Entries for December 2008

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Have I missed something?

In our recent past, did Time magazine columnist Joe Klein take a swipe at Michael Gerson that cut the former Bush speechwriter to the quick?

Or was the devastating slash served upon Klein by Gerson in this morning's Washington Post the start of a new, juicy journalistic feud?

Illuminate me, readers.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

It is sad, but not particularly surprising, to read that the big U.S. television networks are closing up shop in Iraq.

Revenue is down, and war correspondents are terribly expensive, especially in a place like the Middle East, where they have to protect themselves from kidnapping, IEDs, and suicide bombings.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

There was less than a minute left in the game against Toronto when one of the other Washington Capitals found Alex Ovechkin, unguarded, with nothing but ice between him and an empty net.

Another score would be gravy. The Caps led 3 to 1, on two goals by Brooks Laich, and a nifty shot by Ovechkin at the close of the second period. Now, as the Capitals superstar turned toward the Toronto net, he could see Laich streaking down the other side of the rink, ready for the feed that would give him a hat trick.

Instead of passing, Ovechkin took the easy goal himself. He said after the game that he saw a blue Toronto jersey closing on Laich. If so, he has remarkable peripheral vision. 

Being a superstar has its prerogatives, as well as its demands. The real greats in sports are selfish, driven, greedy. They want to score, and they know they are paid for spectacular performance. And the Laiches of the sporting world recognize that the Ovechkins are the meal tickets—that the fans paying exorbitant ticket prices do so to see Ovi perform.

Allowances are made. Especially since, aside from Ovi and the other remarkable young Capitals (who are in first place in their division and on a hot streak, despite a rash of injuries), the sporting scene in the nation's capital is so terribly, awfully dismal.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Karl Rove gives us an interesting column in the Wall Street Journal today, in which he describes a book-reading competition he conducted with President Bush over the past three years.

Their rough goal was to read at better than a book-a-week pace. To make sure that neither cut corners with slim volumes, they would measure a book's physical, as well as intellectual, heft.

Rove disappoints, in that he doesn't list the books that he has been reading, but he does provide a rather lengthy list of what the president has read on Air Force One or in quiet time at the White House and Camp David.

There are immediate observations to be made about the Bush reading list. It is classic and conservative in its selections and heavy in biography and history. Bush and Rove are apparently believers in the Great Man view of things, in which leaders like Andrew Jackson and Mao and Lyndon Johnson transform societies, and not so much the other way around.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

OK. Here's a little tale about a Christmas miracle.

Rick Warren is reaching out to the GLBT community and—sort of—apologizing for his more intemperate remarks about gay marriage.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I must admit that I'm somewhat stunned at my Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Michael Barone's view of the U.S. Department of Interior, which is so different than my own.

Michael sees a federal agency staffed by sleeper cells of anti-growth radicals, who are now stirring in the advent of a new Democratic administration, ready to emerge and thwart economic progress across the globe.

He's issued warnings about "the environmental restrictionist culture of Interior Department career employees" and—admirably and candidly owning up to his own traumatic near-encounter with a polar bear—urged us to overcome our misplaced, emotional sympathies for these cruel, mighty killers of the North.

Well, Interior's career employees must be hardy moles, Mike. They've been working for GOP chief executives and Free Market ideologues and Republican-appointed Secretaries—and sleazy industry goons like disgraced deputy secretary Steve Griles—for 20 of the last 28 years.

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I've never been a quota kind of guy. Big organizations are soul-deadening even in the best of straits. Compulsory race and gender scales can make a workplace downright poisonous.

And so, as my Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Bonnie has raged these past few weeks about the lack of female faces in the top ranks of the incoming administration, I was tempted to pick a fight with her. Diversity, thy name is Obama, I thought. Give him time. Hey, wasn't Hillary named secretary of state?

Wisely, I held off. Because when the final round of cabinet appointees was announced on Friday and we got a look at the whole lineup, I had to say, Bonnie was right.

Five women in the 22 top positions of government? This is the best the Democrats can do? For what, arguably, is their most important constituency? 

Gimme a break. What a blunder.

I hope Obama's team has been vetting female legal scholars. By shortchanging gals in the executive branch, he's just ratcheted up the pressure to name a woman—maybe two or three women—to the U.S. Supreme Court.