The Pendragon's Hall

The NFL is heating up. Who can predict which way this all will go? I can't but we'll see if my gifts are improving at all.

Arizona @ Dallas: Dallas by 7.
Chicago @ Detroit: Detroit by 3.
Cleveland @ Houston: Cleveland by 6.
Green Bay @ Cincinatti: Cincinatti by 3.
Jacksonville @ St. Louis: Jacksonville by 1.
Minnesota @ Carolina: Carolina by 12.
Oakland @ Tennessee: Oakland by 3.
Washington @ New York Giants: Giants by 1.
Kansas City @ San Diego: San Diego by 7.
Miami @ New Orleans: Miami by 4.
Philadelphia @ Denver: Denver by 2.
Tampa Bay @ San Francisco: Tampa Bay by 14.
Buffalo @ New England: New England by 12.
Baltimore @ Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh by 7.

We win again. Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination the US Supreme Court. The annoying thing to me is that liberals are billing this as a victory for them. In reality, it is probably the best thing that could have happened to the Bush administration. But the Left can't imagine a different way of doing things than theirs. In their world, they champion and promote a candidate until he retires or is defeated and can no longer protect Roe v. Wade and then they dump him on the curb like Thursday's trash. But conservatives do not operate this way. Bush is our man. He makes mistakes, takes us for granted, but he has done us a world of good and he is a leader worth uniting behind. Now that he has removed the offensive choice from the board, we are with him again 100%. Liberals just can't fathom such attachment, or the idea of agreeing on enough that even when we disagree we're on the same side. At the risk of being called a plagiarist, there's a little word they need to learn and it's the first word in politics: loyalty.

There is nothing that shows more the decadence of the legal system than the new process of confirming Supreme Court justices. The Senate of course has always had to confirm them but they never used to campaign for office like a regular politician. Harriet Miers, like John Roberts before her, is now visiting senators on Capitol Hill to raise support for her upcoming confirmation hearings. The problem with this is that it makes judges like the senators themselves...you know how they do, try to convince conservatives they're for family values, and then try to convince Leftists they're really not all that conservative. Whatever happened to judges being impartial interpreters of the law? Now they scrabble in it like everyone else. How can we expect Harriet Miers to judge according to law and not politics if she can't even remain above politics during her hearings? The "conservative pundits" that the Sacramento Bee cites are correct: Harriet Miers should be preparing to distinguish herself at her confirmation hearings, not cajoling senators ahead of time. This is, in the end, the real problem I have with Miers, even if she turns out to be a staunchly pro-life conservative justice, is that it is not her job to go politicking and to vote on major policy initiatives. She has to decide the law. If she can prove that she has a conservative grounding in the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution, then I'll back her to the hilt. But if she doesn't have that backing, I don't care if she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, because that only gets rid of one symptom--legalized abortion. The main problem, that of judicial activism, would still remain. We need to get at the root of that before worrying about all the branches.

I see from the news that Cindy Sheehan, the unstable mother of a man killed doing his duty in Iraq, is protesting in New York City this time, where apparently she has only been able to scare up "hundreds" of followers. That is pretty pathetic in a city the size of New York. But they're only liberals there--not stupid, at least not completely. They know a sinking ship when they see one. Rumor has it she even chided Hillary Clinton for not being tough enough on the war. "We need to stop making this war profitable," she declared. Let's see...rising casualties, no change in the price of oil or gasoline, more aid to Iraq than ever...yeah, it's real profitable. Rush Limbaugh thinks Sheehan has gone too far and will never be heard from again now that she has dared, as a Leftist, to take on Hillary Clinton. I think it's being staged. If Sheehan publicly attacks Hillary for "not being tough enough" on Bush's Iraq policy, Hillary will be seen as a moderate, which is what she has been posturing as for some time. These Leftists all work together.

Newsmax is increasingly reminding me of a certain Kerry advisor I saw on TV while in London last Fall. Throughout election night, he grew more and more tense and kept shouting at the interviewer, "I don't know why the numbers are like this. People are still waiting to vote. They can't shut down the polls already. I just know there are more Democratic votes out there. Kerry will win." For Newsmax though, the question is on Condi. Having spent weeks letting Dick Morris predict that Condi is the only candidate who can beat Hillary, and having to face Condi's declaration that she is not running for President in '08, Newsmax published a rumor that Cheney is going to resign and Condi will replace him. If this turns out to be true, it would prove that the Bush administration has lost its marbles. Cheney has repeatedly said he will not run for president in '08. The law requires a new VP to win confirmation by the Senate...but every Senator on the Hill is planning to run him/herself for the President. The appointment of Condi to such a position would signal that Bush is choosing her as his replacement and the Senators would be completely unwilling to have a rival that kind of prestige. Maybe Newsmax should give it up with Condi...by like three months ago.

Well, sports fans, the verdict is in: this year's World Series will be the Chicago White Sox (for the first time since 1916) vs. the Houston Astros (for the first time ever). While I am a die-hard Yankees fan, I am kind of glad with how this all turned out. It's fun to watch new teams battle it out. So, having no team in either league still playing, who do I support? Well, loyalty is a virtue and as the Yankees are an American League team, I say, "Go, White Sox!"

Newsmax continues to harp on the same two themes--one, Condi should run for president in 2008; two, Harriet Miers is really a closet conservative who will overturn Roe v. Wade. I am so tired of the first song that I'm going to ignore it for now, but this newest development in the Miers case has me wondering. She will overturn Roe v. Wade? First of all, a court just can't decide to overturn a case; it has to be reopened. So, even assuming this woman really is conservative, which I doubt, the first step towards doing so would be a group bringing legal action to overturn the case. It would then have to be appealed through the court network to reach the US Supreme Court, and would then have to come down to a 4-4 tie so Miers could cast the winning vote. Let's see whether or not that would be likely: Scalia would vote to overturn it, and maybe Clarence Thomas, ok, good, that's two votes. Would John Roberts vote that way? Probably. Ok, that's three. The others, Miers excepted would vote against such a motion. The final result would be 5-4 against overturning the decision. I'm still just leery of this nomination and am hoping that Bush withdraws her soon and replaces her with an actual conservative. I mean, I'm sure Ms. Miers is a wonderful person, but how can someone who has voted liberal almost all her life and left no track record of conservative tendencies suddenly become the conservative champion we've all been waiting for? There are plenty of great legal minds who often happen to be female out there--we didn't need to stoop to this. My preference would be Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen.

I think I will continue my Canadian series today and discuss what is becoming true not just in Canada but Westwide. Following the hockey game on Saturday night (in which, to my delight, Ottawa creamed Boston 5-1), my fiancee commented on the fact that the Canadian audience actually stood to sing the American national anthem as well as their own, in fact they sang the American one first even though Ottawa was the home team. I had been impressed as well and Gillian wondered how hockey fans got to be so conservative.

It's not just hockey. It's sports. Athletics are under real attack from the "It's-not-whether-you-win-or-lose-it's-how-you-play-the-game" mommy's boys crowd on the Left. The problem is, they don't like competition at all. It's already not fair for some people to have more money than others. The chapel speaker at my college this morning actually worried that these are scary days, not because of terrorism or uncertainty, but because America controls "more than our share" of the world's wealth and so people are driven to "resort to terrorism." I was appalled. Where does it say that there's only so much wealth in the world and everyone is entitled to an equal share? In my observation, wealth is more man-made than natural and if people work hard, they can get in on some of the planet's wealth. Not that this will always be equal. Most times it won't be. The person hoeing coffee beans in Latin America is probably never going to be as rich as Bill Gates but if they are ever broken into the idea of competition they might be able to better themselves substantially. But back to sports: athletic competition is a living reminder to all those walking in a liberal wonderland that life is not fair. People don't inherently deserve to succeed; they have to work at it. The Boston Bruins played horribly Saturday night and they got creamed. They don't need to have people cry over them; they need to play better next time. Nor should the Ottawa Senators be made to feel guilty for winning. They have a great team and they played amazingly well. To lay to rest any complaints that I only feel this way because I like Ottawa and hate anything to do with Boston, let me rephrase. The New York Giants don't need me to cry over them and make them feel better; they need to buck up and play better ball. And the Cowboys shouldn't be ashamed of winning, much as I hate them; they played well and they deserve credit. You see, sports actually teaches us a lot about real life, which is something liberals are anxious to avoid at all costs.

Why are sports fans conservative? Because they understand the underlying principle of life: you play better than the other guy, you win. You don't, you lose. They like to see that. They come to cheer their team on to victory, not a feel-good state of self-esteem. And let's face it: what's more ridiculous than grown men screaming and jumping around every time someone scores a goal (hockey) or a touchdown (football) or heck, a run (baseball)? Yet what it really signifies is a celebration of achievement, a distinctly male thing, and so another aspect liberals are rather interested in squelching. So I say, play sports proudly and often. I wish I was more athletic so I could join you.

Having visited a health care facility in Canada over the weekend, I come away more amused than ever by the naivety of liberals. We've listened to Ted Kennedy and company ramble on for years as to how America must move "to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors" and their chief plan for doing this is to nationalize the health care industry the way our neighbor to the north has. One would almost picture cars lining up for miles at the Canadian border with old people fleeing north to buy prescription drugs. Yet this silver lining has a storm cloud attached that we don't often hear about and that's the waiting lists our Canadian friends are subjected to. In the entire capital city of Ottawa, a city of some one million people, there is a single MRI clinic. So you can imagine how long it takes to get to use it. My fiancee told me about her friend's father who was kept waiting for two years to find out what was wrong with him. He had cancer. Yeah, he was dead long before he was to have been checked out. While I was there, a woman came in to schedule an x-ray and was told she could come in "bright and early" on November 28th...this on October 13th! The poor lady protested, "That's a long time. I could be dead by then." Upstairs in the waiting room, lines stretched out the door with patients waiting to tell their doctor they were there for their checkup while the receptionist was on the phone apparently getting the whole lifestory from another potential customer. My fiancee's appointment was at 10:45...it was nearer noon when she actually got in! A Canadian snidely told me, "In Canada, our doctor's visits are free." My response: "In America, they're on time."

I wish Dick Morris would shut up and go away. When he's not encouraging Republicans to false hope by saying that Hillary could lose a state that contains New York City, he's depressing people by announcing that Hillary will sweep to victory in 2008 unless Condi Rice opposes her. I've said it before: Condi is a smart woman and would be a credit to the Republican Party. But she couldn't win. Hillary would still get a majority of black and female votes and Condi would be unable to garner much support among white males who probably would have no enthusiasm for a black woman as president. This is not because of racism but just because it would be hard for them to relate. So she loses a part of her base while not swaying those she supposedly would represent. Is this bad news? Only if Newsmax keeps giving Morris his bully pulpit and pumping up his books. The Republican Party is not yet in such desperate straits, nor the Democrat ascendency so powerful, that any one individual is the only one who can be hoped to sink Hillary. At this point, I think any Republican candidate, except maybe John McCain, could defeat Hillary handily. Bush hasn't yet squandered his capital completely. Maybe Morris should suggest Condi run for New York State Senator.

My unofficial fact-checker has informed me that Harriet Miers supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Primary not the 2000 election as my earlier post suggested. The NYT claimed this morning that she had a conversion to evangelical Christianity from Catholicism several years ago and this coincided, or brought about, her switch from Democratic to Republican politics. That's all as may be and certainly people can change over time. I'm just worried that Bush is losing his taste for a fight and so he's taking the coward's way out on every issue and I wonder what that means for the rest of his agenda. Nevertheless, in the end, I have to make my bow and support the President. His no-names tend to be better choices than his famous people so hopefully this will hold out for the Court as well. God help us all if it doesn't.

I have to admit, I don't know what he's thinking. I'm hoping, almost against hope, to be wrong but who the heck is Harriet Miers? When people were making lists of possible choices I don't remember seeing her name anywhere. It gives me some concern that she supported Al Gore in 2000, and this is not entirely erased by certain left-wingers slamming her as "an anti-choice extremist", after all, Democrats know this is the sure-fire way to get one of their people supported by the Right: call her an extremist against abortion. I will, of course, stick by the President, being the shameless partisan that I am, but I am worried by his pick.

On a lighter note, I am beginning to see what Coulter means when she says being a liberal must be an exciting experience since history always begins this morning. Last Sunday's edition of the NYT ran the headline: "For many inmates, a life sentence means death behind bars." Oh really? I didn't know that.

On an even lighter note, the New York Giants are rocking and rolling this year. They rebounded from an embarrassing defeat in San Diego to crush the Saint Louis Rams 44-24 in Giants Stadium on Sunday. Eli Manning has completely redeemed himself from last year and even the offensive line and defense are pulling together for a change. They retire now to their bye week with a 3-1 record, tied for second with Philadelphia and poised to move into first should Washington lose next week. Go, Jints!

I caught a glimpse of a tabloid headline today: "HOLLYWOOD TO THE RESCUE!" And it showed Sean Penn trudging through New Orleans with what looked like a BB-Gun although the caption said it was actually a shot-gun. Boy, did he look heroic. So I broke my longstanding rule about not caring what the tabloids said and looked at the article. The full caption cracked me up as it featured a quote from "his publicist" saying that he had found the gun on board a boat and had turned it over to "the authorities." Good grief. That's certainly a rescue mission to be proud of. What amuses me constantly about actors is they can't seem to separate reality from the fantasy they play on TV. Penn has played fearless, macho gunmen before so he sometimes forgets that he is really a pacifistic pantywaist. What killed me even more was that what the Hollywood crowd seems mostly to have done is tell the crowds of refugees how abused they are and how we're all "ashamed of how you've been treated." Oh, thanks, guys, this is helpful. First of all, I am not ashamed at all. Secondly, what purpose does this possibly serve except to help people gain and persevere in a feeling of bitter victimization? And what do victims do? Do they really set out to help make sure no one ever suffers the way they did again? Sometimes. But not usually. Usually they do one of two things: they try to get revenge or they victimize others, neither of which is really all that helpful in rebuilding a shattered society. Gosh, this stuff makes me sick!!!

So, having worked myself into a frenzy now, I will calm down by turning my attention to this weekend's football matchups. I was woefully off last week so let's see if I can redeem myself this week.
Buffalo Bills @ New Orleans Saints. Bills by 3.
Denver Broncos @ Jacksonville Jaguars. Broncos by 7. They're hot this year.
Detroit Lions @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bucs by 12.
Houston Texans @ Cincinatti Bengals. Bengals by 14.
Indianapolis Colts @ Tennessee Titans. Colts by 3.
San Diego Chargers @ New England Patriots. Patriots by 10.
Seattle Seahawks @ Washington Redskins. Redskins by 2.
Saint Louis Rams @ New York Giants. Giants by 1.
New York Jets @ Baltimore Ravens. Jets by 3.
Dallas Cowboys @ Oakland Raiders. Cowboys by 6.
Minnesota Vikings @ Atlanta Falcons. Falcons by 7.
Philadelphia Eagles @ Kansas City Chiefs. Eagles by 2.
San Francisco 49ers vs. Arizona Cardinals. 49ers by 8.
Green Bay Packers @ Carolina Panthers. Packers by 3.