Shocked & Appalled

Random rants

10/01/2003

The libertarians are invading New Hampshire.

9/29/2003

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Allen Barra on why the big-market baseball whining is ridiculous.

"Predictably, Detroit is being used to bolster the argument that
baseball needs more revenue sharing and spending
restrictions," Barra says.

"By large-market teams, Selig apparently meant only teams that
spend a lot of money, not teams that make a lot of money. He
couldn't have meant the New York Mets (who, after cutting
their payroll drastically at midseason, will fit under the $117
million threshold), or Philadelphia Phillies (potentially the
biggest-market team in baseball, as they play in either the
third- or fourth-largest population concentration in the United
States but don't share the territory with another team), the
Chicago Cubs or White Sox (who, between them, haven't won
a World Series in more than 160 seasons), the Angels (who
have won just one World Series in their first 42 seasons and
aren't going to win one this year), or even the Los Angeles
Dodgers.

The Detroit Tigers play in a fairly substantial market, not as big
as the Chicago White Sox (although Chicagoland is shared with
the Cubs) but certainly bigger than the markets of the other
three teams—Minnesota, Kansas City, and Cleveland—in their
division who are ahead of them in the standings. The Dodgers
play in the second-biggest market in the country (though, if
you want to assume that there are large numbers of Dodger
fans both north and south of Los Angeles, you might consider it
as the biggest potential market). Which is the biggest disgrace,
that the Tigers are wrapping up one of the four or five worst
seasons ever or that the Dodgers are 13 1/2 games behind the
San Francisco Giants, not merely a small-market team but one
that has to share its fan base with the Oakland A's. Wouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that the problems of
both the Tigers and the Dodgers have something to do with
mismanagement of available resources?







Glenn Reynolds claims that the Plame/Wilson story is "too complicated" for him to understand. He can't see how revealing the name of an undercover operative could intimidate her; and dismissed claims that it could put her life at risk, or ruin her career.

"I don't see the reason for taking this approach, even if your goal was to intimidate Wilson. Surely the White House could do a better job, if that were the point, without violating the law or endangering national security."

Perhaps it's because someone there is a mean and nasty person who doesn't care whether he's breaking the law? I know the right-wing likes to think that only the liberals would ever do something bad, but please, it's not like it's the first time we've seen a White House do something monumentally stupid and illegal for very little gain. *cough*Watergate*cough*

It's so rare I actually get be appalled here at shocked and appalled. But even the right-wingers are appalled about the intentional leak of an undercover CIA officer's name to a journalist. The move was apparently an act of revenge against the officer's husband, who had criticized the government's claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The story surfaced a while ago, but appears to just be generating outrage now, since the Justice Department is finally looking into it.

Here's a quote from the Washington Post story

A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.


Lovely.