Masters of Their Fates

  • I am officially sick and tired of the Republican staffers, lobbyists and consultants in who have spent this week running in little circles, sobbing like a bunch of five-year-olds who just got off the class-trip school bus only to find out the pony is sick and there won't be any rides today.
  • Here's the wail: Woe to us. We had a gay guy in the Republican conference who was preying on pages. He's going to cause us to lose control of the House of Representatives. Whatever shall we do?
  • Here's what you do: You strap your helmet on your head; run onto the field; get into a three-point stance; and, at the snap of the ball, hit somebody. Hard.
  • And then, do it again. And again. And again. Until the final gun sounds.
  • You might lose the game, but not because, trailing 21-17 at the half, you took off your uniform and went home. If you lose, you should have to be dragged into the locker room; having left every ounce of energy and experience on the field.
  • You can never know in advance, how something like the Foley-page scandal is going to play. You don't know if, having lit the match, it will simply emit a bit of heat and light and then go out; or, that exactly right mixture of combustible gas and oxygen is available and the match creates an explosion such as we've seen this past week.
  • Not only that, but you can't know, until after it's over, how long the fire created by the explosion will burn and how much damage it will have done.
  • Anyone who believes they know what's going to happen on November 7 based upon the data they are seeing on October 6 is … full of it.
  • My current favorite example is the price of a barrel of oil. In June or July the intra-day price of a barrel of crude was at about $80. Goldman Sachs - pretty smart guys, who look at current and future production, storage, transportation and refining capability - alerted its clients to the projection that oil would be going to $100 per barrel.
  • Oil closed yesterday at $60.01 per barrel. If you had taken Goldman Sachs' advice and bought options in crude oil futures, you are now an expert in the meaning of the term "margin call."
  • The notion of Dennis Hastert resigning over this scandal is foolish. From a technical standpoint, the House is in recess until after the elections. If the Democrats win 218 seats, they will demand a Democrat be elected Speaker for the lame-duck session to get started on reorganizing the House.
  • Even