The Icepick Cometh

What is it about baseball, or base-e-bol as The Baby calls it? (He says it almost like Chico Escuela's "beisbol been berry berry good to me," which Sammy Sosa would sometimes pay homage to in 1998.)

What is it about a late afternoon game under sunny skies and lightly breezy temperatures, about sharing a game with two people you adore and love, about a guy walking around with cold beer to sell you, about hot dogs, about soft-serve ice cream in miniature helmets, about no matter how much The Game pisses you off because of steroids, big-ego players and (shamefully) most of my fellow Yankee fans (not the true-Yankee blue Bleacher Creatures of the ’90s who were denizens of Sections 37 to 43 before alcohol was banned there, but the loud-mouth and obnoxious ones guzzling gas in SUVs with Yankee decals on their trailer hitches; perhaps many Red Sox and Mets fans feel the same way about their obnoxious cohorts)?

Despite all that, what is it that makes the game still great to see live, even if your toddler can only sit still in awe for an inning and-a-half? Is it the clichéd pastoral nature of a game that for the formative years of its inception was really a city game¹? Is it summer evenings under a waning sun? Is it the pure simplicity and complexity of the game, the only major team sport without a clock?

Whatever, we took The Baby to his first real game last weekend. He can't stop talking about it. Though this was his favorite part:




¹From George Vecsey's, Baseball, 2006, Modern Library, an imprint of Random House:

Hoboken, the birthplace of another American institution, Francis Albert Sinatra, has lobbied to be considered the home place of baseball [possibly the first big recorded game took place there on June 19, 1846, some 162 years ago last week], but its urban grit and anonymous proximity to New York City make it a poor competitor with upstate Cooperstown for the honor. In the minds of the American builders of baseball, the game needed the appeal of the woods and pastures, with the players retaining the posture of farmers and outdoorsmen. This image was more myth than reality: baseball was a city game.

Within a few miles and short ferry rides, the Knickerbockers could challenge teams like the Empires, Atlantics, Eagles, Putnams, Washingtons, Gothams, Eckfords, and Phantoms in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, whose rosters included men from the shops, factories, offices, and civil service of the metropolis. Some clubs were organized along ethnic lines, like soccer teams of future generations, but others represented trades or companies or neighborhoods.

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I just like the idea of Cheney as a barnacle on the Ship of State.

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Thank God this wasn't part of the baby's first-ever baseball game.

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I really don't understand this at all, but anything that discusses politics and the RZA, even elliptically, in the same post is OK with me, sort of. Gawker weighs in, too. (of course, I saw it on Gawker first, but who's tracking?)

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My favorite quote after reading the coverage of George Carlin, who died Sunday at age 71:

“Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

My second-favorite George Carlin quote:

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

Not entirely off-topic:

A photo of George Carlin was on the cover of Monday's USA Today with an appetizer of some of his well-known jokes and bits surrounding him — "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television," "JUMBO Shrimp," "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman."

I swear he was either rolling over in his grave or laughing from beyond at the sheer absurdity of the mere existence of USA Today and its corporate ownership, responsible more than any other newspaper for the dumbing down of America, and all it made me want to do is curse Al Neuharth for inventing something as shitty as USA Today and and forever vowing to hold it against any writer who ever worked for Gannett merely for contributing to the lowering of the level of intelligence in this county — something George Carlin couldn't help but laugh and be angry about when he said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that" — and then I realized that George Carlin is now gone and USA Today is with us forever and I was sad.

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Sixteen Tons. What do you get? Another day older, and deeper in debt.

Big to-do in the New York Capital on Thursday with truckers clogging the streets with a rally to protest taxes and tolls and the high price of diesel.

Before you shout irony at the idea of protesting gas prices by driving and idling, you need to remember one thing: You might argue with their methods, but we're talking blue collar families. We're talking workers that were sold the American Dream, and of course I am paraphrasing David Simon here, that if you worked hard and did your job, then America has a place at the table for you, that you can make a proud living wage. And, again paraphrasing David Simon, that's not so true; your life is actually worth less every day, as Simon has frequently said.

You might argue that $5 per gallon gas (and $6 per gallon diesel) can help wean the country off environment-killing and unsustainable oil (foreign and domestic), much the same way that $8 per pack cigarettes can help wean smokers off of their own killing habit. And I would agree with you.

At some level, it's a good thing, especially if it forces people to give up their showboaty and unnecessary SUVs and sprawling McMansion existence (though I disagree with the biofuels bandwagon).

And as this AP article points out, drivers can recoup some of their fuel costs through adjustable surcharges — but there's apparently a lag, which creates a cash-flow problem that many of them cannot ride out (excuse the pun) until the money comes in.

However, kicking the oil habit will be fruitless if government does not strongly step in to increase mass transit and to increase the use of rail in hauling goods, which is vastly more energy efficient, emits less greenhouse gas (PDF) and is generally safer than trucking. Trucks would still be needed, but for shorter trips — hauling from rail sidings to the goods' destinations. By far, trucking consumes the most fuel out of any other form of transportation.

But what of those driving the trucks?
 
In many ways, America (and that means you and me as much as the government) has sold them a bill of goods that trucking was a viable way to earn a living. And for years perhaps it was viable, if not overly lucrative.

Now what? Those that can get out, are leaving (AP article again).

But how many more American workers is our Economy going to simply cut loose in (paraphasing Simon again) the Triumph of Capitalism over the Individual?

The truckers' case is somewhat difficult, in that their industry was based on a large dose of destroying the environment, through emissions, through oil consumption and through both reaction to and encouragement of sprawl. That said, you can't begrudge a person making a living — man gotta eat.

And you and I, friend, share some blame, too. American's recent conspicuous over-consumption largely helped fuel the boom in the shipping business. Up until a year or two ago, the economy (and the purchasing of goods hauled by truckers) was booming despite mounting credit use among consumers — it was unsustainable growth, a bubble as ripe for popping as the housing bubble has been.

Though reflexively, the truckers' approach may seem like bullying tactics — we don't get our way, so we're going to make life miserable for everyone else, block traffic, stop the flow of goods, blockade Manhattan, etc. And some protesters' choice in language attacking the very people who buy the goods who keep them in business seems, at best, counterproductive.

You need only check out the protests in Spain and France to see how ugly it could get, to say nothing of the conflicting emotions produced — sympathy for the truckers' plight and ire drawn from their bullying approach.

Despite that, once you get past the emotions on both sides, our question today is what do you do with the truckers?

Far be it from pointing out my own hypocrisy, but I've whined about the loss of newspaper jobs since I began this blog (and long before that). That industry is as much a dinosaur-in-the-making as the fossil-fuel-using trucking industry.

Perhaps the news industry is too big, and too obsolete (in the era of online information). I tend to feel the same way about gas-guzzling delivery systems in the face of cleaner technologies such as existing systems (rail) and yet-to-be-developed models (green trucks? less consumption (gasp!) by consumers?).

I don't have the answer to this. Worker re-training? Seems like small consolation. And with powerful political forces involved and invested in the status quo, both in the halls of our legislatures and in certain still-powerful unions, you're not going to see trucks disappear entirely anytime soon.

You will probably see more protests about high-priced diesel, and perhaps some pandering by re-election-minded pols with the adoption of gas tax relief "holidays" (which will cause a need to compensate with taxes elsewhere and encourage oil companies to step in and profiteer, to say nothing of consumers getting a shock with the sudden spike in price when the tax holiday expires).

Perhaps all that can be done is to discourage the next generation from getting into that industry, as harsh as that may sound. And I mean that about both trucking and about newspapering.

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Quick quote: "A single intermodal freight train can remove as many as 280 trucks from the highway system while using significantly less energy than highway travel in the process." (PDF)

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Mighty Mite Mike Lupica unsurprisingly tops New York sportswriters in estimated salary in a post from The Big Lead on the highest paid sporstwriters (Update: The Big Lead posted a follow-up), with former SI and current ESPN Mag thinks-he's-funny-man Rick Reilly topping the estimated national list of sportswriters (broadcasters who think they can write are left off the list).

Gawker links to it, and adds its own chart and commenter-generated snark for these writing men plus one writing woman. Though we'd gladly pay to read Whitlock and Feinstein (and Gary Smith, as noted in the updated post), the list skews heavily toward hack-scribblers with Lupica, Albom, Reilly, Mariotti and (often) Simmons. Bitter/jealous much? Hell yeah, I am!

Continuing on our sports theme, and for our Boston (both current residents and fans of) readership (apparently, there's quite a few of 3 of you): Congratulations! This is for you, beaneaters:

"Boston Just Can't Get Enthusiastic About Sports Rioting Anymore"
(via Deadspin.com)

and this:

Police arrest 23 during Celtics revelry
(link and photo of potential He-Man relative via Boston Globe

Finally, can't Italy win without drama and a dose of skirting failure? Though the Azzuri beat France 2-0 in their final group-stage game in the European Championship on Tuesday in a rematch of the great 2006 World Cup final — of Zidane head-butt fame — both Andrea Pirlo and Snarling Dog Gennaro Gattuso, Italy's star midfielders, got themselves eliminated from the quarterfinal Sunday against Spain by picking up their second yellow cards of the opening stage.

Pirlo's smashing penalty kick in the 25th minute and Daniele De Rossi's goal in the 62rd minute carried the Italians past Les Bleus. Former Fiorentina striker Luca Toni (Number Nyne!) looked great in the first half, just missing wide on at least three sublime touches inside the box. Both goals came after France went down to 10 men, despite the efforts of the unparalleled Thierry Henry.

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Lost, perhaps, in the sad news last week of the death of Buffalo's own Tim Russert was the death of another journalist — Eliot Asinof's passing at 88 a week ago can hardly be called sudden in the way Russert's was, especially because Big Tim was 30 years his junior.

Still, let's not forget Asinof. His 1963 book Eight Men Out, filled with research, interviews and (according to the Times) some fiction was a groundbreaking work, and one of the many influences of The Young Icepick in his quest to become a Writer — I read it at age 15 when an edition was released to coincide with John Sayles' excellent 1988 movie.

Asinof's conceit, hammered home in Sayles' film, is the eight Black Sox of 1919 were victims of a miserly owner and a unionless system that chewed them up with no chance for the freedom that today's free agents enjoy, even though at least five of the eight were in fact guilty of throwing games to the gamblers.

The scandal ruined the lives of many yet, in an ironic way, saved the sport from shadiness by paving the way for Babe Ruth and the needed strong, centralized leadership of baseball's Office of the Commissioner; strong and heavy-handed, and perhaps too heavy-handed at times — Ford Frick helped kill an early Asinof screenplay attempt at the Black Sox story — though Bud Selig has acted like he's been apologetically making up for prior commissioners.

There was much heartbreak on individual lives in the pages of Eight Men Out, from the young boy's plea of "Say it ain't so, Joe," to the sad decline of the talented but naive Buck Weaver, still looking for another chance to play practically until the day he collapsed and died on a street on Chicago's Southside at age 66.

The story gets a lot of justified mileage as a tale of the Loss of American Innocence, coming on the heels of the horrors of World War I and the moralizing by the Baby Booomer-like righteous leaders of Strauss & Howe's Missionary Generation that instituted Prohibition.

Asinof, Bruce Weber's Times obit states, was blacklisted in the 1950s, with Asinof claiming, “after he got hold of his F.B.I. file, the blacklisting came about because ‘I had at one time signed a petition outside of Yankee Stadium to encourage the New York Yankees to hire black ballplayers.’”

The passing of Asinof, who lived in upstate Ancramdale since 1985, near where I cut some teeth covering semi-semi-semi-pro ball in cow country, was sadly missed by my sometimes favorite sports blogs, which shows there is some (some) use for newspapers still. (Though how weak is it that in Chicago, muse of Nelson Algren, home of the Black Sox story itself, the Tribune ran the obit written and distributed by the New York Times, and not by one of its own writers, perhaps highlighting the downward turn of the Sam Zell's Tribune and the local press in general. But again, I digress.)

Happily, I discover via The Google this blog post at Bronx Banter at Baseball Toaster by writer Alex Belth, who quotes Roger Kahn as saying Asinof had "an enduring anger at what he perceived to be injustice" — my kind of hard-working writer.

Belth later quotes Glenn Stout as saying Asinof was one of the first writers (including Al Stump of Cobb fame, another Icepick favorite) to legitimize baseball history as a serious subject.

Meanwhile, the past few days marked another mourning — the end of the annual exhibition Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown. I feel nothing but sadness about this and have nothing but good feelings for Cooperstown and the Hall, but I am currently reading George Vecsey's Baseball (yes, it was a Father's Day gift) and perhaps I am the naive one, but the amount of racism sewn into the fabric of the game's history never fails to amaze me.

The Hall and the Abner Doubleday myth were largely (if not wholly) created by the racist Albert Goodwill Spalding (yes, of the Spalding sporting goods fame) who, according to Vecsey's book, organized an international barnstorming tour in 1888 without any black players, yet took along a black man as a "mascot" who was vulgarly (I had to read this twice to believe it) "paraded around in front of Asians, Australians, Africans, and Europeans with a leash around his neck, a wonderful advertisement for the American character, indeed," Vescey writes.

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Nice theory by pollster John Zogby about the end of Boomerism as we know it. Unfortunately, the Baby Boomers are like a Freddy or a Jason flick — just when you think they're dead, they're not dead.

I largely doubt this is the end of the Clintons, or the Bushes for that matter. Not only will their influence last for decades — the Boomers threaten to be the longest-lived generation ever, thanks to medical science — but their age-cohorts fill Congress and will likely overtake the Supreme Court — even an Xer like Obama can't stop that.

And while the Silents silently bemoan never electing one of their own as president (unless McCain pulls an upset of Da'Tara proportions), the Boomers can self-absorbedly whine about not having a stake in this election.

Not to worry. The Boomers, by the count I agree with, span the ages of 65 to 48, meaning they'll be 69 to 52 in 2012 and 73 to 56 in 2016. Even the oldest of the Boomers won't be too old to run in those years. This is, after all, also the Botox Generation, so while McCain makes 72 look like, well, 72, a 77-year-old Boomer will look like half that age in time for the coming Crisis of 2020. And with our luck (and thanks again to Science), that 77-year-old on the campaign trail of 2020 will not only be collecting retirement benefits (which my half-sized generation will be paying for with blood), but will also likely extend her life-expectancy to 126, or until around 2069, just in time to ruin the New Sixties!

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As I've previously said, I agree with the Strauss and Howe cut-off of 1961 to divide Boomers and Gen Xer's. Obviously, it's an arbitrary and symbolic date, but one that works for these reasons:

• The Pill was first marketed as a birth-control device in mid-1960 (impacting 1961 birth rates).
• Except for a slight upward tick at the start of the '60s, U.S. birth rates began their long decline into the 1970s, when Roe vs. Wade helped make Generation X the most aborted generation in history.
• The difference in attitudes and life goals between those born in the '50s vs. those born in the '60s. It's not as much as a stretch as you might think, argue Strauss and Howe.

Special thanks to our tipster and unanimous decider, Lord Jim, for directing us to Zogby's HuffPost article.
 

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Random thoughts while waiting out a wind-whipping thunderstorm at a local cafe:

For the Blogfather.

Had this months ago. And I thought I was embarrassingly re-stating the obvious.

I don't know the answer to this, but if Obama can figure something out to help these people (more rural transit, gas subsidies for those making under a certain income) and put the supposed lack-of-middle-class-cred comments to rest, he should hit this issue, and hit it hard.

And now, for tonight's anti-newspaper rant:

If you're a kid in college wanting to be a journalist, it's not too late to change your sucker bet. Don't worry, the newspaper industry isn't what you thought it was, and hasn't been for 20 years. It's a Boomer-centric society, where hiring and news coverage is dictated by those who think new rules to make things better — including clubby hiring and obstructionist and narrow-minded coverage — apply to their younger employees, but not to them. It's the continuation of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do ethos of the Boomers.

Because, like a lot of other industries, the Boomers got in and locked the door behind them and said, no, sorry, this is for us. You go get us coffee, child, and we'll use up most of the resources so there's nothing left for you. And then create new rules to limit your advancement (while not limiting our own), all in the name of protecting "the children" and "the earth." Which they pretty much fucked already.

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Can't endorse the new Indiana Jones movie, which we saw at the drive-in last weekend while The Baby more or less slept in the back seat (Iron Man, the second half of the double feature, was much better, and since I dug out my Black Sabbath CD and started playing "Iron Man" in the car, The Baby has taken to saying "Ionman" — but I'm digressing again).

It's not that the new Indy is particularly bad, though it's not good, or that it wastes Karen Allen in a comeback role (someone on Gawker said, "Oh, that's what a MILF looks like"), or that it manages to rip off the first X-Files movie, Back to the Future, and Spike Milligan's old crazy guy from the Bastille from History of the World, Part I, while forgetting how much fun the old Indiana Jones movies could be (though Harrison Ford looks like he's having tons of fun without having to lift the undernourished Calista Flockhart around). It even wastes a pretty good premise of Indy getting older (it takes place in 1957), if no less adventuresome, proving for the fourth time in nine years that George Lucas, God bless him, should be nowhere near a laptop (somehow, he didn't write the screenplay, though Steven Spielberg does a pretty good George Lucas imitation in directing — that's not a compliment).

No, it's merely because St. Jimmy is upset that Too Short isn't in it, as Lord Jim misidentified him. He meant Short Round, and the actor who portrayed him also played Data in The Goonies. He is alive and well (though he used to be called "Ke Huy Quan" and not "Jonathan Ke Quan," as Babble calls him, but jeez, he turns 37 this year — not very funny).

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UPDATE JUNE 10: I should say that the motorcycle chase through Indy's New England college was pretty cool (and at least they weren't on skateboards, which the Back to the Future-like scene preceding it seemed to be leading to).

Also, He-Man seemed to enjoy Shia LaBeouf's performance, so the movie was not without redeeming value.

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Well, I guess it turned out that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog had as good a chance of winning the Belmont as Big Brown.

Don't weep for Big Brown and his owners, though. They'll make a killing in stud fees. And that's the problem — horses are bred and trained for their retirement years (after age 3), rather than for winning. Sure, they need to win the big races to command big stud fees, but the syndicates and conglomerates that own the Sport of Kings these days proudly operate like owners of mutual funds. That attitude, protecting your investment (protecting your brand, as the business-types say) has infected the entire sport for too long. It's not about winning. It's all about the money. That's why we're likely to never see a Triple Crown winner again.

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We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important post about Saturday's Belmont Stakes. For what seems to be like the 10th time this decade, a horse enters the race having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in the last few weeks and has a real shot at winning the elusive Triple Crown. No horse has done that since Affirmed in 1978.

As a track veteran — I remember selling back some freshman textbooks in my second weekend of my first year of college to scrap up $50 to go to Belmont, but they were math textbooks, and I wasn't getting no "A" in calculus as an English major, anyways — I want to share the advice that has given me, like, three winning days in 17 years of track visits.

I was part of a group of friends camped out at the top of the stretch in 2004, a perfect spot among a record 120,139 gamblers in Elmont to watch Birdstone overtake Smarty Jones down the stretch and spoil the most recent Triple Crown bid. I had money on the Philadelphia favorite Smarty, but I also had maybe $10 on Birdstone to win, and wound up heading back to Mrs. Icepick in Midtown with a waking hangover and a couple of hundred in "blood money" at something like 36-1 odds, as I recall. (Digression No. 1: It's hazy how much I won, and I can't believe I went home with $360, so maybe it was a $5 win ticket and I won $180, but it was still a decent haul. Karma still has me paying for that, because I haven't had a winning day at the track since, though I won again with Birdstone in the Travers later that year, though not enough at 9-2 odds to make up for the rest of that Saturday in Saratoga. But I digress.)

If you're determined to beat the crowds, if not the house, on Saturday, here's some free tips:

1. Plan your bathroom breaks and your visits to the teller windows. The lines for both grow increasingly longer as the day drags on. I wouldn't attempt to visit either within three races of the Stakes race.
   
   
2. Don't wear open-toe shoes if you plan to use the restrooms, especially if you're a woman and, in desperation, need to use the men's room. Trust me on this one. And don't go passing out in the restrooms, either. Think sloshed, both the patrons and the viscous layer on the floor.
   
   
3. If you're bleeding and in need of first aid, the nurses station is top-notch, though it's in a subterranean alcove underneath the huge grandstand, near the jockey room. They're awfully nice down there. Trust me on this one, too.
   
   (Digression No. 2: On my way back after visiting said nurses station in 2004, President Reagan's death was announced over the loudspeakers. Strange coincidence that such an icon of my ’80s youth died while I was stumbling through the hallowed halls of Belmont. But I digress again.)
   
   
4. Don't even attempt to drive there, unless you plan on arriving around 6 a.m. There was a special Belmont/drunk train from Penn Station the last time I went. Plan accordingly. It took us quite a while to get out of the track at the end of the day, as I remember, too.
   
   
5. I have only one bit gambling advice: bet on overwhelming favorite Big Brown to place, not win. Modern horses are bred to stud these days, not for the grueling and increasing distances of the Triple Crown, especially the 1½ miles of the Belmont Stakes. There's no reason to think any differently this year. Remember, it's only happened 11 times in 88 years (of course, with my luck and reverse psychology, I just handed the Triple Crown to Big Brown). Many of today's sportswriters can still remember three horses pulling off the feat in the ’70s, so it's no wonder they can be a bit nostalgic.
   
   Anyway, with 10 horses in the field and Big Brown at 2-5 odds and on the inside post, you're not making shit picking him to win, or with him on top of any exotics. So wheel him in the No. 2 slot with an exacta for $2, which will cost you $18, and enjoy the show. You still won't make much money, but you're a lock (in my book) for cashing a winner. And who doesn't love a winner?
   

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There really isn't very much difference between them, at least policy-wise. Yeah, there is some difference in their health care plans and there's that silly gas tax thing. But the differences in policy between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are minuscule when compared to John McCain's beliefs.

This was my point months ago, privately: when placed side-by-side, there isn't much difference in beliefs between the two Dems.

So with that as a given, if you are going to vote Democratic, who would you rather vote for?

An inspiring, rallying speaker with little baggage who can actually make you believe "hope" is more than just a cynical campaign slogan and whose default mode by him and his handlers is not to attack, thrust, lie and wage a scorched earth campaign that threatens to not only keep the presidency in Republican hands, but to bring down an entire party with him?

Or a candidate from a former First Family with baggage dating back at least 16 years that is nevertheless beloved by swooning Baby Boomers, a candidate who represents a continuation of the angry divisive politics of the last 20 years, politics from both sides of the aisle that place mud-slinging over respect, a candidate comfortable being represented by the slimy likes of the execrable Harold Ickes and Howard Wolfson, the booted Mark Penn, silly Lanny Davis and the utterly incompetent Terry McAuliffe? (And where are the women leading and directing her campaign, oh paragon of feminism and supposed inspiration to our mothers and daughters? You fired Patti Solis Doyle, the last woman who held a visible leadership post in your campaign.)

This pains me to write this, in many ways. I supported Hillary in running for Senate as a new New Yorker in 2000. I believed in her during her "It Takes a Village" days. That was inspiring. And at the time, I supported President Bill Clinton's policies voraciously.

What can I say? Obama is more inspiring. Obama has better progressive credentials. Obama, simply, is better.

Want an example of how much better? When the Rev. Wright controversy threatened to derail Obama's campaign, the candidate responded by giving one of the most lucid and inspiring speeches on race delivered in the last 40 years.

On the other hand, when charges of sexism reached a frenzy in the last 10 days, what great speech has Hillary delivered in response? Instead, she let a bunch of shrill-seeking men and women shout on her behalf on the blogs and at Saturday's Democratic Rules Committee meeting.

Slate's Meghan O'Rourke says Hillary wasn't feminist enough and talks of how Clinton has lost a generation of voters (um, I had that a few days ago). She ran as an establishment candidate. Not surprising, since the Boomers are the establishment — funny enough for the sell-out Woodstock generation that made its name in the late ’60s as anti-establishment.

Clinton simply didn't inspire awe the way Obama did. She ran as an insider, he ran as an outsider, and after almost 16 years of bickering and divisive politics, outsider status carries a lot of weight. It did across the aisle: John McCain, portrayed as the consummate Republican outsider maverick, is their nominee.

And you wonder why people are swooning for Obama, the media included? Obama is a candidate for these times, not the Boomer Clinton, not the Silent Generation McCain. "This is our time," he said Tuesday night, and the crowd roared. How could you not?

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Abraham Lincoln's experience before he was elected President at age 51 in 1860 was limited to serving one term in the House of Representatives (which technically lasted only 15 months, because the 13th Congress didn't hold its first session until December 1847, well over a year after Lincoln's August 1846 election) and eight years in the Illinois legislature.

John F. Kennedy, 100 years later, was a Senator for eight years and a member of the House of Representatives for six before becoming President at age 43.

Both were inspiring speakers.

Barack Obama, age 46 (he turns 47 in August), has been a Senator for three years and counting and served almost eight years in the Illinois legislature.

Kennedy's got him on elected experience. Lincoln, not so much. Obama will split the difference in age this November. Beside the relative youth, he's got something else in common with these two giants.

He is the most inspiring speaker I have listened to in my lifetime. I'd say he's better than Reagan.

That ability to speak equals an ability to inspire. And if you can inspire, you can lead like no other. Even Reagan did this in the awful (in retrospect) ’80s.

Setting aside Hillary's dubious claims of having way more experience than Obama (she's served in the Senate four years longer, and that's all I'll give her), I view the ability to inspire as a greater quality than having any level of greater experience.

That's not to say an abject lack of experience trumps oratory ability.

But if you cannot get people to follow you, to be inspired by you actions and words, then all the experience in the world won't make you a great executive leader. Bob Dole had decades of experience, but that did not make him a great presidential candidate, certainly not enough to unseat President Bill Clinton in 1996. John McCain is a great leader in the Senate, with decades of experience, too, but he doesn't have the inspirational qualities to be a great executive.

And for all of Hillary's laudable accomplishments in the Senate and for sitting as First Lady, she's inspiring to bitter Baby Boomers (men and women) and provokes as much invective in nearly everyone else.

It's amazing that a person who spent seven years in the Senate building alliances and allegiances with cohorts on both sides of the aisle can throw that all away in just a few short months by reverting to the Clintonian divisiveness.

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I just went to Hillary's Web site, as she suggested in her sort-of good, very defiant, very divisive, better-than-McCain's-but-not-nearly-as-good-as-Obama's speech tonight, and a pop-up box appeared essentially saying be "one of 18 million and stand with Hillary."

So I told them:

Please quit. Obama is the better candidate. Stop trying to divide the party.
 

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