#5: NBA Draft Pick gets a rough start.
You know, there's a lot of things in that article that pluck at the heart strings. Failed SAT tests, personality conflicts with teammates, a young man trying desperately to find his way in a cutthroat world...
But, then again, the minimum salary for a player joining the league in the 2009-2010 season? $457,588. The average starting wage for a surgeon in the US? $300,000. High school teacher? $50,000. Someone with only a high school diploma like Mr. Jennings? $27,000.
Yeah, I'm not going to be losing any sleep for him.
#4: Despite Majority, Obama to Be tested
Putting aside the fact that my Firefox suddenly doesn't know how to spell "Obama" and that it suggests "Obediah" as an acceptable substitute, I'd like to nominate that article for the Wishful Thinking Watermark award for the week. Did you ever notice that whenever the media talks about Democratic Party unity they use words like "divided" and "contentious?" Have you ever stopped to consider the various factions of the Republican Party?
"Small government" conservatives
States' rights conservatives
Theocons
NeoCons
Big business conservatives
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, but the point seems clear, especially since there's a buttload of sub-factions as well. The Bush Administration was actually plagued with disagreements and feuds, we just never saw most of it because they developed a highly effective media machine. Well, I guess a willingness to sell your soul for wealth and power helped too, but that's a rant for another day.
#3: It Came from Wasilla
Okay, so Sarah Palin is supposed to be Mitt Romney meets Newt Gingrich... in heels. Now there's a mental image no amount of alcohol will ever erase. I know that she's our bogeyman, but I can't help but feel that we're doing ourselves a disservice by making her relevant. John McCain chose her because she has breasts, but the demographic she really brings would be delivered equally well by someone else, say Mike Huckabee. We have more than ample ammunition to make her look foolish on any number of topics should she suddenly gain traction in a national election, so this could easily be the time to start saying, "Sarah who?"
#2: Housing in Peril as Obama Fails to Get Breakthrough
Okay, so maybe that Wishful Thinking award was a bit premature. My high school English teacher used to tell us to read the message, not the words. Parsed out, that article reads as, "things are in the shitter, they've been in the shitter, they're going to be in the shitter. Oh, and Obama doesn't have any magic pixie dust to make it all better. Vote Republican in 2010."
The money quote?
Four months after President Barack Obama pledged $275 billion to shore up home sales, the engine that powered every U.S. recovery since 1960 is stalled.
In other news, four months after I started "juggling Brazil nuts" my man-unit is not significantly larger, putting a serious crimp in my plans to become America's Top Porn Star. (No, "juggling Brazil nuts" isn't a euphemism for anything, it just sounded funny.)
**drum roll**
#1: Spitzer: I'm no Mark Sanford
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I couldn't give less of a rat's ass about where my elected officials stick their penises (or vaginas, to not be sexist). Policy is always more important than someone's private life. I don't care if my doctor is shtupping the pool boy, a fresh avocado or that cute coed he's "tutoring." At the end of the day, all I care is that he's doing his job. Everything else is trivial.
The truth is that we always lose when we cross the line from policy debate into identity politics. Always. We lose because our message disappears in the white noise of the MSM. We lose because we stop talking about the things that are really important. We lose because we become them.