CotW: And Now… A Message In Defense of President George W. Bush

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So, as you may or may not have heard, one of the worst moments of President George W. Bush’s life was when Kanye West intimated that Mr. President did not care about the plight of Black people, specifically those in New Orleans during Katrina.

Now, as anyone who knows me knows, there’s nothing more that I enjoy more than mocking various current and former leaders of the free world. And, given my opinion of his policies, President Bush 43 is a great target. Having said that, there was something about this criticism that does not sit well with me. And after a week and a half or so of thinking about, I think I know what it is.

Think about your life. Think about the worst thing that ever happened to you, the worst moment of your existence. Now be honest. Was it Katrina? Was it September 11th? Was it the Oklahoma City bombing or the Atlanta Olympic bombing? Was it Darfur, Bosnia, or Rwanda? Or was it that car accident, that awful diagnosis, that death of a loved one?

For most of us, it is the latter category. We recognize the others are horrible tragedies and most of us would regard them as some of the worst things to happen to people as a collective. However, when we get personal we, well, get personal. The things that affect only us and our loved one usually hit much harder than the things that affect the world at large.

Now was it politically stupid? Yes. Does it speak to President Bush’s privileged life and, perhaps, something of a distance from his own time in office? Probably. We should all be so lucky to have our worst moment involve a rapper calling us out on TV (even if it is the certifiable genius Mr. West). But that doesn’t mean he is being callous when he says it. For him, that moment was personal and hurt like hell. He knows Katrina and 9/11 were worse in the grand scheme of things, but they did not cut him to the bone in the same way.

Thus, while I do think he was a lousy president, I think here, he’s just being an honest guy.

What? I had to do something to reset the balance of the universe after standing up for him. Also, it is kind of cute, isn't it? In a vaguely disturbing way.

As always Tim can be reached at parallax2 [at] juno [dot] com, followed on Twitter @UnGajje, or friended on Facebook. Please feel free to do so or comment below.

Hawaii may bolt beleaguered WAC for MWC and Big West

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Hawaii and the Mountain West are working toward a deal that would have the Warriors joining the MWC alongside Fresno State and Nevada (and, a year earlier, Boise State). I actually thought this sort of thing made sense, but it appears my idle speculation is turning out to be quite real!

However, unlike its fellow WAC ex-pats, the Warriors would join in football only. The rest of Hawaii’s teams would compete in the currently California-school-only Big West conference. There has been a preference among the non-football coaches to move to that conference, which they feel would make more sense than the WAC from a travel, competition and recruiting standpoint. However, the hang up was Hawaii’s football team, which would need somewhere to go. Although independence had been mentioned, there are strong benefits to joining an established conference, and this helps the Mountain West by adding another strong football program that has competed in a BCS game (although not well).

Although a good move for the Warriors and the Mountain West, it’s a crushing blow to the WAC, which had just announced expansion plans involving Texas State, UT-San Antonio, and Denver. Losing the Warriors would drop them below the threshold for maintaining an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, with only five continuous members of the required five-year time span. The WAC would be below this threshold from 2012-13 through 2016-17, regaining its status in 2017-18 if the new additions stick around until then. So, unless the WAC is able to get a waiver from the NCAA, they could be in for a rough few years.

This also means the WAC drops back to 7 football teams, and 8 in basketball, possibly 9 if they add Seattle U. Since Montana spurned their advances, the WAC has few remaining options to try and replenish its dwindling ranks, other than hoping the MWC gives the boot to some of its lowest performing schools in order to boost its BCS auto-bid chances — an option that WAC commissioner Karl Benson told Brendan last week is “not on our radar,” and that may not even be possible in the MWC’s bylaws — or pursuing members of the Sun Belt or Conference USA.

It’s also possible the MWC’s acquisition of Hawaii is a preemptive move to shore up the conference against the loss of TCU to the Big East, as has been rumored.

Who would have guessed that the most drama and excitement from the conferencepocalypse would be from the mid-majors and not the big boys like the Pac-10 and Big Ten?