Michael Irvin - No Hall of Fame

First, to the important topics, like sports. The Eagles season - Done! I meant to write that in week 3, when it would have been a somewhat novel observation, but I've been very busy. 2 of their 4 wins - the comeback against the Chiefs and the absurd win against San Diego - show that even when they win it is a minor miracle. You could argue the Dallas game was kind of the opposite, so what goes around comes around, but either way, Eagles fans must now look forward to 2007.

On a different note, a reader asked me the following question: Should Michael Irvin, ex-Cowboy receiver, be inducted into the Hall of Fame. My answer is unequivocally no for the following very obvious reasons: 1) I hate that guy; 2) his post-game press conference garb in his playing days was eggregious, what with the high buttoned suits and the bowlers; 3) in his liesure time he sat around snorting coke and ordering hits on his enemies, which by itself is not a disqualifying set of facts, except that 1 above, combined with the logic that the enemy of my enemy is ny friend, implies he was trying to knock off my friends; and 4) I hate that guy. All good and sufficient reasons, but for those skeptics out there who will argue that none of these have anything to do with his play on the field, I offer the following observations:

1) The baseball Hall of Fame should be the model for all such halls - you should be truly extraordinary to make it in;

2) Given that as the model, and football I don't think follows that model (it has weaker standards), football should be the hardest sport to make it into the Hall due to the difficulty in judging the individual ability of the player. Clemens, for example, didn't have a great record this year (13 wins), but his ERA was something close to 0.0001. Clearly a Hall of Fame like season. If Michael Irvin was getting passes thrown to him by Sean Salisbury, who was handing off on other plays to some crappy running back, with a lousy offensive line and a defense that was so lame it made the opposing defenses well rested whenever they took to the field, he probably would have sucked. A guy like Barry Sanders - clear Hall material, because he to dodge three tackles just to avoid a 2 yard loss, and he still ran like the wind;

3) Well, maybe he would have still been good, but nevertheless the standard should be that he would have been great. He said it himself in assessing Randy Moss's chances for success under Norv Turner (Cowboys offensive coordinator during Irvin's playing years): if Norv Turner could make Alvin Harper an All Star, look for Randy Moss to break every record in the book (he said it on ESPN). So there we see him take a gratuitous swipe at a former teammate while being too stupid to realize that the same argument must apply to some extent to himself;

4) A real Hall of Famer doesn't become an ESPN analyst. (And don't give me Steve Young - I said real Hall of Famer). What is ESPN thinking? Between Michael Irvin and Steven A. Smith, I think it's time someone started a competing network. And don't call me racist, because I like Stuart Scott.

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Now, to less important things, like politics. Finally Bush has started to call on the carpet the many irresponsible liberals who want to endlessly claim he lied or deceived us into war. In a couple of speeches he's accused them of undermining troop morale and fortifying the enemy. Such conspiratorial fantasies of the "Bush lied, people dies" variety are fine for nutjob bloggers like myself (but of the opposite political stripe) to entertain, but they shouldn't be indulged, encouraged, or propogated by U.S. Senators and Reps. Your crazy lefty needs to believe it's a matter of good and evil (Saddam - good; Bush - evil); it's the only way to assuage his delicate psyche and enable him to sleep at night while Bush is in charge. I'll permit him his psychological venting, but more should be expected from our so called leaders. All halfway intelligent people in the US may know that Ted Kennedy is a boorish windbag, but when he says something that gets echoed on Al Jazeera, the Arab world probably doesn't view him as the drunken ass he is. (MaryJo Kopechne could not be reached for comment). Bush said it right - criticize the decision if you disagree with it, or the planning and execution if you think it went badly - but don't offer up a conspiracy theory with zero proof to back it. And for those of you who think there is anything to the conspiracy theory, please read this link: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540

The problem is that most of the Democratic Senators cannot criticize the decision, since they were fully on board with it. And while there may have been execution problems, does anybody really think any of our windbag Senators, who manage nothing but a staff of sycophantic lemmings attracted to their power, could have done it better? Whether Democrat or Republican, any government run endeavor (maybe even any human endeavor) is going to be hopelessly inefficient - the only difference between the two is the type of policies they typically choose. But if all agreed initially to go to war, as they did, it's hopelessly naive to believe that Democrats would have run it better. Not saying they would have run it worse, just not better.

Franky, when these guys go off as they do on the lies and deception rants, I honestly believe 3 things: 1) they know they are spouting nonsense; 2) they know it may be detrimental to our efforts; and 3) they know it nevertheless serves their political interest, and so they carry on. For a notable exception to this rule of asininity among Democratic Senators, see these comments by Lieberman: http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_11_13_corner-archive.asp#082672.