Tex Cobb vs. Whoopi Goldberg

In a desperate attempt to gain at least a little credibility with mainstream America, and a few ratings points in the process, The View featured a segment with Bill O'Reilly today.  In a discussion about the wisdom of building a mosque on the site of a building damaged during the attacks by Muslim extremists on 9/11/01, O'Reilly was insensitive enough to mention that the attacks were carried out by Muslims.  Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg predictably went ballistic.  These two deep thinkers are famous for such wonderful tolerant progressive rants such as Behar's claim that Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is "anti-children." Bachmann and her husband have two children and have raised 23 foster children. While the "pro-children" Ms. Behar has raised only 25 fewer children, but who is counting?  One of Ms. Goldberg's finer moments came when she defended child molester, Roman Polanski by saying that essentially since he drugged the underage girl first, the act wasn't "Rape rape."

In today's episode with Bill O'Reilly, the two progressive spokespersons immediately went into a rabid attack, comparing Timothy McVeigh to the 9/11 terrorists, saying O'Reilly doesn't refer to McVeigh as the Christian bomber.  As Bill O'Reilly points out, Timothy McVeigh never claimed to be Christian, and absolutely never claimed his attack was in the name of Christianity.  The 9/11 murderers, on the other hand, did carry out their attacks in the name of Islam, albeit their own perverted extremist version of the religion.  Behar and Goldberg stood and walked off the set of the show before allowing O'Reilly to make his point.  It was ratings gold.  If Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg would only continue their protest, the show might actually become relevant.

When seeing the highlights of today's walkout, I was immediately reminded of boxer turned actor, Randall "Tex" Cobb.  Cobb fought several heavyweight championship matches in the early 1980's.  He once stated that his strategy was to let his opponent hit him in the face until he was completely exhausted, then Cobb would try to knock him out.  The match  for which Cobb is most famous, was in 1982 against heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes.  True to Cobb's strategy, Holmes pounded on Cobb's face for 15 rounds.  Problem for Cobb was that Holmes never tired.  And Cobb never fell.


Tex Cobb was never mistaken for Tom Cruise before the fight, but after the fight, he may have been mistaken for 200 pounds of ground meat.  Boxing was a major sport at the time, and the most famous boxing announcer was Howard Cosell.  Cosell was voted the most loved, and most hated sportscaster in America for ten straight years.  He was a regular on Friday night boxing and on Monday Night Football.  At the end of the Cobb vs. Holmes match, Cosell was so disgusted by the beating that Cobb received that he announced his retirement from announcing boxing matches.  When the beaten and bloody Cobb was told of Cosell's retirement, he responded, "I'll go another 15 rounds with Larry right now if Cosell will get off Monday Night Football too."

I think Bill O'Reilly more than held his own with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg today.  He should volunteer to be a daily guest on The View, if Behar and Goldberg will stay retired!

America, we've got a problem. Really, we do this time.

In arson investigations, at least on TV, one of the first suspects is the person who reported the fire.  And then the people who help put out the fire, or who rescue the victims.  A few years ago, a huge wildfire burned thousands of acres in Arizona.  The fire, or actually a series of fires, was started by a firefighter.  He wanted the opportunity to be the hero who put out the fire.  About the same time, there was a similiar case in Colorado.  It's even more common in housing arson.  A firefighter, or more likely a firefighter wannabe,  creates a crisis in the hopes of coming to the rescue and becoming the hero.  And in the process gaining a job, a promotion, money, or at least publicity.

Next time we have a crisis in Washington D.C., we need to take a close look to see if it is a real crisis, and if it is, how was it created?  The perfect example is the housing crisis that brought about the current economic mess.  First of all, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were part of a Democratic congressional majority that forced banks to make high risk loans to people who could not qualify for housing loans, as part of the Fair Housing Act.  (As an aside, take a REALLLLLLLLY close look any bill that includes the word Fair and doesn't involve ferris wheels and corn dogs).  The promise to the banks was that the loans would be backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  While CSpan will generally result in a full-on slobbering nap, maybe we should all be making that network the top rated cable channel.  Here's an enlightening video from 2004.



So, they created the crisis, ignored the warnings about crisis, and then took billions, soon to be trillions, to fix the crisis.  And oh, yeah, blame the people who were sounding the warnings for the crisis!

Another example, how about the $854 billion dollars to create jobs to keep unemployment from going over 8% at the beginning of Obama's presidency.  Using their own numbers, which are very questionable if not outright lies, they created or saved 3.5 million jobs.  That means the federal government spent $244,400 for every job saved or created.  And unemployment still went to almost 10%, or 14.4% if you include those who became discouraged and just stopped looking or were unemployed for so long that they were no longer eligible to be counted.

And don't even get started on Global Warming, Climate Change, Man Caused Global Climate Disruption.  I've written about that DC Caused crisis several times, so I won't get into it again.  Here are three links.
Obama and Gore to profit from Cap and Trade  Why no media outrage about cap and trade?  Rednecks and global warming

How about financial reform?  Was that even on your radar?  Now, with the solution that passed in a 2000+ page law this summer, every one of your financial transactions is subject to scrutiny by the the government.  Student loan crisis?  Fixed, as part of the 2000+ healthcare law.  Yes, part of the HEALTHCARE law!  The healthcare law that 60% of Americans want repealed.  The healthcare law that 68% of Americans did not want passed.  Now, for a Golden Oldie, victims of rape and incest do not have access to abortion.  Was that really such a pervasive problem that the government needed to get involved?  I'd like to see some stats, but now, less than 30 years later, abortion is an accepted form of birth control.  Or in the words of this British pundit, "getting rid of a couple of cells."



With the election this November, we had better take steps to handle our own problems before the "firefighters" in DC burn down our whole country.