"You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case. "


(from www.whitehouse.gov)

You know, he may be right. No one ever suggested it. They FUCKING STATED IT.

I just finished Paul Auster's "The Brooklyn Follies". What a marvelous, marvelous book. It really spoke to me. I am left with that usual melancholy I get after a good novel, the need to write again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it.

The book was magnificent, though. Probably best appreciated by older people-or people who at least feel old.

So we're in Anaheim, and we load the bases, one out, with poor Kyle Snyder on the mound. Dustin Pedroia is up, and its his major league debut. Kid hits the ball hard, but Orlando Cabrera snags it and turns it into a double play. We can't BUY a break.

In the doom and gloom following Slaughterhouse Five, the Red Sox getting swept by the Yankees, it must be remembered that Curt Schilling was downright heroic, in a baseball sense, in his performance, as was Papelbon. It hurts, losing all those games in a row, but I think Hansen and Delcarmen and Snyder and those guys will learn, and in 2007 or 2008 this team may be a monster. But it hurts.

Aaron Rowand collided with Chase Utley during yesterday’s game, and that may have fouled up the postseason hopes for Philadelphia. That’s too bad, but I don’t think they had any real hopes of beating the Mets in a postseason series.

Peter Beinart has an editorial in the current New Republic detailing the old, tired line about how Ned Lamont’s primary victory harbinges a 1968 to 1972 McGovern/Humphrey style Democratic loss. I couldn’t disagree more. What war apologists like Beinart don’t understand is that Democrats are motivated by anti Bush feeling, of course-but it isn’t personal. I think Bush believes what he says. I think his policies and his ideas are so dangerous, so ugly and wrong and evil and poorly imagined, that they must be defeated-they must be thrown into the dustbin of history, for the good of the country.

Yes, it’s naked partisanship, but it’s also a cry for help. I have a coworker who likes to mock me at every opportunity, and when I admitted my Democrat leanings, he immediately, as he often does, took the opposite tack. “You think Kerry would have done any better?,” he sneered. I do, actually, think John Kerry, for all his failings and personal quirks, would have been a much, much better president than George Bush. I think the same thing about Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, (especially John Edwards-I hope he runs in 2008.) Barack Obama-lots of people. I also firmly believe that if Bush had done nothing-not bombed Afghanistan, and certainly not invaded Iraq, after 9/11, we still would be better off. My distaste for Bush’s policies is so extreme that I believe a stuffed dog, or a piece of lint, or a moldly piece of cheese, would have done better than George Bush.

David Wells, entering 2006, is tied for 60th in career wins. I didn’t realize that. He has more career wins than Catfish Hunter and Jim Bunning. Hard to imagine he is ranked that highly. Boston just waived him, so they may be trying to trade him. I’ll miss him, but I hope he can get on a winning team and maybe win another World Series.

The oddly dressed ESPN field reporter, Bonnie Bernstein, noted during tonight’s game that Johnny Damon says Red Sox Nation “forgot” about what he did in 2004. I don’t think that is true at all. Nobody forgot his role on The Team-I think the ovation he got on his first visit proved that. But he’s a Yankee now-he doesn’t get a pass forever. Becoming a Yankee is the “best career move” you ever made? This from the guy who would “never” be a Yankee? Sorry-that doesn’t fly. We’ll see who thinks what a “great move” this is during the last couple of years of the contract.

Then the rain....grrrrrr. We finally have something good start to happen, with Curt throwing like its 1996 again, and we get the rain. We can’t buy a break. We’re just not good enough, this year, to compete with the Yankees. I have a bad feeling this is 1978 redux-The Massacre II. I think it’s time to start rooting for My Second Favorite Team-Whoever Is Playing The Yankees.

I love baseball players with the high socks. That’s so cool.

Jamie Moyer is traded to the Phillies...wha? If this team is punting the season, and can’t afford to pay anyone.....wha? If they are making a run for it, and want to try to win this year, why on earth do you trade Bobby Abreu? Wha?

I hope Tommy Glavine is going to be okay. Any circulation problem brings up memories of Dennis Boyd. I hope Glavine pulls through. With him down and Pedro, the Mets look decidedly mortal. But seeing El Duque, Orlando Hernandez, tossing his half speed frisbee breaking balls past major league hitters makes me smile.

There’s a Lowe’s commercial that they are showing on ESPN that bugs me. A guy who works at Lowe’s is getting all these questions at work, and then they start asking them at home, at an ice cream truck and when he pulls into his driveway at home. No. NO! When you go home from work, you’re HOME from work. I’m sick and tired of corporations making impossible claims about their employees, while, of course, not compensating them for it or making it possible for them to live up to these claims. People who work with the people are just that, people-no more or less a person than anyone else. Simple human decency requires you treat them as such. I’m really sick of this garbage.

I wonder why the Yankees don’t shift against David Ortiz the way so many other teams do? Perhaps they are just smart enough to realize it doesn’t make very much sense?

There was a 45 minute rain delay, but now they are back playing. Both starting pitchers, Mussina and Schilling, are back out there pitching again, and it remains to be seen who will crack first.

Well, it didn’t remain for very long. Jason Giambi just took Schilling way, way over Williamsburg for a home run. I hate to admit that Joe Morgan is right, but you just can’t keep throwing fastball after fastball to these guys. For heaven’s sake, Curt, throw a damn splitter!

70 pitches for Curt by the fourth-we’re dead.

Joe Torre has a bat with him on the bench-I wonder what its for? 100 years ago, there would be a danger he would put himself in as a pinch hitter. Joe was quite a hitter back in his day.

The possible injury to Youk makes the Hinske acquisition look prescient.

Boy, was I wrong about Curt-7 innings, only a little over the 100 pitch mark. Heroic, at least in a baseball sense. The team desperately needed this kind of effort, and he gave it to them. Wow.

But we still lose. And then lose again, with Wells pitching his heart out.

Damn Yankees.

I wonder what Bill Hicks would think about George W. Bush?