Furtive Glances - "BU's Trophy" Edition

You might as well call it the Boston University City Championship Trophy, because BU wins the Beanpot, hockey bragging rights for Boston, seemingly every year.  They did so again last night, making it 11 of the last 13 years, and 28 of the 55 total years of the tournament.  So we'll cover the Beanpot, then I'd like to touch on several things that I've been too busy to blog to this point.

• BOSTON - Junior forward Brian McGuirk scored 5:06 into overtime, leading the Boston University men’s ice hockey team (16-5-8) to a 2-1 win over Boston College (16-11-1) in front of a sellout crowd in the championship game of the 55th Beanpot Tournament on Monday evening at TD Banknorth Garden. It is the 28th Beanpot title for the Terriers, who have now won the past three. Senior goaltender John Curry was named both the tournament MVP and Eberly Trophy winner, posting a tournament-record .985 save percentage in two games.
  
  The game-winner came after sophomore forward John McCarthy won an offensive zone faceoff, allowing McGuirk to gather the puck in the left circle and wrist a shot over Cory Schneider’s shoulder. It was the first goal of the season for McGuirk. At the time of the goal, BU had been outshot 29-14 since the opening period.
  
  Boston University is now 80-30 (.727) all time in the Beanpot, 27-10 (.730) versus the Eagles. It is the second straight year BU has defeated Boston College in the final.

It's a great feeling.  It feels even better when it's BC on the losing end.

• Newly minted presidential candidate Barack Obama pulled a Kerry the other day.  Given the results in 2004 you'd think he'd find a better role model.

On Sunday Sen. Barack Obama, speaking at Iowa State University, made this jaw-dropping   statement:

We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.

Wasted! Hard to believe anyone would say such a thing, but there it is on video.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports Obama quickly fired up the nuance machine:

Obama, in an interview with the Des Moines Register right afterward, told the paper, ''I was actually upset with myself when I said that, because I never use that term,'' he said. ''Their sacrifices are never wasted. . . . What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission."

So really what we're dealing with here is just another "botched joke."  I find it fascinating every time this happens.  Senators Dick Durbin and John Kerry, and now Sen. Obama.  I'm sure I've missed a couple of others.  Why is it that the apology only comes after the furor?

Let's look at it this way.  Politicians that rise to this level are essentially professional public speakers.  It's what they do; they can't get elected without doing it well.  If you speak to an audience as such a professional and stick your foot in it, or your speech was not delivered properly, you might think one of your staff would notice, and might get you to step forward to correct the record before a firestorm develops.  Actually, you might think such errors would be extraordinarily rare, certainly rarer than they are.  Kind of like Larry Bird shooting at the wrong basket.

But no, it seems to happen again and again, a Democratic politician speaking extemporaneously and denigrating the troops they "support" unequivocally.  Then theres the delay while the story gathers steam.  Then there's the semi-apology.  "I just made it difficult to understand what I really meant.  Here's what I meant, so disregard those earlier comments."  Of course then the media eagerly pushes the revised comments, and scratches it's collective head that anyone could have thought otherwise.  Puzzling.

• I haven't covered the Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon uber-feminist blogger hire/fire/not fired/quit saga, as others have done so with much greater timeliness and aplomb (and humor to be sure).  Nonetheless, it again is a situation where someone either writes or says something blatantly offensive, and in her case repeatedly, and we the readers/listeners are expected to take the word of the Chip Diller-style spokespeople that "All is well."  Ace of Spades hit the nail on the head regarding charges of hypocrisy on the part of the right-blogosphere:

Here's the deal: Some bloggers have made a conscious, and conscientious, effort to remain "respectable." Some of us haven't. Some of us are in the middle.

I'm one of the ones who made no efforts whatsoever to preserve my respectability for any job, pretty much anywhere, but definitely not for the position of official campaign blogger for a major presidential candidate.

I have no illusions about that. So I don't get the whole "hypocrisy" thing. Would I like to contribute directly to the campaign of a candidate I like -- and get paid for it to boot? Of course I would...

But I don't think I've earned that right. Other bloggers have. Not me. And not, I have to say, Amanda Marcotte, either. Sure, it's fun to write all sorts of over the top stuff and indulge in personal attacks and use the f-bomb a lot and talk about vaginas and menses and pensises and even poopies. But I assumed doing so disqualified me from ever holding a position more respectable than, say, assistant political blogger at Gent Magazine (Home of the D-Cups).

I don't blame Ms. Marcotte.  She is what she is, which is what all of us are.  I blame Mr. Edwards, who showed an astonishing lack of judgement in hiring her in the first place.  He showed little ability to handle a crisis and very little character when he then subsequently fired and then didn't fire her, forcing her to quit.  And he wants to be president?

2/14/07 1020: The other Edwards blog hire, Melissa McEwen of Shakespeare's Sister, has also resigned, but showed a lot more class and anger management in doing so.  She denounces the haters who unleashed "frightening ugliness," but, as Confederate Yankee points out, has difficulty denouncing the same all over her side of the street.  That's one of the many reasons I keep this blog clean and civil.  I feel free to disdain it everywhere.  Plus, I'm a civil guy.  There's absolutely no reason that such discourse has to be venomous.  Politics ain't beanbag, but turning it into epithet-laced tirades makes it so.

2/14/07 1120: Yet more brilliant satire from Iowahawk, a lampooning of Ms. Marcotte's resume.

• The Police are reuniting for a tour.  July 28 at Fenway is my target, and I'm working on tickets even now.  (Of course, any outside help would be greatly appreciated.)

• Looks like the crackdown and troop surge are beginning to pay off.  Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the Shiite militia Mahdi army, has fled to Iran.  And this after it war reported earlier today that Iraq is going to be sealing the borders with Iran and Syria.  One way to help defeat the insurgency, obviously, is to cut off their supply lines.  Could it be that George W. Bush might actually be right about the troop surge - which is the problem in a nutshell for the Democrats in Congress.

I was going to write about the North Korean nuclear developments, but I'm tired now, and I have to go to sleep.  G'nite all, and Happy Valentine's Day.