October 30, 2004 [LINK]

The curse is eclipsed!

Once more, superstition and astrology intersect with the world of baseball. Was it just a coincidence that the Red Sox triumph on Wednesday night took place during a lunar eclipse? Within the span of one full lunar cycle, two unthinkable historic passages in the baseball world have transpired: first, official confirmation of the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington ("when the moons and the suns and the stars and the dollars are aligned correctly," as Bob DuPuy said), and now, the Red Sox have become World Champions, and have done so in spectacularly decisive fashion. Both miracles followed decades of maddening frustration suffered by fans in their respective cities, and in both cases a central part of the story was rising above old demons, either internal or external. (Just in time for Halloween!) Just as Washingtonians were momentarily stunned by news that they were about to become a real baseball city once again, Bostonians are temporarily dazed by the new reality of being on top of the proverbial heap, now freed of their past crippling self-doubt and bitter grudges. It was a Cinderella story that only a total grouch could fail to appreciate, though a World Series without pinstripes still seems a little empty to spoiled Yankee fans like me. Four years without a world title?

Johnny Damon's first-inning homer was all the Red Sox needed in Game Four, putting the Cardinals in an effective psychological "pin" position from which they could not escape. Pitching performances by Schilling, Martinez, Lowe, and Foulke far surpassed expectations; apparently not many experts gave the Red Sox as much credit for pitching before the postseason as I did. Many have remarked that Boston not only set a record for consecutive postseason wins, they also sustained a perfect inning-by-inning lead in runs. Another odd facet of this World Series was that both teams' scores in each successive game declined in steady fashion. And what are we to make of the enormous ironies involving the actual or possible trades of Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and Nomar Garciaparra this year?

I was amused to find out that Boston's pitching hero Curt Schilling endorsed Bush at the end of his brief appearance on ABC's Good Morning America on Thursday. After Charles Gibson offered congratulations to him and the Red Sox, he replied: "And make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week." (via www.georgewbush.com)

In Washington, the city council held a marathon public hearing on the baseball stadium issue, and more than 300 folks showed up. The opposition seems split between total rejectionists and those who would like to get a better bargain, so Mayor Williams' plan is likely to be approved. (See Washington Post.) There is a remote possibility, however, that all this is part of a negotiating ploy aimed at setting up a more reasonable deal, mobilizing public sentiment in D.C. to demonstrate than the city government can't bend any further and will have to get more private money to fund the construction. In other words, give the extortionary deal demanded by Peter Angelos a fair shot, and then force him to settle for something less. I wonder if the terms Angelos is getting include an upper cap on D.C.-Baltimore revenue sharing, in case the Washington team earns a higher profit than expected?

As election day approaches, our collective anxiety about terrorism increases. Aside from proving he's really alive, Osama bin Laden's videotape had the healthy effect of getting Senator Kerry to call the enemy by their rightful name: "barbarians." The fact that he's worried [about] a mere media appearance by the Al Qaeda leader -- as opposed to an actual attack -- suggests that Kerry and perhaps many Democrats have been pinning their hopes on Al Qaeda remaining out of the picture. Bin Laden's message laid equal guilt at the hands of Bush and Kerry, and while he probably sees no significant difference between the two, the election will still make a big difference in how the war is fought, and terrorists can hardly be neutral. Besides, they need to show they have clout -- by influencing foreign decisions -- in order to recruit new members.

Missing explosives update: Senator Kerry has harped on the alleged stolen high explosives in the final days of the campaign, even though his aides admit that no one knows the full story yet. To me, that shows desperation, and it gave President Bush a great rhetorical opportunity:

This week Senator Kerry is again attacking the actions of our military in Iraq, with complete disregard for the facts. Senator Kerry will say anything to get elected. The Senator's willingness to trade principle for political convenience makes it clear that John Kerry is the wrong man for the wrong job, at the wrong time. (via www.georgewbush.com)

As expected, Daniel Drezner also endorsed Kerry, based on what he believes was the incompetent way the postwar pacification was handled. Interestingly, however, I've just learned that the newspaper in John Kerry's hometown -- the Lowell Sun -- has endorsed President Bush. The title says it all: "It's about national security." Christopher Hitchens gave a weak endorsement to Bush in The Nation, after a cryptic and equivocal rejection of Bush in Slate. Well, I can certainly understand ambivalent feelings about Bush.

Kansas blues

I just finished a book that expresses in fine detail how the Left views the upsurge of the Right over the past 25 years. It's What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, by Thomas Frank. I saw him on C-SPAN2 a few weeks ago, and he seemed reasonable enough. I was immediately taken aback, however, by the razor-sharp rhetoric and comments such as the "borderline criminality of capitalism itself..." Hello, Comrade! The fact that poorer, rural areas have come to vote Republican on a habitual basis contrary to what he believes is in "their fundamental interests" is evidence of widespread "derangement" which "is the bedrock of our civic order..." (Gosh! I'll have to tell that to folks here in Staunton; I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that.) Raised in Kansas but frustrated as a young adult, Frank seethes with resentment toward the economic elite, while denying the existence of a liberal cultural elite. He probably couldn't grasp the irony that his book is a perfect example of the arrogant presumptiveness of the liberal elite. I did learn some interesting details on conservatives from Kansas, such as Sen. Sam Brownback and the Koch family, and on the issue of abortion in the early 1990s. I would agree it was too bad Republican moderates were overtaken by fundamentalist zealots. I'm all too familiar with the dying small towns across the prairies which he decries, but he glosses over the fact that these changes began long before the Reagan Revolution. Why on earth can't he at least acknowledge the possibility that two generations of urban-driven Democratic labor-union machine politics created huge distortions in our economy that were prejudicial to agrarian interests? His epilogue betrays what I see as the fatal flaw of many in the Left today: bitter, fatalistic resignation to impending doom: "Kansas is ready to lead us singing into the apocalypse." The fact that radical ideologues such as Frank who pose as scholarly analysts are gaining credence in mainstream circles these days is sadly indicative of the recent tilt toward the Left on the American political landscape. It is also a sign of fierce political battles to come.

Sign survey: I was driving around town a few days ago, and decided to keep a rough tally of the political yard signs. Staunton is solid "red" (conservative, not socialist) country, so I expected a majority of Bush-Cheney signs. To my surprise, there were more than twice as many Kerry-Edwards signs: 50 to 24. Does this portend an upset win for Kerry in the Old Dominion? More likely it's an indication that all those reports we've been getting of stolen Bush-Cheney signs being stolen are true. We'll see. Democrats' support seems much stronger in upper-income neighborhoods. Speaking of stolen signs, a Democratic activist from North Carolina was arrested for theft and trespassing after he was videotaped stealing Bush-Cheney sign from a location where there had been at least two previous thefts. What are the Democrats doing with all those stolen signs? I hope they are at least recycling them properly.

GOP rally in Staunton! Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of well over 100 supporters at the Republican headquarters yesterday afternoon. For photos, see swacgop.org.