More guest writing today, although it couldn't be much more different than what Brian did the other day.  Doug Hennessee reporting:

Scouts

Deep in the bowels of a huge concrete structure in Texas, two men sat at a table, silent, dejected, exasperated. They were seasoned veterans, masters of a rare and specialized discipline which few people understood or even knew existed. Their job was to observe, to look for trends and see a certain future in places where other people might see nothing at all. Their job, like any that attempts to portend the future from a hazy present, was difficult. There were often misses, where the observations and predictions didn’t add up.

And yet, the observation and analysis of men like these was often prescient. And every once in awhile, the confluence of research, intuition and years of experience produced information so undeniable, even the most suspicious or dense members in their audience could not deny the future they foretold.

Or so they thought.

There was one man who ignored what they had to say. He routinely daydreamed through their presentations, if he bothered to show up at all. Most days, while this was extremely discouraging to them, they didn’t feel that it made much difference in the overall scheme of things. After all, this man was a mere figurehead, a symbol of power rather than a maker of important decisions. Subordinates made most of the meaningful decisions, and this was fortunate for everyone involved.

At least that was the case on most days. But on one day in particular, the figurehead decided he was going to make a decision. He decided he was going to make a bold move that ignored the observations of his experienced observers, and instead catered to the whims of other advisors who had their own near-sighted and self-serving interests in mind. That bold move flew in the face of the observations of the two men in that huge structure in Texas, and to top it off, they had the ultimate indignity of first learning it had actually happened as they read the headlines of that morning’s Dallas Morning News:

"Rangers Deal Prospects for Harold Baines"

There they sat, mouths agape as they scanned the headline over and over again. Finally, one of them, a grizzled baseball scout with some 20 years of experience mining for baseball talent, spoke. "Prospects. They don’t even fucking name him in the headline. I can’t believe that fucker dealt Sammy Sosa for a used up bat like Harold Baines."

The "fucker" of which the scout spoke was Rangers owner George W. Bush. In reality, he was only a minority owner of the team, but the real power brokers who financially backed the team (mostly people with backgrounds in politics, big oil and military contracting) were eager to have a personable front man with political ties, and George W. Bush fit the bill perfectly. He was a more than willing participant; he loved the notoriety that came with being a visible owner, not to mention the great seats behind home plate. He hoped that he might build a winner in Texas, something that had never been done before, and then ride that wave of popularity to some sort of political office.

Of course, "hope" is not a plan, and the Rangers under Bush’s "leadership" floundered predictably, with ill-advised free agent signings, questionable reliance on the advice of various general managers, and the lack of a coherent long-term plan. There also seemed to be a general lack of attention to detail, as the team’s drafting fortunes sank considerably under Bush’s leadership; what few prospects were in the system were often dealt to other teams in an attempt to bring in a shiny and utterly over-the-hill marquee player. And over time, another tell-tale sign of sorry organizations became commonplace: A lack of accountability.

But Sammy Sosa was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Everybody in the organization knew he was an uncommon talent, the kind of talent you don’t give up at the trade deadline to rent a half-season’s worth of washed-up Designated Hitter when you are trailing a juggernaut Oakland A’s club by 10 games. Everybody, that is, except the one person who needed to know it the most.

The other man, a youngish sort who was first getting into the scouting game, wondered how it could have happened. "I don’t get it. I know for a fact that I prepared the Personnel Daily Briefing (PDB) for him last August 6th and put it right on his desk. The title was ‘Sosa Determined to Become Hall of Famer in the U.S.’ How could he have missed that?"

The older scout grumbled. "That fucker didn’t even read it. He never reads those reports! You know what happened, don’t you, kid? Bush had (team General Manager Tom) Grieve and (field manager Bobby) Valentine all over his ass to deal for a bat. I caught wind of this last night and tried to talk Bush out of it. You know what he told me? He said ‘I know you say we have this scouting report and all, but that is a historical report, right? It just says this Sosa kid had good years in the past, right? I mean, if that report says specifically in it that Sosa might hit 66 home runs one day, or that he might become a national icon in two countries, or that he might someday hit some bombs in New York and the Washington area, like Baltimore, I might not trade him.’ Naturally, I almost blew up and had to restrain myself. He ought to know scouting reports don’t work like that! But still, I thought I might have talked him out of the deal till I saw this headline."

The young scout looked confused. "But I don’t get why Grieve would do the deal. Valentine’s an idiot, but Grieve, he should have known this was a bad trade. He had to!"

The old man nodded. "Yeah, I don’t get it either. Why Baines? I could see dealing Sosa for an impact pitcher or bat, a guy like Boggs or Carney Lansford. But why the sudden hair up his ass for Baines?"

Then the younger man cocked his head to the side, and began tapping the table with his fingers. "You know…" Then he stopped, thinking the old scout might think he was crazy if he finished his thought.

"What? You got somethin’?" The old man knew the kid had an idea about why Grieve was so obsessed with Baines.

The kid relented. "Well…during that last series the White Sox were in town, I saw Grieve talking a lot with that one White Sox scout. What’s his name? Oh, Andy Chalabi, or something. Weird baseball name, huh? Anyway, I noticed they were really whooping it up, talking about fishing or some crap. I was a couple rows behind them getting gun readings on their pitchers, so I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, but I do remember Chalabi buying Grieve more than a few Bud longnecks. Then Bush came over and they all started slapping each other on the back and tossing back a few. Maybe Chalabi fed them a line of bull about Baines?"

The old man went crazy, shoving legal pads off the table, which slammed against the wall and landed on the floor in a heap. "Gotdammit! I knew it! That son of a bitch Bush won’t read our own stuff, scouting information he’s paying to get, but he’ll listen to any line of bull that walks off the street if it tells him what he wants to hear!"

They sat in silence, staring at the table and mourning the loss of the organization’s best prospect. A loss that in their eyes had been entirely preventable, if only the team leadership had trusted their information, or chosen to act upon it.

After a few moments, the young kid perked up. "Hey. Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe Baines has a little left in the tank. Maybe Sosa will just end up being another Oddibe McDowell. You never know."

This didn’t comfort the old man. "It’s not that, kid. Scouts are wrong a lot. It’s about the process. It’s about trusting your information and doing it the right way, for the right reasons. You don’t deal for a guy to make some headlines, if it’s the wrong deal. You don’t ignore your intelligence and scouting just to listen to some other guy from another organization feed you a line of bull."

The kid nodded. He understood what the old man was saying. But still, he tried to offer the rosiest picture he could. "Well, it’s just too bad the process had to fuck up with the organization’s best prospect, instead of somebody that didn’t matter."

At that, the old man finally laughed. "Kid, you think this is the first time this organization fucked up? Look at us. We got no prospects. No plan. We start every year with a bunch of talk about the Promised Land, and it always wilts in the August heat. Naw, this ain’t the first time this has happened. This was just the first time anybody noticed."

He got up and started walking slowly to the door. Before leaving, he turned back to the kid, who was still sitting and staring at the table. "Don’t worry, kid. What we do isn’t in vain. We have an important job, even if some people don’t know it. Just be ready, when Sosa breaks some home run record someday, you’re gonna hear that the only reason we traded him was because our scouting reports on him weren’t any good."

The kid started to get angry, but the old man just laughed and walked out. The kid had a lot to learn about figurehead owners and accountability, and the old man had a 12-hour drive to the Florida State League waiting for him. After all, somebody might want a scouting report on one of those players someday.

1:27:41 PM    comment []

Is Vietnam, Is Not Vietnam....

To read the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post today is to see a point-counterpoint between two op-ed heavyweights:  Paul Krugman and Charles Krauthammer.  The subject is the Vietnam/Iraq comparison, with Krugman arguing in favor of the analogy, and Krauthammer arguing against it.  That they took these positions is not surprising.

What is surprising is how little their arguments have to do with each other. 

--Krauthammer's argument is based entirely on what's happening on the ground in Iraq.  Essentially he says that despite the recent uprisings things are largely under control, with the majority of the population in support of the US and democracy.  Things are not really terrible, according to Krauthammer, and there's nothing like the carnage of Vietnam.  Plus, there's the fact that the French were in control of Vietnam.  You think I'm joking that that's one of his arguments?

--Krugman's argument is about the domestic politics of Vietnam, and he claims that Iraq is actually worse.  He argues that the strain on or military is actually worse now, because a larger percentage of the US military is in Iraq as compared to Vietnam (a stunning statistic if true).  He argues that the Bush has failed to call for anything resembling national sacrifice in budgeting or taxes.  He draws other comparisons:

This fiscal chicanery is part of a larger pattern. Vietnam shook the nation's confidence not just because we lost, but because our leaders didn't tell us the truth. Last September Gen. Anthony Zinni spoke of "Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies," and asked his audience of military officers, "Is it happening again?" Sure enough, the parallels are proliferating. Gulf of Tonkin attack, meet nonexistent W.M.D. and Al Qaeda links. "Hearts and minds," meet "welcome us as liberators." "Light at the end of the tunnel," meet "turned the corner." Vietnamization, meet the new Iraqi Army.

Krugman also points out that Bush, like Nixon, actively battles dissent by comparing it to treason.

Who's right?

What's interesting is that both could be, based on these arguments.  Krauthammer's not painting an optimistic scenario of Iraq; rather, he's just saying that Vietnam was a lot worse.  But he doesn't really address any of the domestic concerns raised by Krugman.  Krugman does, at least partly, address the arguments made by the anti-Vietnam-analogy crowd when he points out that idealistic talk about democracy in Iraq is very different than getting it in the end product.  That's something that certainly resonates strongly with me--I've written before in this space that the neocons are awfully willing to bypass the now to talk about the then.

And Krauthammer's conclusion seems to prove that point. 

This is no time for despair. We must put down the two rebellions -- Fallujah's and Sadr's -- to demonstrate our seriousness, and then transfer power as quickly as we can to those who will inherit it anyway, the Shiite majority, with its long history of religious quietism and wariness of Iran. And antagonism toward its former Sunni oppressors. If the Sunnis continue to resist and carry on a civil war, it will then be up to the Shiites to fight it, not for Americans to do it on their behalf.

Hardly the best of all possible worlds. But it is a world we could live with.

Translation:  Let's put the (Kraut)hammer down on the uprising now, then give it to the Shiites.  If they can't fix it, fuck 'em.  Not our problem.

Sort of runs counter to the glorious talk about bringing flowering democracy to Iraq, doesn't it?

I don't know whether the Vietnam comparison is apt, mostly because my knowledge of the history of the Vietnam War is more pathetic than pathetic.  I do know that I'm not the only person to believe strongly that the Bush /Nixon comparisons are scarily apt.  And I also know that even conservative war-supporters have been down on Bush of late for not being forthright about what's happening and what it's going to take in Iraq.

I question whether the situation would ever get as bad as Vietnam, precisely because Vietnam got so bad.  But it does seem to me that the consequences of screwing it up in Iraq are a lot worse than Vietnam falling into the hands of the commies. 

1:01:55 PM    comment []