional right, not to mention civic duty, to vote.
Some are simply cynical about the whole process, choosing to believe that their one vote doesn't matter a hill of beans and won’t make any difference to the way things are or the way we want things to be.
Others are too wrapped up in the melodrama of their own lives to really care about what their government is doing or not doing.
Still others refrain from voting out of protest, because their candidate(s) didn’t win or their issue(s) didn’t become law. These “sore losers” are just as dangerous as the pessimists and complacent apathetics, because they are willing to let things get worse before they can get better.
I hear it all the time on talk radio—callers complaining about the candidates they have to choose from. They say maybe we should just let the other side win and allow our country go to hell in a hand basket. Then, when everyone realizes what a mistake this was, the right person(s) will be voted into office.
The fallacy of this kind of thought is two-fold: first, that people will realize their mistakes and correct them; and second, that we will have another chance to make things right.
The more people who begin to think this way, the sooner we’ll go down in that hand basket and the harder it will be to get back up.
I understand that American politics is frustrating and downright disgusting sometimes. I realize that our system has its problems. But not voting is not the way to fix things. In fact, by not voting, we unwittingly move ourselves closer to an autocratic state where the government makes its own decisions and rules over the people. While our government has become a living, breathing monster, for all intents and purposes, it is still strapped to the gurney and not wandering about terrorizing the countryside. Our vote and the Constitution securing that vote keeps the monster bound at the wrists and ankles.
But if we stop voting, then the restraints will loosen and eventually fall off. At that point, our government will have metamorphasized from a republic to an authoritarian state capable of acting by its own will, independent of the people. When this happens, we will have lost all control, as well as any chance of getting it back.
I caution any voter out there thinking that their one, single vote does not matter; that deciding which movie to rent on Saturday night is more important than voting on Tuesday; or that a protest no-vote will send the message they want to convey: If you do this, we will all suffer the consequences one day. And the more of you there are, the more likely we will end up losing our right to vote altogether.
It’s time that people stop looking at their vote as a Constitutional right—something they can apply and use at will—and instead regard it as a responsibility. Perhaps if more people saw voting as a duty—i.e., something we have to do—then maybe fewer people would dismiss it so casually and carelessly as they do now.
We all have to do unpleasant things that we aren't fond of: I, for one, hate cleaning up after my dog. But if I want a yard I can walk and relax in without stepping in something even more unpleasant, then I will do what I have to do.
The same can be said about voting. It may be unpleasant and make us feel dirty, but if we don’t do our part to clean up the yard, then we will surely step into something more unpleasant.
Even though it seems like we are often stuck having to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” voting for the one that ranks highest of the two by our own personal standards is better than giving away an uncontested vote to the one that ranks the lowest.
To the pessimists and the cynics, I say look at the glass again and be reminded that although it looks half empty, it is also half full. In other words, take heart and search for the silver lining. Even if things do go to hell in a hand basket, that doesn't mean you have to. You can choose to live on with a smile and a smidgeon of hope.
To the complacents and apathetics out there, I say wake up from your slumber! Wake up and live in reality once in a while. You don’t really want to live in blissful ignorance, like the human crop in “The Matrix,” do you? Wouldn’t you be more empowered if you know what is really going on, rather than choosing to believe something that doesn’t exist? In other words, get off your butt and get out there before all that you really have is gone.
To the protest voters, I say a no-vote is a blown opportunity. It is a vote defaulted to your opposition, because you refused to stand up and be counted. If you do not speak, then you will not be heard.
Frankly, if you choose not to vote—whatever your reason—then you have no business complaining when the music stops and you are left standing without a chair.
Some are simply cynical about the whole process, choosing to believe that their one vote doesn't matter a hill of beans and won’t make any difference to the way things are or the way we want things to be.
Others are too wrapped up in the melodrama of their own lives to really care about what their government is doing or not doing.
Still others refrain from voting out of protest, because their candidate(s) didn’t win or their issue(s) didn’t become law. These “sore losers” are just as dangerous as the pessimists and complacent apathetics, because they are willing to let things get worse before they can get better.
I hear it all the time on talk radio—callers complaining about the candidates they have to choose from. They say maybe we should just let the other side win and allow our country go to hell in a hand basket. Then, when everyone realizes what a mistake this was, the right person(s) will be voted into office.
The fallacy of this kind of thought is two-fold: first, that people will realize their mistakes and correct them; and second, that we will have another chance to make things right.
The more people who begin to think this way, the sooner we’ll go down in that hand basket and the harder it will be to get back up.
I understand that American politics is frustrating and downright disgusting sometimes. I realize that our system has its problems. But not voting is not the way to fix things. In fact, by not voting, we unwittingly move ourselves closer to an autocratic state where the government makes its own decisions and rules over the people. While our government has become a living, breathing monster, for all intents and purposes, it is still strapped to the gurney and not wandering about terrorizing the countryside. Our vote and the Constitution securing that vote keeps the monster bound at the wrists and ankles.
But if we stop voting, then the restraints will loosen and eventually fall off. At that point, our government will have metamorphasized from a republic to an authoritarian state capable of acting by its own will, independent of the people. When this happens, we will have lost all control, as well as any chance of getting it back.
I caution any voter out there thinking that their one, single vote does not matter; that deciding which movie to rent on Saturday night is more important than voting on Tuesday; or that a protest no-vote will send the message they want to convey: If you do this, we will all suffer the consequences one day. And the more of you there are, the more likely we will end up losing our right to vote altogether.
It’s time that people stop looking at their vote as a Constitutional right—something they can apply and use at will—and instead regard it as a responsibility. Perhaps if more people saw voting as a duty—i.e., something we have to do—then maybe fewer people would dismiss it so casually and carelessly as they do now.
We all have to do unpleasant things that we aren't fond of: I, for one, hate cleaning up after my dog. But if I want a yard I can walk and relax in without stepping in something even more unpleasant, then I will do what I have to do.
The same can be said about voting. It may be unpleasant and make us feel dirty, but if we don’t do our part to clean up the yard, then we will surely step into something more unpleasant.
Even though it seems like we are often stuck having to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” voting for the one that ranks highest of the two by our own personal standards is better than giving away an uncontested vote to the one that ranks the lowest.
To the pessimists and the cynics, I say look at the glass again and be reminded that although it looks half empty, it is also half full. In other words, take heart and search for the silver lining. Even if things do go to hell in a hand basket, that doesn't mean you have to. You can choose to live on with a smile and a smidgeon of hope.
To the complacents and apathetics out there, I say wake up from your slumber! Wake up and live in reality once in a while. You don’t really want to live in blissful ignorance, like the human crop in “The Matrix,” do you? Wouldn’t you be more empowered if you know what is really going on, rather than choosing to believe something that doesn’t exist? In other words, get off your butt and get out there before all that you really have is gone.
To the protest voters, I say a no-vote is a blown opportunity. It is a vote defaulted to your opposition, because you refused to stand up and be counted. If you do not speak, then you will not be heard.
Frankly, if you choose not to vote—whatever your reason—then you have no business complaining when the music stops and you are left standing without a chair.
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