et ceteras

A sampling of the thoughts running through my head:

Sotomayor

Fact: Of the six times that decisions she made in lower courts have been reviewed by the Supreme Court, her decisions were overturned four times. The other two times, the decisions themselves were upheld, but the Supreme Court determined that the reasons she gave for making them were not legally valid.

Opinion: She has nothing but contempt for the Constitution, she fancies herself wiser than thou, and she thinks she has a right to go outside of the democratic process to impose her policy positions on everyone else.

Conclusion: She is woefully unqualified for the job, and is almost certain to inflict lasting harm on future generations -- much like our president, who is woefully unqualified for his job and has already inflicted harm on future generations.

The Gaffe Machine

I am 38 years old and have not watched a Chicago White Sox game in approximately 30 years. For that matter, I haven’t watched more than ten baseball games at all since the strike 15 years ago, and all of those games involved my hometown Tampa Bay Rays. But even I know that until recently, the home of the White Sox was Comiskey Park.

On the other hand, our president has made a point of calling himself a “devoted” White Sox fan and last night he wore a White Sox jacket to the All Star Game. But while wearing that jacket during an interview with Bob Costas, Obama referred to the team as having once played in “Cominskey Field.” Such a gaffe is sacriliege to people who love the team. Had George W. Bush made that gaffe, we’d still be hearing about it a decade from now, but Obama made it just last night and the only person who’s brought it up is Rush Limbaugh -- which begs the question, if a liberal says something that would make him look stupid, but the media never reports it, did he actually say it?

Palin

Because I have written things like this, several people breathlessly asked for my opinion about Sarah Palin’s resignation right after she announced it. Most of them thought it showed she was a quitter, and they were all disappointed when I said I didn’t really have an opinion. But as I saw it, the question of whether she “quit her job” is totally irrelevant to the American public unless she runs for president.

Now that a little time has passed, I can say that the reason Palin gave for resigning -- essentially, that responding to one bogus ethics charge after another, with no end in sight, is consuming so much time and money (both hers and the state’s) that she is prevented from doing her job -- makes more sense than any of the guesses other people have made.

I can also say this: If you read the editorial she published in this week’s Washington Post about cap-and-trade, it is obvious that she is every bit as sharp and feisty as ever. Liberals hate her because they are an angry breed and they know that her clear, unashamed conservatism threatens their ability to hold power over average citizens. Spineless Republicans, whom the media like to call “moderate Republicans,” don’t like her because they are afraid her presence in the GOP will cause their Democrat friends to stop inviting them to cocktail parties in the Hamptons. Therefore, I absolutely love the woman.

Local Yokel Issue

If you are not from Tampa or the immediate Tampa area, you have no reason to know or care about Mayor Pam Iorio. But I like her, and she just gave me another reason to keep doing so.

The city is in the midst of a budget crisis and is expected to have a $52 million shortfall. She proposed alleviating that shortfall by not giving raises to city employees this year, including all of those who belong to unions. The police and firefighter unions responded by opposing the pay freeze, and Iorio responded to the unions by basically telling them to go to Hell.

I don’t like the idea of police and firefighters not getting raises, but I do understand that foregoing them is an unfortunate necessity in the current economic climate. And I know that when pay freezes are proposed in municipalities across the country, police and firefighter unions always squeal the loudest and usually wind up receiving above-market raises while everybody else goes without. I commend Mayor Iorio for making a tough decision that holds true to her fiscally conservative beliefs. She has more guts than your average elected politician. And just so you know, her record is neither anti-police nor soft-on-crime.

Tampa has had many very accomplished mayors over the decades, but Iorio is arguably the best of all. And for those of you who think I’m a party-line GOP hack, she’s a Democrat.

Thanks for reading. I'll opine some more at another time.