Politics as Usual by Jim Baron

The New England Patriots are unarguably a great, great football team.
Confident, competent, disciplined, they are supremely capable of going out and doing the hard work that has to be done, every time.

They are a cut above all the others, the elite. They are the AFC’s only superpower.
As a result, the whole world is out to beat them, or at least prove they can compete with them. But they are the ones who get it done.
In a violent game frequently compared to war and battle, they always seemed to prevail. They could do virtually anything they wanted on the field of battle, dominating the action while hardly breaking a sweat. There isn’t anybody who has what it takes to stop them. They did it last year, winning every single game of the regular season. They’re a team you can look up to, that you would want your kids to emulate. Wearing the red, white and blue, they made you proud to be an American.
They are the Number One team and there was no reason to think they would stop being Number One for a long, long time.
Then, in a 15-second cataclysm of confusion and falling bodies, Tom Brady, the top guy, the main man, the one everyone turned to to guide the team to victory, by sheer force of will if necessary, was gone. Not coming back. In the first quarter of the first game of the season.
All of a sudden we have Matt Cassel behind center taking the snaps. He’s the guy responsible for making the plays; he is the guy who is responsible for our victory or defeat in battle. He has never been a starting quarterback in the NFL; he was never even a starting quarterback in college. The overwhelming majority of people in the country had never even heard of him until a few weeks ago. He is the epitome of untested. But it is all up to him.
What is going to happen to us now? Where are we going to end up? All those teams we have lorded it over for the last several seasons will be looking to eat us alive.
But that’s football.
Now think about what happens if America picks John McCain as our top guy, the main man, the one everyone turns to, the uncontested leader of the team. Then he is suddenly gone halfway through the first quarter of his first term.
What is it going to be like when his designated back-up has to come off the bench and all of a sudden be in charge?
The next time you ponder whether Sarah Palin is ready to be the leader of the free world and the president of the globe’s lone superpower, try to imagine her with a big number 16 on her back. It might help.

Hubbub over cliches
I am not a big fan of Barack Obama and I am not convinced that he is any more fit to be president than Sara Palin is. But in his defense he DID NOT call the woman a pig last week. Anyone who claims he did is either an idiot, or a troublemaker.
Surely you know what I am talking about. You couldn’t have read, seen or listened to any political journalism last week without encountering Obama’s quote (a variant of which was made famous in these parts a couple of years ago by House Majority Leader Gordon Fox): “You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” He went on to say, although this part is less reported on, that, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change,’ it’s still gonna stink after eight years.”
He was trying to tie John McCain to the eight years of the Bush administration and ridicule McCain’s claim that he will bring “change.” Even the slightest context shows it was not a gratuitous insult to Palin.
Unconcerned about facts, fairness or context, the GOP water-carriers of the right wing went ballistic, accusing Obama of making a sexist attack on Palin, because she joked in her RNC convention speech a week earlier: “You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
So anyone who makes a lipstick joke, any lipstick joke, is making a reference to Sarah Palin? That’s ridiculous! Does that mean if Sarah Palin makes a fish joke in the next couple of weeks we should interpret it as a racist attack on Obama?
This is exactly why so many Americans hate politics and aggressively tune out news about it. This intense focus on the silly minutiae and the juvenile, “did not, did so; did not, did so” arguments that follow for a week afterward.
I’m not big on blaming the press for stuff, but I’m afraid a lot of this is our fault. If politicians got big media play discussing substantive positions on controversial issues, that is what they would do. But this nonsense is what we give prominence to and what we ask questions about.
We pander to popular tastes and fads as much as or more than the pols do. We should really knock it off.
We have to do better, the politicians have to do better and, God knows, when you see who gets elected to office these days, the voters have to do better.
Reporting on Palin’s ABC interview last week all but ignored her contention that, yeah, it would be OK to invite the Republic of Georgia into NATO even if that meant America would be pledged to go to war with the Russians if the Russians invaded the place again. Oh, yeah, and she would be cool with Israel attacking Iran, even though many experts think that could be the spark that finally makes the Middle East blow to smithereens.
The media was too busy looking for gaffes.
Gaffes are not news. And perfectly reasonable statements that aren’t gaffes, but that bogus partisan pot-stirrers on both sides try to make into gaffes are REALLY not news.
I would be afraid to vote for a candidate who goes through a 16-18 month presidential campaign, making seven or eight speeches a day in four or five cities in two or three states seven days a week without making a gaffe. I would be afraid that he or she must be some kind of programmed Manchurian candidate, or a visitor from outer space.
This stuff is important. It should be treated that way by all involved.

We’ll miss you, Charlie
I would be remiss if I didn’t take a column inch or two to give a tip of the hat to my competitor and colleague M. Charles Bakst, who wrapped up a long and distinguished career as the dean of Rhode Island political columnists on Sunday.
The Statehouse just won’t seem the same without Charlie. No matter what type of event you were covering, or whatever the issue of the day was, Charlie could always come up with a story of something astoundingly similar that happened 10, 20 or more years ago underlining that, particularly in politics, there really is nothing new under the sun. He knows anybody who is anybody, even if they haven’t been somebody since the 1970s.
His critics can chortle now, but Rhode Island journalism and politics are going to be the poorer for his not being around.
Enjoy your leisure, Charlie, you deserve it.