The TDP's election strategy got hosed -- by Texas Democrats

I owe a long posting on the Austin events I attended this past Monday and Tuesday: the goings-on associated with TDP chair Boyd Richie's presentation at the quarterly Senate District Executive Committee, and his dress rehearsal -- err, blogger's conference the day before, as well as my day at the Capitol for the opening of the Texas Lege's 80th session and the swearing-in of my new representative, Borris Miles of HD-144.

But I wish to begin with a bottom line observation:

The TDP's celebration of their 2006 election strategy -- targeting a handful of selected legislative races -- was blown up 24 hours later by the Craddick Fifteen.

Let's begin with last Sunday afternoon's get-together: on location at the little office on Rio Grande were Texas Progressive Alliancers Anna, Muse, John, Bo, McB and others. On the phone (in the middle of the conference room table) with me were Hal, Marc, Vince, and maybe more.

The very first thing Amber Moon, the party's communication director, said as we began was that there were going to be some breaking-news elements in what the chairman had to tell us, but we could not say anything about them on our blogs until 1 p.m. the next day, when he was to make the same PowerPoint presentation to the SDEC members.

This just doesn't reflect much knowledge about what we do, does it? "Keep a secret," you say? Oh, shurrrrre we will ...

And actually we did. In the interests of, you know, good working relations.

So Boyd got a dress rehearsal for Monday and we got some inside dope, such as the news that the TDP would be filing a lawsuit against Secretary of State Roger Williams and Attorney General Greg Abbott for their failure to enforce HAVA, specifically the integrity of Texans' ballots as they relate to DREs (electronic voting machines), and most particularly straight-ticket votes.

This is very good news, actually; the party has been extraordinarily successful in the courtroom in recent years, and the two attorneys named by Richie as taking charge of this case, Chad Dunn and Buck Wood, are capable litigators.

But most of Richie's remarks -- full transcript here -- were of the self-congratulatory variety regarding the Democratic victories in November, along with the obligatory cheerleading and back-slapping. This spin has always irked me more than a little bit, since the state party all but ignored every single other race in the state that they considered 'unwinnable'.

Monday, January 8: SDEC meeting, Hyatt Regency, Austin

The first part of the general assembly is no secret: Boyd gives his talk but I'm seeing the slides for the first time, and I note that the photos of the six new House members do not include Joe Heflin of Plainview; Donna Howard replaced him for some reason. Following that there were the various committee reports, but the most interesting exchange came when the finance report was given by Dennis Speight.

A handful of SDEC members -- Linda Perez of SD-21 (Floresville), Lloyd Criss of SD-11 (Galveston), Don Bankston of SD-18 (Richmond), Bob Dean of SD-19 (Pecos) -- raised questions about the campaign committee's revenues of $400,000 and its objectives but another SDEC member, Bill Perkison of SD-24 rose and shouted a non-sequitur about candidates needing to raise their own money and called the question, which was acceptance of the finance report.

This rather mundane circumstance has significance because the printed agenda for this meeting contained no item for new business. Richie did call for new business at the very end of the meeting, and when Linda Perez requested the creation of a campaign committee for 2008, that motion was referred to the rules committee for discussion at the next quarterly meeting.

What was apparent to this observer was that the SDEC as a group has generally abdicated its responsibility to direct and execute political strategy, leaving the void that Boyd (and in fairness, Fred Baron and Matt Angle) filled. The new blood on the committee intends to provide some oversight and accountability but they will be stonewalled by the old guard, who seem more interested in preserving the status quo.

The Texas Democratic Party desperately needs a governing body that is more activist and energetic and less beholden to the inertia of longtime members who consider their positions ones of prestige and social networking exclusively, not designed for any real effort.

Tuesday, January 9: Opening Session of the 80th Texas Legislature, Capitol

My bus departed Houston around 8 am with several government students from Westbury High School and a handful of Borris Miles' staff and supporters. It was a grand celebration on behalf of my new rep (details appear in my previous posting).

You've likely read all the analysis regarding the election of the speaker of the Texas House elsewhere, so let me repeat the contention I stated at the top here again:

The Texas Democratic Party's strategy in the last election cycle of maintaining a narrow focus on a few legislative contests was proven to be completely worthless as a result of the Democratic members of the Legislature who refused to stay with their caucus in the election for speaker. Moreover, since a legislative body almost by definition relies on compromise in order to be effective, this minimalist/defeatist strategy continues to be a problem until such time as enough seats flip to retake the majority. That certainly seems a stronger possibility in 2008 with a speaker named Craddick, but unforeseen presidential, economic, and assorted other socio-political scenarios always cloud the future.

The notable lack of a Democrat at the statewide executive level -- a drought entering its second decade -- means that until the party musters the will to get one (or some) elected, we'll be stuck in minority status for longer than ought to be necessary. As long as legislators don't see the state party standing up for statewide candidates, they're not tempted to run for higher office, thus making themselves content to feather their nests with plum committee assignments and the temptations of the trappings of entrenched power. This also means that Democratic bench strength -- having worthy challengers for higher office like senator or governor -- remains illusory.

As to the folly of having Democrats voting for a Republican speaker to support their own interests at the expense of everyone else's, a diarist at Burnt Orange put it best:

Every time a child gets kicked off CHIP, remember the Craddick 15.

When your public schools are once again under-funded, remember the Craddick 15.

When teachers are denied a real pay raise, and their health insurance once again fails to get restored, remember the Craddick 15.

When Jim Leininger forces the Texas House to endure a bloody floor fight on his risky private school voucher scheme, remember the Craddick 15.

When a Craddick lieutenant kills the ethics bill, remember the Craddick 15.

Every time you read an article about Craddick's corruption, self-dealing, being in business with a lobbyist, or collecting rent from a state contractor, remember the Craddick 15.

When (Rep. Will) Hartnett tries to outlaw a woman's right to choose, remember the Craddick 15.

When (Warren) Chisum uses the $14 billion "surplus" to buy down the property taxes of Bob Perry, Louis Beecherl, and Exxon Mobil, instead of restoring health care benefits for kids, or teachers, or the elderly, remember the Craddick 15.

...

When Phil King tries to outlaw stem cell research, remember the Craddick 15.

When kids can't afford to go to a state college because of the skyrocketing price of tuition, remember the Craddick 15.

When homeowner insurance rates continue to skyrocket, remember the Craddick 15.

When a coal plant gets built in your back yard, remember the Craddick 15.

...

When machines malfunction and arms are broken in public after close votes, remember the Craddick 15.

When the open meetings law is ignored, and Craddick lieutenants cut deals in the back halls in secret, remember the Craddick 15.

When tolls roads are built through minority neighborhoods, remember the Craddick 15.

When farmers lose their land through imminent domain so those toll roads can be built, remember the Craddick 15.

When the El Paso Medical School fails to get funded, remember the Craddick 15.

When promises made to the Valley don't get funded, remember the Craddick 15.

When appraisal caps are imposed on local governments, remember the Craddick 15.

When utility rates fail to get reduced and the poor and elderly in Houston and Dallas start dying from the heat this summer because they can't afford to pay double the national average for electricity, remember the Craddick 15.

...

When you see any nutty bill on the floor authored by Frank Corte, Bill Zedler, or Sid Miller, remember the Craddick 15.

When Leo Berman causes racial unrest on the House floor with his "round `em up and throw `em out" solution to immigration, remember the Craddick 15.

When you see Beverly Wooley at the front microphone (with her designer blouse and her Dooney Burke purse) bumble her way through every calendars committee announcement, remember the Craddick 15.

...

When you see a high school basketball team from a minority school represented by a Democrat denied access to the House floor, remember the Craddick 15.

When you see a story about a kid dying at CPS because they are still under-funded, remember the Craddick 15.

When you see the Enterprise Fund invest in some Midland deal, remember the Craddick 15.

When you have to endure a self-serving, pseudo-intellectual history lesson from Aaron Pena, remember the Craddick 15.

Every time you see a Republican lobbyist kissing Patrick Rose's ass, and calling him "Mr. Chairman", remember the Craddick 15.

When you see Bill Ceverha, a bankrupt lobbyist who ran Tom DeLay's TRMPAC, get re-appointed to manage a state fund worth $21 billion dollars, remember the Craddick 15.

Every time you're sitting on your toilet, think about Craddick sitting on his $1000 toilet that was paid for by special interest money and remember the Craddick 15.

There is still lots about Texas Democrats that needs fixing. We got a long way to go and a short time to get there, and worse yet, a bunch of good ol' boys and girls allegedly on our side blocking the way.

Sifting the Speaker's election

Leonard Cohen?

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Or My Chemical Romance (hat tip Vince)?

And we will send you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all.
So paint it black and take it back,
Let's shout it loud and clear
Do you fight it to the end?
We hear the call to, to carry on;


And on we carry, through the fears
Ooh oh ohhhh
Disappointed faces of your peers,
Ooh oh ohhhh,
Take a look at me, 'cause I could not care at all;


Do or die, you'll never make me.
Because the world will never take my heart.
You can try; you'll never break me.
You want it all, I'm gonna play this part;
I won't explain or say I'm sorry
I'm not ashamed, I'm gonna show my scar
You're the chair, for all the broken
Listen here, because it's only...
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero!

Yesterday's outcome will be sliced, diced, sorted and stored a few thousand ways.

Jocularity first: Pink does the live-blog of the live-blogging some of us did yesterday. It was exactly like that. The Austin Chronic also broke it down, with a skosh more contempt.

This number -- 80-68 -- was as close as Craddick came to losing. That's almost precisely the partisan split in the House, but there were 14 Republicans who voted against the Speaker, and 15 Democrats who voted with him. Here are their names.

Paul Burka got a lot of credit for calling it early, even from Rep. Will Hartnett on the floor of the House. Quite a few people feel like a little payback against the fifteen Craddickrats is in order, in the form of primary challenges.

Those 15 Democrats rationalize that their support of Tom Craddick translates into positions of power on important committees, and thus the pork they can bring home to their district is by extension 'good for their constituents'. That is at least a plausible rationale; it may even be accurate.

But it does not serve the greater good, as others have also pointed out.

This style of cronyism and patronage is what Al Edwards got booted out for. And yesterday his replacement, Borris Miles, bussed 450 of his constituents to Austin -- another 200 drove themselves over -- for his swearing-in. And he fed them breakfast, lunch and dinner, gave them lapel pins and t-shirts, and arranged for tours of the Capitol. Seniors, students, his extended network of family and friends and supporters and well-wishers all crowded into a picture with him on the South Steps. And I mean crowded.

And shortly thereafter, Representative Miles went into the building and with twenty-seven of his colleagues (now officially the Courage Caucus) cast his ballot against Speaker Craddick.

That's what taking care of your constituents -- and for that matter, good government -- looks like.

Special note to Aaron Pena: if you're sneaking down the alley, ducking through the back door, wearing a jogging suit and baseball cap pulled down low, you might be sending a subliminal message about your pride in seconding the Speaker's nomination.

Live-blogging the Lege

I'm in E2.030, one of the Capitol's hearing rooms, with Greg and about a hundred of Borris Miles's supporters, awaiting his swearing-in.

More as we move along.

Update (12:31 pm): The Pledges, roll call, and swearing-in of the Texas House members has completed.

Update (12:39 pm): Vince is, as always, doing the repetitive exercises. Matt is hosting a party in Senator Gallegos' office, and I'm about to go over there for something to eat.

Update (1:10 pm): I'm fed, and the resolution for the rules for the speaker election is being read. Nothing special; it follows protocol from sessions past and is adopted unanimously.

Update (1:58 pm): Phillip doesn't think it's supposed to be taking so long, but HR 35 is finally being read with the "agreed language". It's going to be a paper ballot, signed by each respective member.

Update: (3:08 pm): Republican Reps. Will Hartnett and Robert Talton just exchanged pleasantries over Hartnett's amendment to make the voting record public immediately. Talton exclaimed several times, "Don't you want to protect the members (from retribution from Craddick)?" FTR, Hartnett is a Craddick supporter, Talton is not. Talton is followed by Mondo Martinez, Dan Branch, Paul Moreno, and Scott Hochberg in similar vein.

Update (3:30 pm): Sadly, my live-blogging is coming to an end, as our bus for Houston departs shortly. Check in at BOR and Capitol Annex for the finale.

In Austin today for SDEC

After four days of twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, I'm headed to Austin this morning for the SDEC winter conclave. While I was on the conference call yesterday with Boyd Richie, Amber Moon, and Hector Nieto of the TDP, Anna was in the room and filed the report.

TexBlog-observation: With the addition of high-profile writers Anna -- she had her own place but has moved over to TK -- and Boadicea, Texas Kaos is currently doing the best investigative and analytical blogging from the progressive perspective about the developments down here in Deep-In-The-Hearta. BOR is evolving once more as one student generation (Karl-T) departs and another (Phillip Martin) assumes the day-to-day responsibility, and has lately become the go-to for insider dope on all things Lege as well as other Texas Democratic scuttlebutt.

So while TK is sharpening its swords for progress, BOR is becoming the agent for the majority (read Democrats). Before anyone gets excited: this isn't a criticism or even necessarily a bad thing.

My beeves with the state party have received plenty of airing and I won't repeat them now. As Bo states, the best thing blogs can do is offer our opinion on the visibility, the accountability, and the effectiveness of the state apparatus.

And perhaps influence those in another ways.

More to write later, when I can find the time.

The usual insomnia

-- As I have spent much of the past few days in the Texas Medical Center waiting while chemotherapy bags drained into my father-in-law, I understand this completely. My take is that it isn't even so much the time lost by the patient but by his caregivers.

Update (1/5): For those who have sent me their kind thoughts, an update on my father-in-law's condition is posted in the comments.

-- The contest for speaker of the Texas House occupies much blog bandwidth lately. Too many to link to; you can follow the play-by-play over in the Texas Blogwire in the right column. I do better with color commentary (though I'll be in Austin next Tuesday when the Lege convenes to watch the action, and post here about it). The conventional wisdom holds that Tom Craddick is toast. I don't think he is, yet. Here's my observation/projection as of the moment:

Jim Pitts will have a press conference in roughly twelve hours to announce that he and Brian McCall will join their forces to defeat Craddick under one flag -- his. Senfronia Thompson is poised to re-enter the race in order to manage a voting bloc of around fifty Democrats who committed first to her, then to McCall when she withdrew, but are lukewarm at best about Pitts.

If Senfronia controls those fifty-ish votes, she (and Texas Dems) are in a pretty sweet bargaining position. Unless, because the GOP loathes the idea of the Democrats controlling the outcome of the speaker's election, they suddenly coalesce again around Craddick. Then they have all the votes they need -- there are around ten or so Democrats who are firmly with the incumbent speaker -- and in the process ram it down everybody else's throats.

So my point is: pay close attention during the Capitol presser this afternoon to which Republicans are standing with Pitts. Not just the announced names of those who signed his pledge card, but which ones are actually standing there behind him. The ones that are not present are the real swing voters, and they are much more critical here than the Democratic members who have sold themselves out to Speaker Craddick.

Sylvester Turner, Harold Dutton, Dawnna Dukes, Kevin Bailey, Aaron Pena, etc. aren't even pawns in this game; they're drones -- the same as any of Craddick's mindless GOP supporters -- and as such they don't have the significant influence on the result that is believed. Honestly, only the Republican insurgents do. If Craddick buys back the support of the rebels -- literally buys them back, with promises of chairmanships, unfunded primary opponents in 2008 and so on like that -- then together with the Democratic sold-outs it's over.

This poker match is going to have the stakes raised several times over the next few days. Craddick is far from finished. And once the smoke clears next week there will be precious little "bipartisanship" to be had in this session, no matter the outcome.

Of course, I could be wrong about everything.

Update (90 minutes after this posting): Senfronia claims to have sixty votes, though McCall had less than that, and his tally had as many as 19 Republicans. I still think her number is closer to 50.

Update (1/5): No names and no supporters at the press conference yesterday. That's not good for anybody but Craddick.

-- It's Thomas Jefferson's Quran. You can't attach a value to irony this priceless.

-- The same with this level of deceit (though the price to ExxonMobil was apparently a paltry $16 million). Please remember this every time you need to fill your gas tank.

Happy National Hangover Day!

I didn't even consider a year-end rantrospective. My reputation as a curmudgeon is pervasive enough as it is. I still feel like giggling along with some of these ...

-- Bob Woodward snags a gallows Q and A with Saddam. A brief excerpt:

“In fact,” Saddam added, “I could empathize with George the elder, since I also had to suffer the indignity of two idiot sons.”

-- Never poke at an angry wildcat with a stick.

-- Speaking of stupid, here are the 2006 Darwin Award winners. No, Steve Irwin isn't listed, but he ought to be.

-- I thought we just said farewell to this douchebag ...

In what some called a desperate gambit to retain Republican control of the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist announced today that he had examined a videotape and pronounced recovering Senator Tim Johnson dead.

"I will remain Majority Leader and the Republicans will continue to hold the Senate," he said in a press conference this morning.

-- the official statement from the president on the passing of Gerald Ford:

Laura and I were kind of saddened by the news of President Ford's death. The American people will occasionally admire Gerald Ford's devotion to duty, his character and the relatively honorable conduct of his Administration. The 38th President will be vaguely remembered by our nation. We offer our sympathies to Betty Ford and and some of President Ford's family. Our thoughts and prayers will be elsewhere in the hours and days ahead.

-- and yesterday's Funnies.

A Farewell to Douchebags

(Sorry; I know I promised to stay away...)



It seems so apropos that Butterqueen Crowley is the first one you see.

They will be counting down in Crawford in a few hours...

I'm confused. Was Gerald Ford hanged?

I wasn't particularly troubled by his pardon of Richard Nixon, but to execute him for that seems overly harsh.

Perhaps I'm mixing up my mainstream media propaganda campaigns.

Why are the flags at half-staff for Saddam's passing? Is there a reason why January 2nd is being declared a federal holiday for James Brown? When will CNN go back to their regular programming: Britney's beaver shots and the latest in the life of Brangelina?

Maybe I ought to just stick to the bowl games, you say? Pass.

Now I'm really outta here until next week.

Post-Christmas postpourri

-- Thanks for the memories, Saddam. You were good for us -- some of us, anyway. Though like any other dysfunctional relationship, you weren't good to us, and that's why we had to find someone new.

-- As an ice shelf 25 square miles in size breaks off from the Canadian Arctic, Bush's former interior secretary, Gale Norton, takes a job at Shell.

I'm so old I remember when this kind of cronyism generated outrage.

-- In other science news, the National Park Service is not allowed to give an estimate of the age of the Grand Canyon so as not to offend religious fundamentalists. You can also buy a book at the national park which explains how Noah's flood created the canyon. Really.

-- We're going to watch the Rockets play on New Year's Eve, a tradition we started back when they were still playing at Lakewood Church.

See you next year.

You may have noticed

that John Edwards declared. It's been omni-blog-present.

He sent me the embed code for this YouTube of his announcement (me and about a hundred billion other people):



Before that, he sent me an e-mail -- dated December 23 -- asking me to tell him what I thought about his Possibly Running for President. It was just simple text; no flashy pictures, the same kind of e-mail I would send to you -- and he signed it "Your friend, John."

He also has links from his website to MySpace and Facebook and an RSS feed and a blog and podcasts and a contribution page at ActBlue. To say that he hired some web-savvy people in the past five days (after asking me if I thought him running for president was a good idea) is a little understated.

In the video above -- it's filmed in New Orleans' 9th Ward -- he even worked in a slam on "the McCain Doctrine" of increasing troop strength in Iraq.

I like John Edwards a lot; he's certainly in my top three prospects (the other two are Wesley Clark and Al Gore). In fact I think he will very probably be on the ticket in 2008. He has the unqualified support of the biggest dog in Texas Democratic politics, Fred Baron.

John Edwards has kicked off the 2008 race in earnest, and will factor strongly in the Democratic nominee's selection.

One way or another.

Yao-za

It's so f***ed I can't believe it
If there's a way I wish we'd see it
How could it work just can't conceive it
Oh what a mess it's best to leave it


-- Dinosaur Jr., "Freak Scene"

So right after I posted this, Yao breaks a leg. Then The Truth went down, T-Mac made a comeback but still has a bad sacroiliac, and AK-47 impersonated Rocky Balboa. J-Smooth caught a hernia, The Answer couldn't catch a flight to snowed-in Denver, and nearly everybody else in the NBA caught the flu.

Ron Artest has sore knees. Ray Allen has a new baby. Saddam is going to be hanged any day now.

Oh wait, he's not in the Association ...

"I am a Ford, not a Lincoln"

Nobody failed to get the joke.

Here's some from the WaPo on the passing of Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States and the only one never elected:

In the 2 1/2 years of his presidency, Ford ended the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, helped mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed the Helsinki human rights convention with the Soviet Union and traveled to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East to sign an arms limitation agreement with Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet president. Ford also sent the Marines to free the crew of the Mayaguez, a U.S. merchant vessel that was captured by Cambodian communists.

On the domestic front, he faced some of the most difficult economic conditions since the Great Depression, with the inflation rate approaching 12 percent. Chronic energy shortages and price increases produced long lines and angry citizens at gas pumps. In the field of civil rights, the sense of optimism that had characterized the 1960s had been replaced by an increasing sense of alienation, particularly in inner cities. The new president also faced a political landscape in which Democrats held large majorities in both the House and the Senate.

What I remember Ford for was the "WIN" buttons he advocated for the nation. He wore one pinned to himself. WIN stood for "Whip Inflation Now."

This of course demonstrated Ford's understanding of monetary policy. Even my dad -- no financial whiz himself -- laughed at the idiocy of a lapel button helping the nation's economic ills.

More excerpts from the NYT:

He was a man more fundamental than flashy, more immutable than immodest. He served undefeated through 13 elections to the House of Representatives and rose to be its Republican leader, yet in 25 years in Congress he did not write a major piece of legislation. He was overwhelmingly confirmed as vice president, the first to be appointed under the 25th Amendment, yet he owed his selection by Nixon to the likelihood that he would prove inoffensive in the job.

The Warren Commission. Ford is at right.

Ford's presidency was an extension of his own political personality: reactive rather than activist, instinctive instead of intellectual, humanistic but within the fiscal limits of conservative dogma.

(Jerald) terHorst, the biographer, puzzled over the seeming contradiction between the president's personal and professional philosophies: "The problem with him — he doesn't like to be kidded about it — but the fact is, this guy would, if he saw a schoolkid in front of the White House who needed clothing, if he was the right size, he'd give him the shirt off his back, literally. Then he'd go right in the White House and veto the school lunch bill."

John Hersey, after spending a week in close observation of the president, wrote in The New York Times Magazine of April 20, 1975: "What is it in him? Is it an inability to extend compassion far beyond the faces directly in view? Is it a failure of imagination? Is it something obdurate he was born with, alongside the energy and serenity?"

Chief of staff Dick Cheney and Ford '76 chairman James Baker with the president (announcing his bid for re-election from the golf course). Again, a personal aside:

Ford ran for election in 1976, narrowly defeating a vigorous primary challenge from former California governor Ronald Reagan. During the election season in 1975 Reagan gave a speech at a dinner restaurant in Beaumont, Texas where I worked as a busboy. I had been promoted to waiter solely for the occasion since we were short-staffed, and just minutes prior to the event we all struck for an extra .25 an hour (management caved to our demands). I was 16 years old, an active Optimist Club oratorical contest participant, and as the old actor addressed the two hundred attendees for 45 minutes, I stood at the back of the room and listened, enrapt.

The room was completely still. No one coughed, not one fork clinked against a plate.

That was the night I became a Republican. Reagan fell short of the nomination of course, but my first presidential ballot was cast in 1976 for Jerry Ford.



Rumsfeld, Ford, Cheney. From the AP:

When Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal in October 1973, Ford was one of four finalists to succeed him: Texan John Connally, New York's Nelson Rockefeller and California's Ronald Reagan.

"Personal factors enter into such a decision," Nixon recalled for a Ford biographer in 1991. "I knew all of the final four personally and had great respect for each one of them, but I had known Jerry Ford longer and better than any of the rest.

"We had served in Congress together. I had often campaigned for him in his district," Nixon continued. But Ford had something the others didn't: he would be easily confirmed by Congress, something that could not be said of Rockefeller, Reagan and Connally.

And this:

While Ford had not sought the job, he came to relish it. He had once told Congress that even if he succeeded Nixon he would not run for president in 1976. Within weeks of taking the oath, he changed his mind.

He was undaunted even after the two attempts on his life in September 1975. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a 26-year-old follower of Charles Manson, was arrested after she aimed a semiautomatic pistol at Ford on Sept. 5 in Sacramento, Calif. A Secret Service agent grabbed her and Ford was unharmed.

Seventeen days later, Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old political activist, was arrested in San Francisco after she fired a gun at the president. Again, Ford was unhurt.

And this:

In office, Ford's living tastes were modest. When he became vice president, he chose to remain in the same Alexandria, Va., home — unpretentious except for a swimming pool — that he shared with his family as a congressman.

After leaving the White House, however, he took up residence in the desert resort of Rancho Mirage, picked up $1 million for his memoir and another $1 million in a five-year NBC television contract, and served on a number of corporate boards. By 1987, he was on eight such boards, at fees up to $30,000 a year, and was consulting for others, at fees up to $100,000. After criticism, he cut back on such activity.

Ford was also the subject of parody for his clumsiness, both physical and verbal. Chevy Chase made his initial fame by portraying the president as a chronic stumblebum on 'Saturday Night Live'. LBJ described the House minority leader as unable "to chew gum and walk at the same time", a phrase that entered pop culture as the generic description of an idiot.

But Ford very likely was the perfect man for the job in August of 1974, when the United States was suffering its most extreme constitutional crisis. Even Ford's pardon of Nixon, which cost him re-election, was viewed in hindsight as the tonic for the nation's psychological ills.

Godspeed to Gerald Ford and prayers of condolences to all of his family.

"If you strike the king, you must kill him"

The Speaker of the Texas House gets a challenger. Muse and many others led with the news that broke on Christmas Eve.

Rick Casey has these insights:

There is a consensus that if the vote for House speaker were secret, no plotting would be necessary. Craddick would be a former speaker soon after the session opens Jan. 9. But it is a record vote. And nobody wants to take a chance on publicly opposing Craddick unless it's clear he will lose.

The speaker not only can deny opponents any meaningful committee assignments, he can also make sure none of their pet legislation sees the light of day. So, as the saying goes, if you're going to plot against the king, you'd better bloody well kill him.

Tom Craddick became the first Republican speaker in Texas history, replacing Pete Laney when the GOP became the majority in 2003. Since that time his tenure has been pocked with controversy: record state budget deficits, corrosive political machinations regarding congressional redistricting, an inability to find a solution to public school financing -- the list goes on. But what really has him in trouble is his iron-fisted rule. Casey again, also with the whip count:

"Craddick is very good at breaking arms," said one House member. "That's why if it's going to pop, it has to be at the last minute, when spouses are present and many of the members have their children sitting in their laps. The only time you can neutralize the speaker is when it's done in front of a thousand people."

...

Needed are enough Republicans — 10 or more moderates and conservatives — to join the overwhelming majority of the House's 69 Democrats to deny Craddick the 76 votes he needs for re-election.

Why would Republicans do that? What has Craddick done? Here are some of the things that are cited:

• He failed at what is considered the first job of a speaker: to protect his members. When the state Republican Party ran polls to see how vulnerable some moderate Republicans were, Craddick did nothing to stop it. Then San Antonio billionaire James Leininger spent more than $2.5 million to target five moderate Republicans in the primary because they had voted against school vouchers. Leininger-backed candidates won two of the five races.

Craddick gave lip service to supporting the incumbents, but it is widely believed he could have sent signals that such a bald attack on incumbents was not considered civilized behavior and would make it harder for Leininger to get a hearing next session.

• He pressured members to vote "against their districts" on key issues. One technique: his lieutenants would gather around members who voted wrong and suggest that their button had malfunctioned. Not-so-subtle threats of, among other things, well-funded opposition in the next primary were sometimes conveyed.

Among Republicans who lost to Democrats or more moderate Republicans were Kent Gruesendorf, who chaired the education committee, Houston's Martha Wong, who lost partly because of her votes on children's health insurance, Todd Baxter and Toby Goodman.

"Tom has been one of the best Democratic organizers we've had in a long time," said one Democratic member. He noted that the Republican margin in the House has shrunk by half in the four years since Craddick was elected speaker.

• Craddick's relentless drive in 2003 to champion Tom DeLay's mid-decade congressional redistricting destroyed a long-standing bipartisan culture in the Legislature. Members on both sides of the aisle have talked about a decidedly unpleasant loss of collegiality. "It's not fun anymore," said one member. "It's mean."

The speaker's most recent legal dilemma comes by way of a judge's order that he produce an appointments calendar from his campaign office to determine whether it contains references to state business -- a no-no in Texas.

Neither Governor MoFo nor Lite Gov. Dewface are pals with Craddick. In fact, the only friends he seems to have are corporate lobbyists. Indeed, there are few Speakers that have avoided corruption scandals just in my lifetime (Laney is exceptionally noted, serving at a time when the Texas was going from blue to red and he was forced to work with rabidly partisan conservatives). Gus Mutscher, Bill Clayton, Gib Lewis -- again, the list is lengthy. They seem to get fouled by one-party rule and lengthy terms, though Craddick has gone bad in record time.

I'll be in the gallery in the Capitol on January 9, watching to see if the Republicans can kill the king.

Papa's truly got a brand new bag

His music was sweaty and complex, disciplined and wild, lusty and socially conscious. Beyond his dozens of hits, Mr. Brown forged an entire musical idiom that is now a foundation of pop worldwide. ...

(His) stage moves -- the spins, the quick shuffles, the knee-drops, the splits -- were imitated by performers who tried to match his stamina, from Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson, and were admired by the many more who could not. Mr. Brown was a political force, especially during the 1960s; his 1968 song “Say It Loud -- I’m Black and I’m Proud” changed America’s racial vocabulary. He was never politically predictable; in 1972 he endorsed the re-election of Richard M. Nixon. ...

Brown was born May 3, 1933, in a one-room shack in Barnwell, S.C. As he would later tell it, midwives thought he was stillborn, but his body stayed warm, and he was revived. When his parents separated four years later, he was left in the care of his aunt Honey, who ran a brothel in Augusta, Ga. As a boy he earned pennies buck-dancing for soldiers; he also picked cotton and shined shoes. He was dismissed from school because his clothes were too ragged. ...

Amid the civil rights ferment of the 1960s Brown used his fame and music for social messages. He released “Don’t Be a Dropout” in 1966 and met with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey to promote a stay-in-school initiative. Two years later “Say It Loud -- I’m Black and I’m Proud” insisted, “We won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, Brown was due to perform in Boston. Instead of canceling his show, he had it televised. Boston was spared the riots that took place in other cities. “Don’t just react in a way that’s going to destroy your community,” he urged.

Heaven, like Earth, is never going to be the same now that the Godfather of Soul is performing there.

Update (12/28): Brown lies in state at the Apollo. HouStoned has the wrap.

Landover Baptist interviews Mrs. Joel Osteen

An excerpt:

After 72 hours of unsuccessfully attempting to decipher a secret message to al-Qaeda, the Department of Homeland Security released to the public today an audio-taped telephone conversation between Mrs. Harry (Heather) Hardwick, of Landover Baptist Church, and Mrs. Joel (Victoria) Osteen, of some church in Texas. The government had secretly wiretapped the December 20, 2005 exchange pursuant to the Patriot Act based on officials’ well-founded belief that Mrs. Osteen’s outburst aboard a Continental jet earlier in the day constituted a terrorist threat by a couple with suspected al-Qaeda ties. ...

Heather: ... Apparently, there remains a patchwork of folks who still believe in those obscure New Testament verses that say we should give our money to the poor -- or, at the very least, not take money from the poor to make ourselves rich. They obviously don’t understand contemporary Christian capitalism.

Victoria: It chaps my hide, Heather! Joel has worked his rump off, wining and dining book publishers and construction investors. We built the largest church in the country so we could be rich and fam---

Heather: Second largest, dear. I know it’s tempting to exclude Landover Baptist from the list, given that churches like yours aren’t even remotely in the same league in terms of size or quality. You can, however, claim to be the nation’s largest non-denominational church with a non-message.

Victoria: Pardon me?

Heather: Let’s face facts, love. You have a large following because your hubbie doesn’t preach anything that could be deemed even remotely controversial to anyone. I loved his leap into network television when Larry King asked his opinion on abortion and homosexuality, and he refused even to condemn those vile acts, responding with a line typically reserved for hair stylists and florists: “I don’t go there.” He even refused to affirm that only Christians will go to Heaven. Some may call that blasphemy, but I refuse to judge, particularly since I rarely have occasion to travel to abandoned sports arenas in Texas to do my worshipping.

Victoria: We have a positive message, Heather. We teach people that as long as they love God and have faith in themselves, they can lead the best life possible now.

Heather: While that kind of line may work in Susan Powter infomercials and dime store psychology books principally sold in rural Wal-Marts, it is hardly enough to sustain an operation as ostentatiously gargantuan as yours. Since your so-called message is little more than the opening minute of an Oprah special, you have to ensure that your congregation worships and idolizes you. There can be no more slip-ups, Vi!

Victoria: But many opinion leaders have backslid in their private lives, and their followers forgave them.

Heather: That is because they committed to definite positions, hon. Because a man of God like Rush Limbaugh condemns everyone who isn’t a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, wealthy, heterosexual male, he can become a hillbilly heroin/hydrocodone addict and his fans don’t mind, because they love his message of hate and animosity too much to abandon him, no matter what his indiscretions. When Brothers Falwell and Robertson say something utterly ridiculous (which is a fairly regular event), we overlook it because these devout leaders condemn everyone who isn’t like us.

Victoria: But we want to embrace everyone, Heather.

Heather: That’s apparent, Vickie. To ensure that as many people as possible join your “Church of the Generic Message,” you stand for nothing substantive, thereby making certain you don’t alienate anyone (except people wise enough to recognize the absence of substance). To accomplish this in the long-term, you must make yourselves so loveable and beyond reproach that people embrace you despite your complete lack of ideology. Pulling a Leona Helmsley on a commercial airplane just won’t cut it.

Christmas Eve-Eve drive-by blogging

Since we'll all be busy living our lives offline for the next few days, here are some tide-me-overs ...

-- In Oaxaca Mexico, they're taking time off from the recent strife to celebrate Noche de Rábanos; Night of the Radishes. Do NOT miss seeing the pictures.

-- "Flogs", blogs that are actually promotional campaigns for products, stores, even opinion influence, are lately all the rage. They happen to be a violation of federal law, specifically the Federal Trade Commission guidelines protecting consumers against misleading information.

-- Yesterday's holiday weekend document dump included the admission that the Department of Homeland Security violated the Privacy Act -- back in 2004 when it was first caught by the GAO -- by collecting too much information from US airline passengers.

Do you feel safer yet?

-- It appears that a US president did have bin Laden in his gunsights, as the ABC docu-drama "Path to 9/11" revealed, but the president was Bush and not Clinton.

-- I give our local paper a hard time, but they have some interesting news up lately (these links will be good for a week or two before the Chron moves them into the pay-per-view archives) ...

• The Selective Service System is testing its military draft machinery for the first time since 1998.
• Accenture didn't exactly get fired from their state contract, but they lost a lot of it. For essentially shitty performance. You may know Accenture as the former Andersen Consulting, of the now-defunct Arthur Andersen accounting firm (the biggest loser in the Enron affair).
• Texas gained almost 600,000 new residents this year. That is nearly the sum of one Congressional district. About 160,000 came from Louisiana alone. One word: Katrina.
• Loren Steffy reminds us that the cost of our employer-provided health insurance isn't just a financial one.
• On September 11, 1977, Bing Crosby and David Bowie sang the duet Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy for a Christmas TV special. Bing died of a heart attack a month later. But the song nearly didn't happen because Ziggy Stardust hated Little Drummer Boy and didn't want to sing it.

-- Barack Obama isn't considered by many African-Americans as "one of us". A startling and somewhat fascinating opinion here (from a white boy's POV, anyway) . I don't know whether this is insightful deconstruction or a destructive whisper campaign. I cannot imagine that this sort of thing would keep anyone from voting for him, but I would still be interested in the responses to this article from African-American readers of this blog.

The Great Wall lays down the smack

Our man just keeps on improving, his game and his English.



Tip of the backwards cap to HouStoned.

Fox News to surge forces in War on Christmas

"FNC will present a three hour primetime O’Reilly Factor Christmas Marathon beginning on Monday, December 25th at 8PM EST," a Fox News release states. Also, Shoutin' Sean Hannity will host a one-hour special, "A Nashville New Year", starring several of country music's leading Republican freaks.

Under the President's directive to "go shopping more", Orally will no doubt release some casualty figures related to victory, such as ...

-- the number of credit card accounts maxed out

-- the percentages of parking lot capacities at shopping malls around the country during the week before Christmas, and

-- a panel of pundits predicting the amount of the next rise in interest rates by the Fed due to inflation fears.

The day after (the trade, the election, the rest)

-- So after the Philadelphia 76ers swapped their malcontent superstar to the Denver Nuggets yesterday, it appears that Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony might be headed for a *ahem* rocky relationship. The league's two leading scorers forced to share the ball? The Answer, the perpetual adolescent -- rebellious, sullen -- suddenly recast as thirty-something sage and imparter of been-there, done-that wisdom to Melo?

"A.I. will love it there for the next 14 games," one Eastern Conference official laughed on Tuesday afternoon, a reference to the suspension Anthony is serving for fighting in Madison Square Garden last week.

Carmelo will return to the court on January 20 in Houston against the Rockets, and the problems could start as soon as he takes the floor with Iverson that night. That's when the question first gets asked: "Whose team is this?" In these selfish times, the answer is probably not "ours". The dynamic of Carmelo Anthony and the Nuggets changed dramatically last Saturday night in New York; Anthony showed himself to be a flawed young man with that sucker punch, an error in emotional judgment compounded with the way he swung and started running back on defense in a sight never seen before in his basketball career.

Just a guess, but I don't think Melo is going to like fitting into A.I.'s game. This was Carmelo Anthony's ball and his team until he gave Iverson the opening to take it away.

-- The runoff in HD-29 will be between two Republicans. Anthony Di Novo and his gang of volunteers -- including Hal, muse, and K-T (multiple postings from the field at each of those locations)-- worked hard, but the blue wave was turned back by the Texas red levee again.

Perhaps some of these conservatives can be dispatched to New Orleans to help with flood control. That is, if they don't choose to help serve their President in Iraq.

-- Judith Regan, the book publisher who green-lighted OJ Simpson's "If I Did It", was fired by HarperCollins over the weekend. You may recall her previous co-starring role as the girlfriend of slimy former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik. She seems perfectly suited for a position in the Trump organization counseling wayward girls, don't you think? Second chances and all?

-- If Fidel Castro is reported to be dead sooner or later, officials fear a mass exodus from Cuba. Even here in Houston they are preparing for it.

Preparations are underway for the traditional Cuban celebration of Noche Buena in my father-in-law's household. About ten of us with Cuban and Salvadoran roots will gather and celebrate. Here's a good description of the celebration, complete with the roast pig.

Knicker-boxers (and other news)

I hope it was worth it. The sucker-punch that Carmelo Anthony threw -- after which, it should be noted, he vanished to the opposite end of the court as quick as if he was on a fast break -- has cost him a significant portion of his reputation and season. I'm all for sticking up for your teammates, but if there's a proper way to go about it, his actions would have to be the complete opposite. The league's leading scorer on a less-than-average team now gets to sit and watch for a tad over 25% of his team's remaining games. Way to go, Melo.

Fights in basketball used to be as common as they still are in hockey, as HouStoned reminds.

-- Today is Election Day in HD-29, the statehouse district covering a few counties south of Houston. Lots of mi compadres have been covering the race to replace deceased representative Glenda Dawson. The Democratic candidate -- he lost to Dawson in November -- is Dr. Anthony DiNovo and he could move on to a runoff in January with one of the three Republicans vying for the job. Pearland is a GOP-freaky place, so to steal a seat away from them here would be schweet. It's all about today's turnout.

-- This news is nothing short of huge for diabetes sufferers, of which I am one. If it turns out that an injection of pepper juice cures it, Big Pharma is going to be pissed.

-- These are the rules of presidential primary season blogging.

-- Eugene Robinson:

Here's an idea: Let's send more U.S. troops to Iraq. The generals say it's way too late to even think about resurrecting Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" doctrine, so let's send over a modest "surge" in troop strength that has almost no chance of making any difference -- except in the casualty count. Oh, and let's not give these soldiers and Marines any sort of well-defined mission. Let's just send them out into the bloody chaos of Baghdad and the deadly badlands of Anbar province with orders not to come back until they "get the job done."

I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a terrible idea, arguably the worst imaginable "way forward" in Iraq. So of course this seems to be where George W. Bush is headed.

Yes, that's about right.

-- Like Dick Cheney's shooting (and Dick Cheney's health, and Dick Cheney's still-undisclosed location), the White House kept Laura Bush's cancer a secret at long as they possibly could. Note to the First Lady: now would be a good time to stop smoking.

-- The administration, presumably under the direction of its new Defense Secretary, is sending another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. This is meant to send a message to Iran. It has no other intention, so go back to watching American Idol.

-- You didn't miss the Sunday Funnies, did you?

TIME's Person of the Year? ME!

And you, too.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos -- those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms -- than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

Congratulations, you wild-eyed rebel.

Basketsprawl

Things erupted when the rookie Mardy Collins committed a flagrant foul on the Nuggets’ J. R. Smith, who was going for a layup. In seconds, Nate Robinson and Smith appeared to tackle each other, and a scrum formed behind the baseline.

Anthony then punched Collins in the face, sending Collins to the floor and escalating the fight.

Several other players also threw punches, and Anthony is almost certain to draw a suspension from the league. The Knicks’ Jared Jeffries had to be restrained as he chased Anthony. Several players, coaches and security guards ran onto the court trying to end the fight.

With all 10 players who were playing at the time of the fight ejected, the game was delayed for several minutes as the three referees tried to sort out what had happened.

Another black eye (pun intended) for the NBA.

Baggy bags it

Bagwell didn't finish with 500 homers or a .300 average, but he needs to go into the Hall of Fame, probably on the first ballot. In 15 seasons, he hit .297/.408/.540 with 449 homers, 1.529 RBI and 1,517 runs scored. His OPS ranks 24th all-time, and much of his production came in the Astrodome, a pitcher's park. Over a two-season span in 1999-2000, he hit 89 homers, scored 295 runs and drove in 262. His 152 runs in 2000 is the highest total anyone's managed since Lou Gehrig in 1936. However, he was at his absolute best in 1994, hitting .368/.451/.750 with 116 RBI in 110 games before a broken hand ended his season even before the strike could. He was the unanimous MVP that year anyway, and he also finished second in 1999 and third in 1997.

Weekend Postpourri

-- James Gandolfini is slated to be the King of the Krewe of Bacchus at this year's Mardi Gras.

-- An e-mail addy that expires after ten minutes. Perfect for those invasive registration sites.

-- Speaking of spam, have you been getting more lately from people whose names sound vaguely familiar, offering you stock tips, knock-off Rolexes, and Windows Vista downloads? There's a reason.

-- The SEIU janitors won again, this time against the nation's largest mall management company. Link via Matt Stoller at MyDD, the leading source for this news.

-- There continues to be lots of news regarding the pending sale or breakup of the Tribune Co., which owns the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, New York Newsday, the Chicago Cubs baseball team and a host of other media properties. Entertainment kingpin David Geffen sold his Jackson Pollock painting "No. 5, 1948" for $140 million to raise money to buy the Times, which he bid $2 billion for yesterday. The Chandler family, whose forbear founded the paper, built a media empire called Times-Mirror then sold it to Tribune, are divided over whether to get back into the business or not. Other multi-millionaires want part or all of the company.

-- I made it on time to the "frenzied groupthink" party, but I was late to the after-party. Eileen is always better at responding to this sort of hysterical rant than I am, anyway.

-- Poaching Kuffner's turf: these two posts from Tory Gattis and Christof Spieler are interesting as an Inner-Looper. Tory introduces me to the acronym TOD, or transit-oriented development. Christof has the excellent mobility take, as always.

-- Right of Texas and Paul Burka break down Henry Bonilla's ass-whipping in the 23rd. Update (12/16): P.M. Bryant pulls together a much better compendium of links and analysis.

-- Since I'm not a gamer I don't need or want a Wii, but if it's on your Christmas list for you or someone else, you better be careful with it.

Moneyshot Quotes of the Week

"I never understand that question, you have a President that's in deep shit. He got us into the war, and all the reasons he gave have been proven invalid, and the whole electorate was so pissed off that they got rid of anyone they could have, and then they ask, 'What is the Democrats' solution?'"

-- Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), quoted by the New York Observer, when asked what the Democrats should do about Iraq

"I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot better than people would assume."

-- President Bush, in an interview with People magazine

"I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me."

-- Donald Rumsfeld, 12/12/06

Also from Rumsfeld, the following:

(T)here has been comment in the press of late about whether or not we’re even engaged in a war on terror, or whether our purpose might be better explained in a different manner. Let there be no mistake, we are a nation at war, against terrorist enemies who are seeking our surrender or our retreat. It is a war." 8/2/05

"I would like to say that Iraq is really one of the battle grounds in the global war on terror." 4/24/06

"Iraq is the central front of the global war on terror." 12/16/05

Q: My argument is that we are fighting the war on terror in Iraq. Back me up a little bit on that, Mr. Secretary.
RUMSFELD: Well, you're absolutely right. 8/3/04

"(Iraq is) part of the global war on terror; let there be no doubt." 9/10/03

Q: Do you feel that the Administration by turning its attention onto Iraq would be leaving the job undone a bit too soon?
RUMSFELD: Oh, no. Indeed that’s part of the global war on terrorism, Iraq. 12/4/02

"Well, I'm not a very good writer. I have the ideas, and I have somebody else put the words together."

-- Tom DeLay, talking about his blog

"He underwent successful surgery to evacuate the blood and stabilize the malformation. (North Dakota Senator Tim Johnson) has continued to have an uncomplicated post-operative course. Specifically, he has been appropriately responsive to both word and touch. No further surgical intervention has been required."

-- US Capitol physician Adm. John Eisold. You may send a get-well-soon greeting to Sen. Johnson at this link.

Duck, it's Dick, and he's the Bum Steer this year

But none of these antiheroes measure up to the man we’re here to honor. A politician and a sportsman. A man who’s a real blast to go hunting with, who this year gave the country (and his friend Harry Whittington) a shot in the arm, among other places. He may be number two in the White House, but to us he’ll always be number one with a bullet. Or a pellet. Come out from that undisclosed location, Dick Cheney. You’re our Bum Steer of the Year.

Thank you, Texas Monthly, for this free look at your annual edition of the best/worst things Texans said and did in the past year. A couple of my favorites:

DAVYCROCKETT1836: DO I MAKE YOU A LITTLE HORNY?
SANTAANNA: A LITTLE.
DAVYCROCKETT1836: COOL.

Amid calls for speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert to resign over his handling of the Mark Foley matter, U.S. congressman Joe Barton, of Arlington, compared Hastert to the defenders of the Alamo.

ANOTHER INSTANCE OF KATRINA “WORKING VERY WELL” FOR SOMEONE

Former first lady Barbara Bush made a donation to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with the proviso that part of the money be spent to purchase software from her son Neil’s company.

OF COURSE, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE LIFELESS HUMAN BODIES, WE RECOMMEND A TEXANS HOME GAME

After two Houston museums simultaneously mounted exhibits featuring posed human cadavers, the CEO of the Health Museum remarked, “If there’s a city in the United States where two exhibits like this could happen … it’s Houston.”

Don't miss this.

St. Arnold needs a ride to Austin

Tonight's Tex-blogosphere conference call featured Brock Wagner of the Saint Arnold Brewing Company, who asked for our help in advancing a worthy cause. Specifically, revising the TABC code to enable microbreweries like his around the state to sell beer on a retail basis from their facility.

The craft brewery industry in Texas once featured 19 different microbreweries around the state, but today only five remain in business. (Many of us in Houston can remember when there was a brewpub on every corner of Richmond Avenue in the Nineties.) The struggles can be traced in part to the arcane alcoholic beverage laws in Texas, many of which date to the Prohibition era, that restrict certain sales activity. For example, if you go to a St. Arnold's brewery tour on a Saturday afternoon, you cannot purchase a six-pack of their beer from them.

So because the industry is on a beer budget when it comes to publicity, the publishers -- and readers -- of Texas blogs from the left and the right can all agree on one thing: when it comes to pilsner, we're all in this together.

Wagner and the other brewmasters of the craft breweries in Texas -- besides St. Arnold, they include Rahr and Sons of Fort Worth, Real Ale of Blanco, Independence and Live Oak of Austin -- hope to get a legislator to carry their bill in the coming 80th session of the Texas Lege. Wagner's lawmakers at the brewery's location in northwest Houston are Rep. Jessica Farrar and Sen. John Whitmire, and he is busy soliciting their help (when he's not busy running the brewery, that is).

Visit St. Arnold Goes to Austin to stay current on this effort, or better yet drop a line to your rep and ask them if they would sponsor the legislation to change the TABC code, and while you're at it, take the St. Arnold brewery tour some Saturday afternoon and support the local economy.

Update (12/14): Kuff and Houstonist add more.

Ciro returns to Congress

Congratulations to everyone who walked, called, donated and helped return Ciro Rodriguez to Washington.

To quote Henry Cisneros (speaking to Henry Bonilla):

"Ya basta, ya cabamos, ya vete!"

Nick Anderson is really on a roll

Here are his two most recent toons, both skewering the Texans over last Sunday's loss to in-Vince-able:

No curtain call for the Great Caruso

One of Houston's landmarks of theatre burned early Sunday morning. Kuff, Houstonist, our local ABC affiliate, and HouStoned (easy on the snarky sauce, guys) got to it ahead of me.

My family has attended shows there over the years and recently tried to make reservations for their holiday revue, but they were mostly booked for the day we set aside. (Instead we chose the Stages production, Five Course Love.) That old place was truly a marvel inside -- small, tight, narrow stairways, old antique furniture and works of art.

I feel bad for the actors and waiters and other workers who find themselves suddenly unemployed two weeks before Christmas.

Here's to wishing better fortune for everyone connected to the Caruso in the new year.

Back to the old balls

(I recently joined this site as a contributor, so you'll be seeing the occasional basketball opinion here. )

The NBA -- David Stern, that is -- told the league's players that they would get the old leather balls back starting January 1st.

Reaction was muted snark. Mavs owner Mark Cuban:

"They scrapped it?" Cuban said in an e-mail. "I guess if I have to hear about a final decision in the media that says it all. I guess I missed the class where they were discussing the pros and cons of the new ball and the impact of making a change midseason."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers:

"It's just like the park. That's what it's going to feel like. Whoever brings the ball on Jan. 1, that's the one we're going to play with."

Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy:

"When they told me they were going back to the old ball, I said I've never brought this point up, but I know this: if you bounce it straight down, that thing will not come up in a straight line. You have to play like you're playing at the old Boston Garden, looking for those dead bounces. You just have to be sure you have to keep the ball close to the ground."

Lebron James:

"I'm very excited. You see my smile, right? If we've got practice tomorrow, I'll be shooting with that (old) ball tomorrow."

Tim Duncan:

"They should have done a little more testing the first time so we wouldn't have had to go through this. Hopefully, they have corrected their mistake, and everything will be good."

Paul Pierce:

"The players, it was just tough on them because I think (the NBA) kind of just sprung the ball on the players instead of giving them fair warning."

Pierce was the player's representative when the new ball was introduced last summer. At that time he predicted turnovers would be down this season because of the new ball. They have been, but that couldn't outweigh things like the fact that it gets slippery when wet, sticks to the rim, lodges between the rim and backboard more frequently and actually dries out players' hands to the point they suffer cuts on their fingers.

PETA, I suspect, will be pissed by this flip-flop.

A touch of bloggerhea

-- Two new blogs of special note: Bonddad has his own place, and so does the esteemed former Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives, Tom DeLay. Well, he did for awhile anyway. Thanks to the magic of the Google you can still read it, including all 100+ comments he received before someone shut it down for him.

-- Gasoline prices continue to rise during the holiday season, baffling "experts". The Chronic also weighs in to tell us it's no big deal (yet, they helpfully caution).

-- The Big Dog came to San Antone yesterday for Ciro. B and B has pictures and Muse has video. Election Day for TX-23 is tomorrow.

-- The Houston Texans 2006 draft theory was disproved in the laboratory yesterday. Twice. I would have paid the value of a luxury box for the season just to see the look on Bob McNair's face when VY scored the game-winning touchdown.

Ten more years of in-his-face just like yesterday. Maybe twelve, maybe fifteen.

-- An iconic piece of Houston's East End gets ready for a little makeover. And also underground downtown, and in the Village as well.

-- Smoke-filled rooms in Washington die hard (if they die at all).

-- Financial wisdom I may be beating Bonddad to: consider turning your IRA into a Roth. Really.

-- Some good Sunday Funnies here.

Off we go

up into the wild black yonder ...

Get up early tomorrow, go outside, look at the planets

Stargazers will get a rare triple planetary treat this weekend with Jupiter, Mercury and Mars appearing to nestle together in the pre-dawn skies. About 45 minutes before dawn on Sunday those three planets will be so close that the average person's thumb can obscure all three from view.

They will be almost as close together on Saturday and Monday, but Sunday they will be within one degree of each other in the sky. Three planets haven't been that close since 1925, said Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer.

And it won't happen again until 2053, he said.

"Jupiter will be very bright and it will look like it has two bright lights next to it, and they won't twinkle because they're planets," said Horkheimer, host of the television show Star Gazer. "This is the kind of an event that turns young children into Carl Sagans."

...

The way to find the planets, which will be low on the east-southeast horizon, is to hold your arm straight out, with your hand in a fist and the pinky at the bottom. Halfway up your fist is how high the planets will appear above the horizon, Nichols said.

Jupiter will be white, Mercury pinkish and Mars butterscotch-colored.

"It is a lovely demonstration of the celestial ballet that goes on around us, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium," said Horkheimer. "When I look at something like this, I realize that all the powers on Earth, all the emperors, all the money, cannot change it one iota. We are observers, but the wonderful part of that is that we are the only species on this planet that can observe it and understand it."

Moneyshot Quotes of the Week

"I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day."

"That is absurd. It may even be criminal."

-- Gordon Smith, the latest Republican Senator to get off the Kool-Aid

"It's bad in Iraq. That help?" (heh-heh-heh)

-- Bush, when asked by a British reporter if he was 'still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq'

"It shocked me that (the Astros) would not continue to go up, when the Yankees continued to push and push and pursue and they (the Astros) really didn't do much."

-- Andy Pettitte, pissing and moaning about his $16 million contract with the New York Yankees. The Houston Astros offered him $12 million.

"The absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion."

-- Texas comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn

"You have these cheap shots coming at you, but you still need to move forward. Obviously, when people are spreading falsehoods and lying about your character and who you are, it's much more aggravating. ... If you lose by one point in a game, you can look back on every single play of the game ... (one) can say, 'gosh darn, if we only had made that block, if we only didn't jump off-sides, if we only had recovered that fumble, if we hadn't thrown that interception. If the referees didn't screw us on that play.' "

-- former Senator George Allen of Virginia, on why he lost

"I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically. He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes."

-- Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, after an Oval Office meeting

"Nope, nobody sang 'Kumbaya'."

-- outgoing UN ambassador John Bolton, asked about a 'healing process' with outgoing UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi Annan at a White House dinner attended by both