Stu's Views

Illness and vacation will keep me from posting until the weekend. See you then.

We have rounded the quarter pole for the Major League season so for the first time it is reasonable to sit back and take stock.

The races in the American League are already taking shape. One team will probably qualify for the playoffs from the West where the preseason favorite Angels have done little to damage their hopes. Texas has repeated last season's surprise giving more weight to the argument that Buck Showalter is one of the best managers in baseball. Oakland and Seattle are profound disappointments and in serious trouble.

The other three playoff spots pretty much come down to five teams, Baltimore, Boston, New York, Chicago and Minnesota. For the first time since the wild card was added in 1994, there is a very real chance that the wildcard will come from the AL Central. I think the White Sox are playing way over their heads but the simple fact remains that even if they play .500 ball the rest of the way they will have 90 wins. A few games better and they reach a total that should get them in the playoffs. Minnesota is playing very well and may catch the Chisox and if they don't should also be in the wildcard mix.

If the AL East only yields one spot, it will be a dogfight to see who gets it. The Orioles should come back to earth but they are a decent team that won't collapse entirely. Boston's pitching staff has been a problem as Schilling has been hurt and Wells has finally started to pitch his age. The Yanks have come back great recently and will score the most runs in the AL. The question is, can the pitching hold together? It has looked better recently but I am not yet convinced.

The National League, as is usually the case, is much more wide open. Florida in particular has impressed me and I think I undervalued them in the preseason, particularly Dontrelle Willis. St. Louis is putting the Central away but nearly all the teams in the East and West (with the exception of the Rockies) are still in contention. I think Arizona and Washington will fade but have little clue beyond that who will join St. Louis in the postseason.

Well, contrary to expectations, 14 moderate Senators reached an agreement last night to scuttle the possibility of the nuclear option being enacted. Three of the judges in question will get up or down votes (no guarantee on their passing), two others will be filibustered and consigned to oblivion, the filibuster remains intact for Supreme Court battles under extraordinary circumstances and the Senate does not get shut down.

There are numerous ways to evaluate this deal. On the substance, I am not terribly happy. If Janice Rogers Brown gets voted down in the up or down vote, then this is a good deal. If Brown, Owen, and Pryor all get confirmed, then some pretty radical jurists have reached the second highest court in the land (and in the case of Brown, one who is marginally qualified at best). There is little but the word of seven Republican Senators that Frist et. al. will not threaten the filibuster again if a radical conservative is nominated to replace Stevens or O'Connor. Based only on this, I would have rather seen the confrontation that would have come with shutting down the Senate.

The politics of the deal however are not nearly as bad. Frist is a huge loser as he could not deliver what he promised to the right and showed that he is not in control of his own party in the Senate. Bob Dole and even Trent Lott never would have been in that position. John McCain is a big winner as he seems presidential and the voice of reason among Republicans. I still doubt he can survive a Republican primary but this improves his chances. The Dems could have lost big time if Reid didn't have the votes to defeat the nuclear option and Reid fought the good fight so I think they end up no worse off (lets remember they are a minority party).

I also like the symbolism of the result. There is something positive from there still being a viable center in American politics. David Brooks wrote a snarky column on Monday about the lack of conviction among moderates assuring their ineffectiveness. This proves him wrong and possibly means that these 14 Senators will gain power on other issues. Given that my ideology is not that far from the 14 who brokered the deal, I see this as a good thing. Also whenever James Dobson and Gary Bauer are frothing at the mouth, America is a better place to live.

So if Brown loses her vote a thumbs up to the compromise. If she wins it than a thumb wavering and waiting for a Supreme Court battle to decide whether this was a good or bad thing.

Plenty else about this on the web. For starters check, here, here, here, and here.

Senator Frist brought up Judge Priscilla Owen's name for confirmation to the Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Debate on her credentials spanned through yesterday's Senate session and next Tuesday looks like the showdown day when Democrats will try to filibuster her nomination and Frist will invoke the so-called nuclear option by eliminating the right to filibuster judicial nominations.

Highlights (or lowlights) so far include Rick (man on dog) Santorum comparing the Democrats to Hitler and Senator Lautenberg comparing Senator Frist to Senator Palpatine (I am very happy that Lautenberg is my Senator). Amid all of the ridiculousness is one of the most important Senate debates of the decade.

As I've opined before, the judiciary is the last branch left not under the complete control of the Republicans. Rove et. al. know and hate this as even some Republican judges have played key roles in thwarting the Bush agenda (see recent decisions on Guantanamo, the Clean Air Act, and affirmative action). They also know that this will be their best opportunity to change the makeup of the federal bench (it is unlikely that they will get more than the current 55 Republican Senators in 2006).

So the judges that they wish to have confirmed to the Appeals Court, and eventually the Supreme Court, are not just Republicans but extremely conservative Republicans. While a fair amount of focus is on their opposition to abortion, the bigger problem is their overall hostility to the idea that government should play any role beyond supporting an army and fighting terrorism.

Word spread yesterday about a compromise that would allow confirmation of three of the four justices in question and leave the filibuster intact for extreme circumstances. I do not like the deal. It would actually confirm the judges who in my view are the worst of the lot, Janice Rogers Brown (think Clarence Thomas without the porn) and William Pryor. It also would leave little guarantee that the filibuster would not be attacked during a Supreme Court battle.

The odd thing about the compromise is that it would be bad for Senator Palpatine (I mean Frist). Frist has staked a great deal (perhaps his shot at the Presidency) on an absolute victory in this battle. Any compromise that allows the filibuster to remain intact and any of Bush's judges not to be confirmed will be a defeat for the cat-torturer (I mean Frist) as noted here. I guess that is one thing to support about the compromise.

The New York Times has started a series on class in America. While the bulk of the series may be touchy feely stories about how people in different classes experience health care, education, and recreation in America, the first piece was an interesting look at perceptions of class and data about class.

The key takeaway point is that class mobility has dramatically declined in the past several decades but that perception has not necessarily caught up with this reality. Most people believe they live or will live in a lifestyle superior to that of their parents. To the extent that greater access to material goods and technology has improved all lifestyles, this is true. To the extent that it means that their relative position in society and their future prospects for changing that relative position have improved they are badly mistaken.

I was reminded of a line from the musical "1776" that goes something like "the poor prefer to live with the dream that they will become rich rather than the reality that they are poor." Indeed the Horatio Alger myth is so deeply ingrained in the American consciousness (and in the world's perception of America) that it takes a dire economic crisis before people give up hope that their lives will be improved.

This is a problem perpetually faced by the Democrats. Already considered the weaker party in dealing with foreign policy, particularly terrorism and allegedly disadvantaged by their position on "moral" issues, Democrats desperately need people to believe that the status quo is biased against them and that they need government's help to right it. (Ironically David Brooks had a column to this effect in yesterday's paper).

As Dick Gephardt says, "If you want to live like a Republican vote for a Democrat." Really only the Great Depression changed mindsets sufficiently to realign the electorate for a generation in favor of this belief. The data shown in the Times article say to me that despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, many people still believe they can overcome class boundaries and become rich. The fact that a few of them can, only bolsters this belief. It may take another economic calamity before people again turn to government to correct the institutional barriers to the actualization of the American Dream. Of course given this Administration's economic policies, perhaps this is more of a possibility than it currently appears.

Too busy to come up with a longer post so some random thoughts.

-- I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that George Voinovich backed down on the Bolton nomination and allowed it to go to the Senate floor. The pressure on him must have been enormous and as with the tax cuts last year he has a history of giving in to such pressure. Still, his speech on Bolton's deficiencies as a potential U.N. Ambassador was admirable.
In the back of my mind I wonder if the Bushies want Bolton to fail on the floor of the Senate. They have expended an awful lot of capital to get him a vote as the Ambassador to the U.N., an institution they have no interest in. If he fails they can then argue that the system works if you just give everyone an up or down vote. There is no need for a filibuster. Which brings us to:

-- Next week looks to be the showdown over the filibuster of judicial nominees. Most people seem to think that Frist doesn't have the votes to win it yet or he would have held the vote this week. Harry Reid has been very effective in this debate as evidenced by the mounting personal attacks on him. If the Republicans don't win, Frist's nascent presidential campaign may be over. Yet another reason to hope that the right to filibuster judicial nominees is maintained. (McCain, Chafee, and Snowe have basically said they will cross party lines on the vote, that means the Democrats need three more votes. There is a chapter in Profiles in Courage waiting for the Republican who provides the decisive vote)

-- Kos has a post on John Kerry that captures the way I feel about him perfectly. I said multiple times last year that the Democrats nominated the worst possible candidate to take on Bush and its nice to see that sentiment echoed. As Kerry very clearly gears up for another presidential campaign, we have to remember what made him such a bad candidate last year. In my list he falls even hehind Hillary as far as desirable Democratic nominees for 2008.

My wife was out of town this weekend so I got my first chance to take care of our now four month old son solo for a weekend (my wife has had this “opportunity” twice already). I’m sure this will come as no surprise to anyone who has raised a child but there have been few times when I have been as tired as I was last night.

Now in fairness, a baby who is usually an exceptional sleeper at night chose Saturday night to wake up three times for the first time in months. That said, all babies have some nights like that. With that in mind I came away with a renewed appreciation for how challenging the role of a single parent can be.

Throughout the weekend I knew that my wife was coming back on Sunday. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if I knew that my Sunday night (and my Monday night and my Tuesday night) were going to produce at best sporadic sleep. I cannot imagine what it would have been like knowing that I had to go work on Monday morning, do a credible job, and come home hoping to bond with him in the three hours between the end of work and bedtime.

In short, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a single parent. On the one hand I intend this entry as a paean for the millions of people who somehow parent children in this way. On the other hand I intend it to reflect our deep societal need to help out parents in this situation.

Much research shows that children raised in two parent homes do better than children in single parent homes. This confirms a deeply intuitive feeling. If I were in sole charge of raising our son, eventually some of his cries would go unheeded and his needs would go unmet. He would probably be more likely to get sick because the apartment would not be as clean and his intellectual development would suffer because reading to him would fall behind feeding him and paying the bills.

Conservatives argue that families need to be strengthened. Liberals argue for more support for single parent families (welfare for years was entitled Aid to Families with Dependent Children). My reaction to both of these is “Yes!” There is no reason that this issue needs to be fodder for ideological debates. Lets help out single moms (and dads) with money and support (like good affordable child care and generous leave policies). Lets give counseling to teenagers to make children giving birth to children less likely. Let's give counseling to couples entering marriage to make divorce less likely. But, lets do something.

(By the way I was 8 for 8 in the first round of the NBA playoffs so I figured I'd pick the next round as well. Miami in 5. Detroit in 6. San Antonio in 4. Dallas in 6).

An 11-16 start for a team expected to contend for the World Series is normally a cause for concern. However in the New York tabloid driven media market, such a start is cause for panic. An 0-1 start is cause for concern, an 11-16 start is reason to believe that the Yankees are starting a 10 year tailspin as analogies have been drawn to 1965 and 1982.

Is such panic merited? First, the reasons that it isn't: baseball has the longest season in sports and 27 games is still less than 20% of the season. Baseball history is rife with teams that started slow and had fantastic years and if the Yankees are indeed a team with World Series talent, then there is plenty of time for them to show it.

Furthermore, the Yankees lineup has been very strong. Jeter, Sheffield and A-Rod are all hitting well and as the weather turns warmer, I expect the bats of Posada and Bernie to reach their career norms. The Yankees, chief rival, the Red Sox, (the Orioles are off to a hot start and while I am impressed, I want to see how their arms will hold up through the hot summer) have had a slow start as well, meaning that the Yankees do not have a lot of ground to make up in the standings.

Now the reasons I am concerned. The pitching and defense has been subpar and awful respectively and there is reason to believe this will not change. Randy Johnson will be fine and may win 20 games. Pavano and Mussina have been mediocre and that is not sufficient for a contending team's second and third starters. Jaret Wright is hurt and Kevin Brown is awful and that is not sufficient for a teams fourth and fifth starters. The bullpen has been shaky as well and combined with the subpar starters this makes for a lot of games where the opposing team scores a lot of runs.

The Yankees have the worst defense in the majors right now. Moving Bernie (my favorite Yankee so it hurts me to say this) out of center will help but there is no guarantee that recent callup Robinson Cano is good enough to start in the majors yet. It also still leaves the outfield with no one who can be considered an above average fielder.

Bottom line: panic is a bit strong but concern is certainly merited. The problem is that the Yankees don't have too much that is tradeable so they have to hope that Pavano and Mussina improve, Cano hits enough to stay in the majors, and that someone emerges in the bullpen and in the fourth starters position. That is a lot more than a World Series contender should have to hope for, even in early May.