Mark Byron

Just a Giglio

An interesting lack of research on the part of the Obama re-innaugral team; they had Louie Giglio of Passion conference semi-fame slated to give the benediction at the ceremony... until folks on the left noticed that he had had a sermon against homosexuality late last century. Giglio isn't one of your usual suspect theocons, but he is (as best I can tell) an orthodox evangelical, which should have raised a pink flag for your research team.

The one thing that comes to mind is that opposition research is done on your opposition. Giglio showed up on Obama radar for his work on the world slave trade, so they might have forget to check the guy's theology to see if it'd tick off their base, since he seemed like an ally on that issue.

Giglio seems to be a good guy, just not a PC one. Politically incorrect preachers need not apply, it would seem.

Changing of the Guard

We're in that odd stretch of a two-term presidency where folks take the reelection as a cue to move on, spend time with their families and cash in big time in the private sector.

Hillary is stepping aside and has some sort of blood clot on the brain. If she can recover from whatever her malady is, she's the heiress appariant for Obama. She'll be a tougher out than people think, especially when you recall that we'll be a quarter-century past Whitewater by the time 2016 kicks in.

In that vein, we're four decades removed from Winter Soldier and John Kerry's Vietnam era Pentagon-dissing. Sadly, the modern Kerry would be a decent Secretary of State for a liberal admiistration; he was seen as the internationalist good cop in 2004 when he lost to Dubya and would keep a bit of that cache in European capitals and other left-leaning terrain.

As a senator, he'd be hard to fillibuster, even with his 2004 campaign to bring modern fodder to the oppo file. It would also give the GOP a shot at getting Scott Brown back into the Senate in the by-election.

Oddly, the reach across the aisle done by Obama is the least well recieved, mainly beacuse he picked the most objectionable Republican this side of David Duke in Chuck Hagel. Hagel was a loud critic of the Iraq surge, a louder critic of Likud types and in the err-on-the-side-of-diplomacy side on Iran. Top if off with a tin ear to more-Zionist friends of Israel and a proper-for-a-Republican-at-the-time diss of Amb. Hormel's favored form of meat-packing and he's an accident waiting to happen, getting flak from conservatives, Jews and gays.

What does he have going for him, other than that he served in the military?

Jack Lew is an interesting pick for Treasury; the name looks Asian, but he's Jewish, Orthodox at that. He's a liberal technocrat, having done stints as Obama's chief of staff and OMB direction. He has his foes, but probably not enough to mount a filibuster; he's not toxic enough to keep 5 of the more moderate Republicans to vote for cloture and give the president a reasonable pick.

Hagel, on the other hand, might not have a majority if a few moderate and/or Jewish Democrats defect on the nomination. A filibuster might work on this one.

Drawn and Quartered

Make that eight coaches visited by the Turk. Mike Mularkey got the scimitar in Jacksonville.

That's a quarter of the NFL's coaches on the street, although one, Andy Reid, landed on his feet in KC.

One interesting twist in the game of coaching musical chairs is Brian Kelly talking to the Eagles. This would be a good time for Kelly to make the move if he is going to make the jump; he'd also have an interesting piece in Michael Vick to work his spread magic with. Chip Kelly opted to stay at Oregon, but Brian might think otherwisel; he's make a quick rise from CMU to Cincy to Notre Dame, taking each program about as high as you can expect, then moving on. Grabbing the job on Philly would fit the MO; he's unlikely to match a trip to the title game and might be well-served to move on before the Subway Alums start expecting trips to the championship tourney.

Related articles

The Turk Celebrates New Year's Eve

The Good, the Bad and the Sports Page

Here's at least one good thing on the sports page-Greg Oden is heading towards a comeback. He's had little but bad luck since leaving OSU, and Miami seems interested in signin him even if he won't be ready to play until next year. Oden seems to be a neat guy who deserves better than what he's been handed the last half-decade, so it would be nice to see him play at an elite level.

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Another good news item is the NHL getting back in gear for a 60% season; the owners have signed off and the players are slated to vote this weekend.

The lack of hockey on TV has left some interesting holes in a number of networks, especially here in Michigan where the Red Wings are part of the fabric of sports in the cold-weather months. The lastest NHL video game had a homage to the Wings when they showed a maintanance guy taking a octopus off the ice to the commentary of "this is our idea of sushi." Until now, that's the one way to get NHL action on your TV is via a video game console.

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The big headline-maker of the day is Junior Seau testing positive for brain damage; chronic traumatic encephalopathy is the $10 term for the long-term damage that can often be caused by getting your head banged in on a regular basis. Seau did himself last May, and since CTE can cause emotional issues, it was a primary suspect in what might have lead Seau to suicide.

Football and other sports are getting more proactive in dealing with concussions. We have Pau Gasol sitting out for the Lakers at present with a concussion that he likely would have played through not too many years ago. Lion RB Jarvid Best has missed almost two full years with concussion-related issues, where he's healthy but not quite clear-headed enough to pass medical muster.

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Yesterday's headline maker was Cooperstown not getting a new-timer inducted. Both Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds were snubbed by the writers when they should be near-unanimous picks were it not for their better-living-throug-chemestry rep. The all-time homer champ and the winner of the most Cy Youngs should be in, but a majority of the writers hae the no-roiders-allowed sign up. That's going to give the Old Timer's committee some interesting work about 2030 if this keeps up.

Mark McGwire on a par with Fred McGriff? Bonds and Clemens just a notch better than Edgar Martinez? Not quite.