Fred Thompson has decided that this year’s presidential race is just too much to bear. I never thought I’d say this, but I feel you, Fred.

Mitt “Keeper of the Real” Romney celebrated Martin Luther King Day by posing with black children, asking “who let the dogs out?” and giving big ups for “bling-bling.” The campaign of Mike Huckabee had to distance itself from Chuck Norris, who speculated that a President John McCain would likely die while in office, leading a noted political blogger to wonder why the Huckabee campaign didn’t have someone less closely associated with it deliver the hit. Yup, that’s right: a major candidate is having to watch the statements of Chuck Norris because people assume they come from his campaign. Take a step back and think about that. Would your 2006 self have believed this if told of it by your 2008 self?

The other main G.O.P. contender, the aforementioned Mr. McCain, actually trails Romney and Huckabee in the delegate count, though he’s feted Mr. Inevitible by a fawning press and supported by majority winning 2000 VP candidate Joe Lieberman, who’s proudly gone from Freedom Rider to fake violence watchdog to real violence advocate. Why does the media so love McCain? Well, he tells funny jokes. And he leads all of the main contenders in Curtis LeMay seances and imperialistic pipe dreams, singing ditties on bombing Iran and professing his great-great-grandchildren’s willingness to hold it down in Mesopotamia. After all, those IEDs aren’t just going to detonate themselves.

On the fringes are Rudy “0.8181818” Giuliani (do the math), a tough guy who thinks McCain’s foreign policy isn’t balls-to-the-wall enough, and Ron Paul and his army of junior Larouchies and militiamen who just want to smoke pot and return to the gold standard because, like the god of William Safire’s late political column, they think that’s really solid economic policy. Also, the federal government is a frivolity.

Meanwhile, in Donkeyville, Hillary Clinton, who voted for the Iraq War and against a ban on the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas, has implied that she’s the heir to the civil rights change-makers of the 1960s, because she’s “experienced.” She’s experienced not because she’s been in office so much longer (she hasn’t), but because, well, she’s married to Bill, the dignified elder statesmen-cum-attack dog who’s classily dismissed his wife’s chief rival Barack Obama’s candidacy as a “fairy tale” and “roll of the dice”. Obama’s record on social issues and foreign policy is to the left of Edwards and Clinton, though this seems lost on the party’s primary voters, who still take marching orders from the guy who told John Kerry to support anti-gay marriage amendments in 2004. The “poverty candidate”, John Edwards, deserves credit for making the plight of the poor a campaign subject (rather than an embarrassing secret hiding in the shadows of “middle class” rhetoric), but has the worst voting record of the Dem candidates on spent his time in the Senate doing the bidding of the credit industry.

Can you bear it for ten more months? Only a fool would expect anything less, but this campaign’s so sexy it hurts.

You guys remember Mo Sene, right? The Van-Damme-loving 2006 Sonics lottery pick is playing for the Boise Stampede in the NBA’s D-League (whose games can now be watched online). A few days ago, the good folks at Draft Express posted a progress report on several D-Leaguers, including Sene (Seely will be pleased to note that the report trashes Josh McRoberts). Writes Jonathon Givony: “Sene is quite a presence in the paint thanks to his gigantic 7-8 ½ wingspan, which he uses quite well to grab rebounds, finish around the rim and challenge shots in the paint.” Nevertheless, “he’d be chop liver most likely for most any NBA starting big man with a pulse.”

Also recommended at Draft Express (for bored hoop fans who enjoy this sort of trivia) is the Historical Pre-Draft Measurements Database, where you can find out the real height, wingspan, vertical jump, and other stats of your favorite players.

Despite a strong performance by Jeff Green, who highlighted his 15 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists with a dunk on 7′6″ Yao Ming, the Sonics lost their 11th straight today, putting them 23 games under .500. Couple that with the upcoming trade deadline, and the course of action is clear, at least to those of us who have hung on the words of Kenny Rogers’ nowhere-bound train riding gambler: time to give up on winning this season and look to better our chance on the next hand. (Wally’s already talking like he’s got one foot out the door.) Now, there’s no need to make a panic trade–an expiring contract lets you play the market when it expires. But short of showcasing him for a trade, there’s no longer reason to give Kurt Thomas heavy minutes at the expense of Johan Petro and even Mo Sene. And Wally could certainly cede a few minutes to Mickael Gelabale. The season’s going nowhere. Let’s develop that young talent, tout de suite.

Photo: Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

I awoke this morning to a message from my friend Nirav, complaining that his copy of the New York Times had been “bedraggled” with the reproductive fluids of Senator and presidential candidate John McCain. Nirav was speaking figuratively, of course, (the Weekly has no intention of going South Carolina on the Senator) but a survey of today’s Newspaper of Record indeed confirms that the distinguished gentleman from Arizona received a bevy of favorable coverage.

First and foremost, the opinion page features dueling pieces by the Economist’s Adrian Woolridge and Times columnist Roger Cohen. Woolridge argues that, while McCain may be perceived as a maverick and moderate, he is really a bedrock conservative–hard to dispute, if you look at his voting record–and as such should be the choice of conservatives looking to bring the movement back to its small government/robust military roots. (contradiction?) Woolridge complies with the McCain campaign’s revisionism on the Senator’s opposition to the initial Bush tax cuts (a check of the record indicates that McCain opposed them because he felt they were too regressive, not because they were unaccompanied by spending cuts), then notes that the candidate has more centrist appeal than perhaps he should, which he argues is a good thing.

Cohen, in his measured op-ed, argues that while he finds McCain too conservative, the Senator is rightly admired for his centrism and is too honorable to dismiss as a candidate. In particular, Cohen praises McCain for his consistency and accuracy on Iraq. The consistency part is fair: hawks don’t change their stripes. (In fact, hawks don’t even have stripes). The accuracy claim has to do with McCain’s assessment of the costs and benefits of invasion and increased troop levels: I’ll leave that matter to your judgment, fair Readers, as I suspect little I’d say would sway you.

Praise from all corners, Johnny Boy. Not a bad day on the op-ed pages. So let’s move on to the news. You know they say all publicity is good publicity, meaning no news is bad news (in both meanings of the phrase), meaning that bad news is good news. Today, all these maxims held true for the Straight Talk Express, as the Times assiduously documents the smear campaigns to which the candidate is being subjected in the Palmetto State, as well as his response machinery, beefed up significantly since Bush knocked him off with the help of similar smears in 2000.

The above shouldn’t be read as a critique of the New York Times–I wouldn’t argue that their publishing decisions were irresponsible or favoritist. But McCain’s ability to generate favorable coverage is remarkable, as is his evasion of political classification–particularly when you consider the fact that he has a 20+ year record as a Senator. How does someone who’s cast so many votes remain such a chimera? How does a career hawk and Iraq War cheerleader do so well among voters who disapprove of the Iraq War? How does a guy who changes his rationale for opposing Bush’s tax cuts and then supports making those cuts permanent, who calls Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell “agents of intolerance” and refers to their movement as “the evil empire,” and then delivers the commencement speech at Liberty University avoid the easy charge of “flip-flopping”?

McCain’s personal charm is well documented, as is his accessibility to the media. Are these the keys to favorable coverage? Salon’s Glenn Greenwald recently received an angry e-mail from CNN’s John King after Greenwald documented and derided King’s softball interview of the candidate. In his e-mail, King acknowledged McCain’s accessibility and argued that it allowed him to be selective as to when he grilled the candidate. Another McCain staple is sense of humor, one of the themes of David Foster Wallace’s oft-cited Rolling Stone profile of his campaign in 2000. (Mike Huckabee’s gotten similarly favorable coverage for being funny, though the political press corps isn’t always so enamored of humor.) Conversely, McCain’s famous temper seems to have done little to lessen his appeal, and in fact may only heighten the perception that he’s a no-nonsense straight talker.

In a campaign in which race and gender are being discussed to no end, this obviously raises the question of whether a female or a black candidate could reap similar benefits from an always accessible, wisecracking, short-tempered, convention-bucking persona. While the number of women holding elected office is increasing (at least so it seems, anecdotally), few, if any, rise to power on media portrayals of their charisma. In her New York Times op-ed, Kerry Howley argues that female leaders are viewed either as likable and incompetent or unlikable and competent. (Kerry Howley’s not to be confused with Candy Crowley, who was immortalized by Matt Taibbi in an anecdote he saw as the essence of the 2004 election press corps’ shallowness.)

Likewise, it’s hard to picture a black candidate with a short fuse selling nationally–”angry black man” is a tough label with which to win. (One could argue, however, that Obama’s managed to use a particularly sunny persona to milk positive coverage out of the exceptionalist perception of him made possible by racial stereotypes (see Joe Biden’s statements for a disastrous articulation of this phenomenon).) It doesn’t seem unilkely that Mormonism would be similarly constraining, though it’s less obvious what personality stereotypes Romney would have to avoid. None of these thoughts is new, but they’re worth keeping in mind as we examine coverage of the candidates and, in particular, the more slippery and particularly influential construction of their personas.

Cross-posted to The Daily Weekly

Hornets 123, Sonics 93

I know, I know. Another squeeker. The score doesn’t indicate much in the way of progress, but last night’s game was actually pretty encouraging. Sure, that sounds a little ridiculous, and it’s as much a reflection of how bad things have been as anything else, but last night, we saw the team’s feted franchise player, Kevin Durant, play perhaps his best game. He played hard on defense, attacked the basket, rebounded, and passed. He finished with a stat line–20 points on 9-15 shooting, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists–that would’ve been a standard night’s work for Scottie Pippen in his prime. (For a while, he appeared to be threatening his first triple double.) This is Durant’s third 6-assist game in the last five. Keep up the good work, Durantula! And Earl Watson, whatever you had for breakfast, have it again on Friday before the Memphis game.

Go Sonics!

Patron Saint of the of the Extracurricalur, Max Fischer, and University of Washington basketball star Jon Brockman. Anyone else see the resemblance?

I spent the third quarter of last night’s Mavericks/Sonics game with my dad and his friend Irv in Irv’s seats (or rather, they sat in Irv’s seats, about 7 rows back from the court, while I sat in one of the dozen or so empty seats adjacent to it). It was like sitting with Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets: “You don’t need to know much about basketball to know that the name of the game is moving around, not standing around…it’s great: each game is better than the next…this team stinks.”

Unlike their balcony-dwelling progenitors, my father and his friend had good reason to be grumpy old men. These Sonics are just bad. Last night, they failed to hit 50 points until the fourth quarter. That’s right, folks: they had 46 points at the end of the third quarter. They brought in offensive “genius” Paul Westhead so they could develop the league’s least efficient and most offensive offense, the Still Life on Basketball Court.

Of course, as an old basketball coach of mine used to say, “you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken shit.” As of now, the Sonics don’t have the talent–or that talent is not yet sufficiently developed–for them to be a good team. But that doesn’t mean they should cry “uncle” on the season. Remember in November, when they’d take teams like the Spurs and Suns down to the wire at the Key, simply because they’d play harder? Dallas is by far the better team and was likely looking forward to a virtual off night. The Sonics should have made last night suck for the Mavericks. After the game, Dallas coach Avery Johnson should have been lamenting his team’s poor play, complaining that, although they got the win, such an effort won’t cut it against Boston or San Antonio.

So how can the Sonics turn it around? Who can lead them? It’s a tall task for anyone, let alone a slender-shouldered teenager. But I think Kevin Durant is the answer. For the first half of last night, he was wearing what Lorenzo Romar likes to call “the cool jacket…you know, [the] one you don’t want to get dirty, don’t want to get any wrinkles or smudges on.” This was most apparent as he jogged back on defense on a two-on-one, swiveling his head left and right to keep casual tabs on the hard-charging Mavs.

Please, Kevin, lose the cool jacket. When Josh Howard gets up in your grill, rip the ball through–his nose will take it worse than your elbow–and go directly to the basket. Shoot ten free throws a game. Be a nuisance on defense. You did it for a while in the second half; there’s no reason not to do it all game long. Sure, you’ll come out with a few bumps and bruises. But just like the quarterback who takes the big hit immediately after releasing the touchdown pass, you’ll get the last laugh. You don’t have a deep playoff run to preserve yourself for. Make these games fun again.

This was originally published in the Seattle Weekly’s news blog, The Daily Weekly, where I now post about politics but probably have to refrain from my Dick Cheney NAMBLA jokes. The post can be found here—feel free to leave comments there so the Weekly knows how awesome I am and how I can stir up discussion.

Let’s see…Hillary cried, John E. talked tough, John M. talked straight, Dewey C. walked hard, and the nation, like a baby’s dirty diaper, needs a change. Mike’s got Chuck and Hill’s got Bill and sudden Mo, and Barack’s got game but less bounce than we thought (is he black enough?) and the wheel of electalikability still spins outside the punditry shop like a barber pole, the swirls of red, white, and blue dazzling the eye and alerting all comers to the professional hacking within.

The word of the day is…change!

It’s hard to swim through all the wisdom of the primary season, and drawing conclusions from the votes of a few thousand is silly. But let’s do it anyway. The New Hampshire primary was a victory for…knockin’ heads in Iran! That’s right: kickin’ ass and takin’ names in the Islamic Republic. How so?

Well, we’ll start with the Democrats, where policy differences between the contenders are like a cheap balloon: thin and easily overinflated. Despite their clashing rhetoric, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards have very similar domestic proposals (the small variations between their certain-to-be legislatively mangled health care proposals notwithstanding). The biggest beef between them is not this drivel about experience and change (it’s worth noting, as Seely did below, that all three have had short careers as legislators that were preceded or followed by work that would seem to be good training for political office), but in foreign policy.

Clinton and Edwards voted for the Iraq War authorization, something Obama, who publicly opposed it in 2002, likes to remind us of frequently. (Edwards has apologized for this vote far more often than he has for his vote for the bankruptcy bill, a more curious one for the poverty candidate and populist champion.) And while all three take great care to register their opposition to the current administration’s handling of the war, their approaches to Iran clearly diverge.

In a July debate, Clinton criticized as naive Obama’s stated intention of holding face-to-face meetings with Iranian leadership, and two months later, she voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. (If you follow the link, note that paragraphs b3 and b4 were cut from the final version.) Referring to Dick Cheney’s increasingly bellicose talk on Iran, Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb derided the Amendment as “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream,” and Obama and Edwards opposed it. After receiving heavy backlash for her vote, Clinton co-sponsored Webb’s bill to prevent Bush from using force in Iran without Congressional authorization. (Funny that such a bill is needed.)

Nevertheless, if you’re a Democrat who feels Iran is a threat and supports a more aggressive policy towards it, then Hillary Clinton is your woman. While the most recent National Intelligence Estimate will certainly be an obstacle, the drumbeat hasn’t fully flatlined, and now that Lieberman has left the party, she’s your best shot.

On the right side of the aisle, domestic platforms vary more widely, with, for example, Mike Huckabee’s flat tax being unlike anything his opponents propose. But if you support an aggressive policy toward Iran, who’s your best candidate?

It’s probably not Mike Huckabee, who seems entirely focused on domestic issues, even going so far as to argue that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto highlights the need for a border fence with Mexico. (He also didn’t know about the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran after it had dominated the news for a full 24 hours.) You could vote for Mitt Romney, but he’s taken a sharp right turn in the last year or two, leading some to wonder as to the sincerity of his new positions.

No, If you’re set on clashing with Iran–getting them before they get us or Israel, or something like that–you’ll want someone who’s a true believer. Rudy Giuliani’s senior foreign policy adviser is Norman Podhoretz, the man who wrote “I hope and pray” we bomb Iran. I, for one, don’t so hope and pray, but nor do I doubt his sincerity, as he’s advocated such positions for his whole career. Further, anyone who followed Giuliani’s criminal justice policies as New York Mayor knows that he had a knock heads first, ask questions second approach. While I’m not a fan, it certainly won him voters, who felt the benefits were worth the costs. Still, few voters seem to like Giuliani these days, and anyway, he hasn’t been the most consistently neocon/interventionist of the candidates. That award goes to John McCain.

McCain was a co-sponsor of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, has been one of the Iraq War’s most prominent and respected supporters, and has advocated aggressive foreign policy, military intervention, and regime change throughout his career. Moreover, he’s the only one who’s lent his voice to a jingle:

Regardless of how few they are or whether they knew they did it, yesterday the voters of New Hampshire took a hard line on Iran.

Michigan, you’re up!

Well, the Sonics sucked again, losing to New Jersey, 99-88. There was a silver lining, though, in the play of Johan Petro (22 pts, 9 rebs) and Nick Collison (18 and 13). Fantasy owners of the latter must be delighting in his recent string of dominant performances–he’s averaged 14 rebounds a game over the last five games. Oddly, he had a similarly prolific stretch in mid-January last year, as you can see here.

That’s not the Link o’ the Day, though. This time capsule of a page, by disgruntled Knick fan JaKe Beast and not updated since April of 1999, provides a comically childish array of letters, songs, and cartoons deriding the late 90’s Bulls and the NBA’s brass. Without further ado: Remove David Stern and Rod Thorn.

An outdated post from yesterday’s Buzzer Beater:

For the three or four of you who still care, last night was a sad display by the Supes, who turned the ball over 23 times, let Lebron James score all his points in the paint, and generally just stunk it up against Cleveland. To add injury to insult, Durant sprained his left ankle in fourth quarter garbage time (not to imply he shouldn’t be on the floor–more minutes for the kids, I say!). It’s not serious, but it’s fitting.

Today is New Jersey, another franchise that will soon be moving, albeit only across the river. As mediocre teams go, they’re pretty entertaining, with good ball movement, Jason Kidd’s nightly quest for the triple double, the somewhat diminished but still impressive aerial acrobatics of Richard Jefferson (4th in the league in scoring and having a career year) and Vince Carter, and the ridiculous athleticism of rookie Sean Williams, who dropped to the late first round because he smoked bud, the gateway drug to a draft day steal. Just don’t do the Meadowlands like the Birdman did N’awlins, Sean.