Sunday, February 15, 2004

Bush Woos the Base at Daytona From the AP: President Bush throttled up his re-election campaign Sunday by donning a racing jacket and opening the Daytona 500, NASCAR's most prestigious event in a sport that draws a prized voter profile. The race provided an irresistible opportunity for Bush to woo tens of millions of NASCAR fans -- the sport claims a fan base of 75 million -- watching the televised event 8 1/2 months before the election. The crowd in the stands was almost exclusively white and heavily male. The phrase "NASCAR dads" has become political shorthand for voters who like Bush but who could be persuaded to vote Democratic if the issues and candidates were right. [snip] Underscoring the political stakes, the Republican National Committee set up camp at the speedway to register potential voters. Bush sought to maximize his exposure to racing fans during his visit. Air Force One circled low over the speedway so the president could get a look -- and to give racing fans a dramatic look at a symbol of the presidency. He spent an unusually long time at the race -- more than two hours, compared to the 55 minutes he planned at a Monday event on the Economy across Florida in Tampa. Bush does not submit to news media interviews often, but he did two Sunday with networks that reach millions of race fans -- NBC, which aired the race, and with the Motor Racing Network. I guess our president thinks that promoting NASCAR is approximately twice as important as promoting Florida's economy. I think there is little doubt that Bush has the NASCAR dads in his corner. What he should be more worried about is how he is doing with the "soccer moms" -- the voting block that Karen Hughes always kept at the forefront of Bush's political agenda. Postscript: According to the Washington Post, the taxpayers (not his reelection campaign) paid for the President's trip to Florida, because it was considered a "non-political" event. I don't know -- it sure seems political to me: Bush's motorcade was greeted by several men waving Confederate flags from atop the roofs of their pickups. The article also mentions some of the White House's other attempts to reach out to NASCAR dads everywhere: [T]he 2002 champion, Tony Stewart, got a visit to the Oval Office. Last year, champion Matt Kenseth was heralded on the White House South Lawn, where presidential aides lined up seven stock cars to help attract cameras. Just last week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan took time in his televised briefing to laud the charitable and disaster-relief efforts of NASCAR drivers. 11:53:43 PM    comment [] The Massachusetts Ruling and Children's Rights Much has been made of the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling (Goodridge v. Department of Pub. Health) sanctioning the marriage rights of same-sex couples. But little attention has been given to the ruling's substance. One noteworthy, yet underappreciated, aspect was its focus on the rights of the children of same-sex couples. Of the seven same-sex couples that were plaintiffs in the case, four of them involved children held in relationships of 10 years or more. We are talking about not just the rights of same-sex couples to marry, but also the rights of the children of same-sex couples to be brought up by married parents. These rights are substantial: Where a married couple has children, their children are also directly or indirectly, but no less auspiciously, the recipients of the special legal and economic protections obtained by civil marriage ... marital children reap a measure of family stability and economic security based on their parents' legally privileged status that is largely inaccessible, or not as readily accessible, to nonmarital children. Some of these benefits are social, such as the enhanced approval that still attends the status of being a marital child. Others are material, such as the greater ease of access to family-based State and Federal benefits that attend the presumptions of one's parentage. Critics of same-sex marriage rights often appeal to society's prerogative in promoting optimal settings for child-rearing. But given that the State permits same-sex couples to have or adopt children, this is actually a good reason for legalizing same-sex marriage. For it is straightforwardly inconsistent for the State (1) to permit same-sex couples to have or adopt children, (2) to seek to promote marriage as the optimal setting for child-rearing, and yet (3) to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. Thus Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in her majority opinion: It cannot be rational under our laws to penalize children by depriving them of State benefits because the State disapproves of their parents' sexual orientation. Postscript: You can find a PDF file of the ruling here. As a statement of constitutional rights, the majority opinion sure makes good sense to me. 10:47:14 PM    comment [] The Big O takes on the NBA Oscar Robertson wrote an excellent (and long overdue) piece for the New York Times today ("N.B.A. Markets Style At Expense of Substance") on the poor quality of N.B.A. basketball. According to the Big O, Professional basketball has been trivialized and dumbed down to the level of a highlight reel. Marketing and entertainment rule the day rather than putting the best product on the floor. ... N.B.A. basketball is mostly muscle and flash. Stylin' all the way to the hoop. Dunks and 3-pointers, with nothing in between. Shooting percentages continue to plummet. When people tell me that scores are lower today because defenses are better, I have to laugh. Once I resisted the idea of the N.B.A. permitting zone defenses. Anymore, what does it matter? Defenses can't guard anyone properly and offenses can't score. One guy freelances while the other four stand and watch. There's no movement, no creation of an open shot on the weakside, no positioning for an offensive rebound. ... Players today are bigger, faster, stronger and more agile. But many of them can't dribble, can't shoot from outside, can't create shots off the dribble, can't guard anyone and are lost without the ball. Or even with it. And how is it that today's N.B.A. players, perhaps uniquely among professional athletes, lack the fundamentals necessary to play their game properly? First, incentives. The N.B.A. markets stars and their individual highlights over team play and the skills necessary to excel at it. Second, player development: Potential stars skilled in one or two areas of the game are identified at a very early age and coddled and wooed from middle school on up. Few coaches will require them to develop a complete game or warm the bench until they do. So they reach the N.B.A., often after only a year or two of college if at all, without more than a minimal concept of the overall game of basketball. Case in point: Larry Hughes, currently of the Washington Wizards. Larry left St. Louis University after playing only one year. He has tremendous athleticism and quickness. He's good on the fast break and at taking the ball to the rim. He's also, for a player of his talent, one of the worst shooters I have ever seen. It's painful to watch. How can an N.B.A. guard not know how consistently to hit a medium-range jump shot? There's one noteworthy exception to this trend -- the fundamental soundness of the N.B.A.'s foreign players. But they only reinforce the Big O's point: Thus, just as America imports cheap labor from other countries to do the jobs Americans don't want to do, the N.B.A. turns increasingly to foreign players who do have fundamental skills and an all-around approach to the game that fewer and fewer American players -- even though they may be superior athletes -- can be troubled to learn. Ouch. I don't know about you, but this sports fan finds the N.B.A.'s regular season completely unwatchable. And the Big O's last point makes we wonder whether a day will come when even America's best N.B.A. players won't be able to win in the Olympics. Postscript: Why the f*&^ is Arnold Schwarzenegger giving a speech at the All-Star game?! At least the N.B.A. (unlike the NFL) knows whom to invite for pre-game entertainment. 8:12:14 PM    comment [] Scarborough Channel How can MSNBC justify making Joe Scarborough (R - Florida, truth-molester) the host for their coverage of the Wisconsin Democratic debate? That's like making Michael Jackson the host of Romper Room. And just to add political balance to the coverage, they have Peggy Noonan and Pat Buchanan as special guests. [gag.] Some liberal media we have. 6:14:55 PM    comment []

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