Uncle Milty takes Donahue to School

Old video, but relevant now more than ever

h/t to Dave-O

Daniel Snyder, President Obama, and lack of leadership in DC

In Washington DC there are three passions that rule this town - politics, football, and politics. Living here has given me front row seats to a pair of leadership trainwrecks in Daniel Snyder and Barack Obama. As both have been experiencing difficult times lately, it seemed like a good time to write about the similarities I've noticed between the two.

First off, I moved to the DC area in 1999, the same year that Dan Snyder bought the Washington Redskins. Interestingly enough, the job that brought me here was working for Snyder's old company, Snyder Communications. Also, I never met the man during my time working there, and from the stories I've heard about him that's not a complaint.

For those of you unfamiliar, Snyder immediately became a big news item from the beginning. He was brash, energetic, and has had no problems making bold moves as owner. Whether it was interrupting summer camp by arriving in his helicopter during practices, expanding Fedex Field's seating while raising ticket prices, and charging admission to summer camp for one season. Also, despite having no background in football, he became heavily involved in the team. Snyder held post-game meetings with his head coaches, brought in a big name personnel man from the 49ers Super Bowl Dynasty (Vinny Cerrato), has chased down and overpaid big name coaches, and has even micro managed to the point of firing several kickers over the course of a season for blown kicks.

And what has Snyder accomplished as owner? From a financial perspective, he's done quite well. He's made the Redskins the second most valuable team in football. But outside of financials, the team has been a disaster. That's not quite accurate - it's been a picture of consistent mediocrity, never great, and until this season, never truly bad. Cerrato never proved to be the great personnel man he was hoped to be. Along with Snyder, he helped to bring in overpriced and overrated or over the hill players like Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith, Brandon Lloyd, and most recently, Albert Haynesworth. Snyder has also gone through a carousel of head coaches, and given his heavy handedness over operations, no competent Head Coach wants to lead the Redskins. This has come to a head this season with the team being led by a man who has no business being a Head Coach in Jim Zorn. As of the writing of this article the Redskins are 2-5, and the fans are in open revolt.

Snyder has always been prickly about criticism. Early on, while most of the local media could not stop fawning over him, one local paper, The Washington Times, wasn't playing ball. They wrote critical pieces on Snyder, and as a result their reporter was banished to covering the games via a TV set below Fedex Field. As things have gotten worse, Snyder has even taken to censoring fans coming to the games. Now, the man who was once hailed as a bright, fresh face has been exposed as a vain, petty individual who has taken on a job for which he had no qualifications.

Which brings us to President Obama. Everyone knows about his meteoric rise since impressing America at the 2004 Democratic Convention with his amazing ability to read aloud. And in 2008, despite having no real accomplishments nor ever having won an election without relying on underhanded tactics, we elected him as our 44th president.

I don't need to go into every detail over the train wreck that the Obama presidency has been so far, but to quickly review a few major points:

• Building on the irresponsible spending of the Bush administration that will send our federal budget deficit into the trillions
• Backing a health care bill that will succeed in both ruining the quality of health care while sending costs skyrocketing
• Becoming a laughingstock in his foreign policy to the point where even the Prime Minister of France basically called him a naive twit
• Reread that last one. I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime
• Running historically discredited fiscal policy that will soon send unemployment into the double digit range as America endured under FDR

Obviously there is a lot more, but those are the main points for now. And like Snyder, Obama has had some successes so far. Ironically, both are for things that the people who voted for him were not looking for. First off, Obama has baldly broken his promise to not take national security seriously. Obama is already backing off of an immediate, unconditional surrender in Iraq. If you disagree with this last statement look at it from another angle. If Bin Laden issued a decree for all Al-Queda fighters to leave Iraq by next year how would that be interpreted? Now that Obama is postponing the end of tracking and prosecuting terrorists, he is working to make it up to his base by vacillating on Afghanistan.

The only other major accomplishment of the Obama administration sprang from the law of unintended consequences. Having become so used to the fawning coverage of the press and his own self absorption, it probably never entered Obama's mind that he could ever face real public opposition to his policies. However, he made the mistake of misinterpreting his lofty "post-partisanship" ideal to mean "shut up and follow my radical left wing agenda". The Republican party may have been left for dead on the sidelines, but the American people weren't.

They came out in droves to for the team party protests, and to confront the elected officials at the town hall meetings. And Obama and the media had no idea how to deal with it. With no figurehead to apply the Alinsky demonization tactic, the liberals showed their true contempt for the average American citizen. The left dubbed them "angry mobs", "unruly" and "astroturfers", while whining about the level of discourse as they conveniently forgot their own behavior for the last eight years. And of course, the arrogant journalists who condescendingly decry Fox News for its bias (and yes, I know they're biased.At least they're honest about their perspective) are oblivious to their own unprofessionalism when they gleefully label the protesters "Tea Baggers".

To top everything else off, The White House has declared war on Fox News for the crime of being the only major TV news outlet that does not diligently promote the administration's talking points. This goes hand in hand with Obama attacking Rush Limbaugh earlier this year. The administration probably thought it would help discredit a perceived enemy, when all that it accomplished was giving the opposition some cheap publicity while making themselves look like shallow crybabies. We've even gotten to the point where the Attorney General is trying to pressure a DC official to pull an ad critical of Obama's anti-school choice position.

So here we are today, with two leaders in Washington who came in ready to change the world. Instead, their arrogance and inability to adapt when reality did not meet their rosy visions have left both reeling and looking like two men struggling to do jobs they were never even remotely qualified to take on.

As an Eagles fan I've been thoroughly enjoying watching Snyder so ineptly run his franchise. As an American, President Obama's performance has just been painful to watch.

As Chris Griffin would say, "I need an adult! I need an adult!"

Update: Cross Posted at Flopping Aces!

Brick Top's Take on today's Eagles / Giants

Brandon Jacob's Numbers Today:

20 Rushes, 86 Yards.

The Giants must have stopped the Eagles again whilst they were walking, 'cause we cut their f***ing Jacobs off!

The Best and Worst Quotes on Sunday's Eagles / Raiders Game

Best Quote:

After Akers got hit on his 4th quarter field goal, I asked how on Earth that wasn't roughing. Standing to my right was The Destroyer of Colons (the original), who calmly explained that it wasn't Tom Brady kicking. As the folks to my left were shouting the same question, I relayed DOC's answer. They all shook their heads in agreement and concurred that my explanation made sense. Sadly, we were all only half joking.

Worst quote:

In his Monday Morning QB column, Peter King asked, "Anyone wondering if just maybe Kevin Kolb would have played a better game in Oakland than Donovan McNabb?"

Um Mr. King, had you bothered to watch the game you would have seen that Philly's O-line was doing its best impersonation of a turnstile for Oakland's defenders. Or, to paraphrase the immortal Brick Top,

"I don't care if it's Joe Montana Unitas Marino I'm Hard Mohammad Ali. You can't change quarterbacks."

Thankfully the Eagles have an extra day to prepare for the wily offensive mind of Sherm Lewis. Will Todd Collins start shouting "Bingo!" when he's calling audibles over center next Monday night?

New Redskins Logo

Sorry to rub salt in the wounds, 'Skins fans, but this is too good to not post (h/t to Kristi)

Tip Generously, Part II

You may have read my previous posting on the merits of tipping generously. I have two other quick suggestions to add that didn't really fit into the original posting.

Open Bar Events

When at an event where there is an open bar, one usually gives a dollar or two for each drink. Most people who aren't employed as strippers do not generally have lots of singles, and I am among them. I hope that my image has not been tarnished by any readers who thought that I moonlight as a stripper. My point is that after a few dollars you're not going to start giving fives or tens as a tip, and you're not going to make change off of the tip jar, so after a few drinks you're not feeling too badly about ceasing to leave tips. But your bartender isn't working any less hard and is still serving up your drinks tirelessly and still relies on those tips for income. So what do you do?

Easy - tip $10 up front with your first drink. As you're putting it in the tip jar explain that you tip up front and not to expect this every time, but your bartender will get it. Given how many singles you would pay out anyway what's $10 - an extra few dollars? Big deal. But your bartender will appreciate it. And you will be remembered and will probably get excellent service for the rest of the night.

Tip your bartender for water

Really? Yes, really. If you get any drink that doesn't get you charged (water, soda, sometimes juice) give your bartender a dollar for the trouble. Your bartender works hard, and in the larger scheme of things what's a dollar? Given that most people don't tip for water your bartender will appreciate this exceptional act from the exceptional person that you are! If you still can't justify this keep in mind that at one time or another we've all readily handed over a dollar to a vending machine for a bottle of water. A vending machine doesn't serve it up in a glass with ice, pop in a straw, and maybe even throw in a twist for good measure. So are you trying to tell me that you have no problem handing over a dollar to a machine but not your hard working bartender? Do you really want to get me started?

I didn't think so. Now go forth and tip generously.

A New Kind of Hope

I had to do a double take when I saw this as I was flying out of Reagan National on Friday. This was the display front and center at one of the airport shops. The entire stand was filled with anti-Obama gear, with on the left the "Nope" shirts, and on the right "Don't blame me - I voted for McCain and Palin." and behind them, "Where's my bailout?" Of course, in the background you can see the usual Obama paraphenelia on the back wall, but a few months ago a display such as this would have been unthinkable in one of the strongholds of the cult of Obama. Granted, an airport is a transient place, but if there is enough of a market to support a stand like this in DC, there just might be hope for the rest of the country...