Big Fat Bully Boys
Americans, as usual, are holding up our end of H.L. Mencken’s grand bargain that “we get the government we deserve, and we deserve to get it good and hard”.
But what have the polite people of Toronto done to deserve Mayor Rob Ford?
His poll numbers went up when he was caught smoking crack but his latest video rant may be a rage too far. Here’s a nice retrospective of his top then videos.
More Big Fat Bully Boys
As for the other big fat bully boy in the news, things may not be exactly as they seem either. Here’s a view from Lydon Murtha in SI. He’s a former Dolphin teammate of Richie Cognito and Jonathan Martin. Murtha says it was Martin who violated the NFL code of conduct and he sounds convincing.
If you doubted that 300 pound men who smash into other 300 pound men in a high speed collider – just the way we like it – can be bullied, you may be right.
We get the NFL we deserve – good and hard.
What’s in the Bill
We really shouldn’t be surprised to find out what’s in the bill.
Edie Littlefield Sundby wrote a WSJ op-ed about the ordeal of losing her health coverage. Her insurer wasn’t a “bad apple”. UnitedHealthcare spent 1.2 million for her cancer treatment. The op-ed went viral.
The journal has an editorial today suggesting that the purpose of ObamaCare is that everyone gets equal care, not 1.2 million in cancer treatment. Sounds like Edie should just take the painkiller.
Too Smart for the NFL
So far this year one NFL player is in jail on murder charges while others have been fined for tackling too hard. Now, according to Bloomberg, a 320 pound Nebraska and Oregon reject has been suspended for bullying a 310 pound Stanford classics major for being too smart.
Dolphin tackle Jonathan Martin turned over to the NFL some nasty voice and text messages he received from guard Richie Incognito that indicate the hazing went beyond “team building”. This wasn’t a case of veterans making the rookie stand on a table at training camp and sing his college alma mater. He flat out got the “mean girl treatment” when he sat down to eat and Incognito and the other linemen got up and left. Whatever.
Too Stupid to Know What’s Good for You
Being too stupid to know what’s good for you, you bought a “substandard”, “bad apple” health care policy at an affordable price. Lucky for you, that policy has been canceled.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act you now have access to a more expensive plan with free birth control, except you’re a 60 something male with a vasectomy (which you paid for).
Bystander President
The NYT has called President Obama the bystander president because he’s deluged by events that seem to have nothing to do with him – unless they’re good. Like the U.S. oil boom which he fought against tooth and nail and now takes credit for.
Here’s a Dana Milbank Washington Post column pondering the problem.
Bystander Protector
Obama is fond of Czars. Could Valerie Jarrett be his protective Rasputin? John Fund thinks so. He quotes her appraisal of the president:
“I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. . . . He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. . . . So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. . . . He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”
Says Fund, “As a court flatterer of that caliber it’s no surprise that Jarrett has outlasted almost everyone who was in Obama’s original White House team”
