Richardson 2008: Pitcher Perfect

Bill Richardson was interviewed for a full hour by Tim Russert on Meet the Press (see it here). There were a few uncomfortable moments, as Richardson tried to explain some contradictory comments he has made over his years in the public eye. He admitted to changing his mind some times. I think he did a pretty good job of explaining his positions or explaining why he changed his mind. He admitted to making mistakes. He has taken “nuanced” positions that are not politically straightforward but probably the most sensible: for nuclear power and renewable energy, for some gun controls and against others.

You have to be impressed by his experience not only as a governor and an international diplomat, but also as Secretary of Energy, which is the crux of our national security and our economic future.

Perhaps his most telling comment was that he had to quit his baseball career because he ruined his arm pitching “too many curve balls”. That's a perfect preparation for politics! He even convinced me that he was a Boston Red Sox fan who would love to play for the NY Yankees. That's good preparation for bringing together “blue” and “red” Americans, and maybe the rest of the world.

Indy 500

Though the Indianapolis 500 mile race can no longer claim to be a premier event in motorsports, it's claim of being the “greatest spectacle in racing” is probably legitimate. As a kid, I got to go to the “time trials” (qualifying) and I remember it fondly 40 years later. I went again this year. Former tennis great and Indy neophyte Billy Jean King said it right: the speed and the noise are amazing and they are simply lost on the television.

This race track is huge. At 2.5 miles around, it is about 15 times longer and wider than the biggest football stadium. You can only see about a third of the track at any one time and the cars cover this third in less than 15 seconds, which boggles the mind when you see it (the arrow in the picture points to a race car in corner 4). The amazing noise as the cars pass by communicates the enormous physical forces at work. (I recommend earplugs.) And the people – fellow spectators and workers – were great. I don't know if I could tolerate the crowd of 400,000 people that attend the race on the Memorial Day weekend, but maybe so, maybe so.

TV is just fine for the great traditions of the race. My favorites are Jim Neighbors singing“Back Home Again, in Indiana” before the start and, at the end, the winning driver being offered a bottle of milk to drink. None of that silly spraying around and wasting great Champaign.

Next time, let's hire a gardener...

...or maybe a carpenter, someone who actually builds or grows something in their spare time. Not another cowboy actor or wanna-be rancher who "clears brush".

Tenet's untenable case

It's certainly sad when an willful idiot (Bush) and craven criminal (Cheney) control the country. It's particularly pitiful on a personal level when a well-intentioned and seemingly intelligent person (George Tenet) can deny reality so petulantly and persistently in the face of overwhelming contrary facts. He said in his "60 Minutes" interview that the Bush gang was disturbingly keen on linking Hussein to 9/11, despite abundant contrary evidence. We can believe this because Richard Clarke said the same thing several years ago. Yet Tenet's recognition of this misguided obsession didn't deter him from joining the gang's effort to support a war against Iraq. He also claimed he had believable reports post-9/11 that Al-Qaeda possessed nuclear materials and was planning to use them in the US. This information justified in his mind the use of torture and he said these techniques blocked attacks. Correction: he denies that the CIA used torture, delicately preferring instead “enhanced interrogation” but the distinction is moot since waterboarding was one of the "enhanced" techniques.

Incredibly, after helping lead the country to a foolish and immoral war, this guy can still spout off about “honor” and how “intelligence” was his job, so the interviewer should just accept his assertions. Did Tenet watch Jack Nicholson's misguided Colonel in “A Few Good Men” a few times too many?

In case you forgot, Tenet sat right behind Colin Powell, the other big disappointment of this fiasco, when he presented to the UN the trumped-up argument for war against Hussein. Tenet still defends a National Intelligence Estimate that was over hyped. Someday, he will probably come to his senses and admit culpability. I hope so, for the sake of his own conscience. It will be too late, just like it was too late when the former Secretary of State Robert McNamara admitted his guilt for Vietnam. Or Tenet might simply go on believing he was right, like Kissinger, proudly and profitably and pitifully ignorant to the end of his days.

See also “Tortured Logic” for a rebuttal of the "reason" for using torture to extract information.