Narcissism

With the State of the Union a few minutes away, this note from the January 2007 Harper's Index is instructive.

Average number of times that President Bush has used the pronoun "I" in his State of the Union addresses: 36

Average number of times that President Clinton used that pronoun in his addresses: 103

That pretty accurately sums up the biggest difference between the two men.

Better wach your Barack, Obama

Dennis Miller: "If I was Obama I'd keep my head on a swivel, because you go up against the Clintons, it's like going over the middle against Ronnie Lott."

I had been thinking the same thing. The Clintons are (in)famous for attacking their political opponents with a ferocity unmatched since Nixon's Plumbers Union. They went to the trouble of inserting Wesley Clark into the 2004 primary race to derail Howard Dean, and that was four years in advance. With the coronation now at hand, anybody who tries to get in the way will be dealt with in the harshest manner possible. I hope Obama has extremely thick skin and a relatively clean past, or his career may already have peaked.

[UPDATE 1/19/07]: Like clockwork, stories are surfacing today about Obama's Muslim past (he was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather and attended a Muslim madrassa in Indonesia) and "concerns" about his having concelealed that part of his background and that he still may still have closeted Muslim beliefs despite his born-again Christianity.

The Clinton machine is nothing if not consistent.

Bizzarroball

I thought the oddest play I would see all year was when in early December when Lamar Odom took the ball out of bounds after a made basket and just dribbled it in and started down the court, something I had never seen at any level.

But tonight San Antonio made a solid bid with something else I had never seen. They came out and started the fourth quarter with only four players on the court. And I don't mean four real players plus Bruce Bowen, I'm talking four actual Spurs bodies (not counting the officials). Maybe after years of getting beat by the Lakers triangle offense they were going to unviel the square. Whatever, it sure was funny, and the resulting technical made a difference as it was a four point game instead of three for the last possession.

One thing's for sure, the Lakers need to petition the league to schedule more games against the Shams and fewer against, oh, maybe the Bobcats.

Hate as policy

Living in our society, where hate is mostly shunned except on the fringes of the political spectrum, it can be jarring to discover how prevalent and how accepted hate, and in particular anti-Semitism, is in most other parts of the globe. Stories like this being the sad truth into focus:

Just two days after winning the Tiberias Marathon and speaking about how "people should live together in harmony," Kenyan-born runner Mushir Salem Jawher was stripped of his Bahraini citizenship Saturday for competing in Israel.

The first athlete from an Arab country to compete in an Israeli marathon, Jawher won the race after completing it in just over two hours and 13 minutes. [...]

"When I decided to come I didn't know it was history for me to be in here, but when I arrived [I was] told no other athlete had competed in Israel," said Jawher, a Catholic. "For me, it was no problem and I hope to come back and compete next year."

But while he celebrated afterward and declared that he was "very proud" to have run in Israel, Bahrain's Athletic Union said in a statement Saturday that it had received the news that a Bahraini national competed in Israel with "shock and regret."

"The union deeply regrets what the athlete has done," the statement said. A committee of sport and government authorities decided to strike Jawher's name off the sport union records and strip him of his Bahraini nationality, the statement said.

It said Jawher had entered Israel with his Kenyan passport and added that the runner's Bahraini citizenship was revoked because he had "violated the laws of Bahrain."

Luckily, he's not smoking us

I have no use for anybody wearing a Sacramento Queens uniform, but have to admit that guest color man Sir Charles had a point when he said "You got to like a guy named Douby."

Former Atlanta Brave Jung Bong could not be reached for comment.

Politically incorrect

Saw while surfing New Year's Day bowl games that Tennessee has a running back with the unfortunate name of Arian Foster. And no, he's not white. If Miller reassigns the Men of the Square Table from Man Law to Black Law, I'm thinking this has to be a violation.