Misc Commentary For August 21, 2007

* Is Michael Vick’s career really over? Michael David Smith at the New York Sun certainly thinks so,

Vick agreed to make the plea in exchange for a lenient sentence, and he is expected to serve a year or two in prison, meaning he will be a free man some time in 2008 or 2009. But Commissioner Roger Goodell will not welcome Vick back to the NFL when he gets out of jail. Goodell will certainly suspend Vick from the league for at least a year beyond his prison sentence, and even if the league eventually lifts its suspension, this wouldn’t happen until, at the earliest, the start of the 2010 season.

Goodell has said suspended players need to earn the right to be reinstated. In Vick’s case, earning that right would entail showing genuine remorse for his involvement in dogfighting, speaking out publicly against it, and making large donations to animal rights groups. In the best-case scenario, the NFL might allow Vick back when he’s 30 years old and hasn’t played football in more than three and a half years. At that point, any NFL team that signed him would bear the brunt of protests and boycotts from animal rights groups. Even if the league allows him to play again, no team will want him.

It would suit me fine if this ended Vick’s career, but you have to think that a team with quarterback woes may be willing to take a chance on a guy who threw for 20 touchdowns and rushed for a 1000 yards in his last NFL season, especially since 30 isn’t necessarily all that old for a NFL QB.

Moreover, if NFL teams would give guys like Lawrence Phillips and Ray Lewis more chances, why can’t Vick pull off the same trick a few years from now when the publicity has died down and he’s out donating money to PETA and apologizing like Don Imus for his mistake?

* John Edwards is using Ann Coulter’s name for fund raisers, getting his wife to attack her, and calling her a she-devil. Hasn’t anyone told John Edwards that this running feud with Ann Coulter diminishes him and makes him look less presidential? More importantly, given that he’s losing the brawl and it’s cementing his reputation as a wimp, you’d think that he’d rather just let it go and hope that people forget about it.

* I’m all for security checks and a no-fly list at the airports, but it would be nice if the government didn’t handle it with their typical incompetence,

“For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.

But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.

The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.

The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.”

Just think: if the Democrats get their way, we’ll have people with this mentality running our medical care.

* Sam Nunn is considering running for President as an independent,

“Sam Nunn left the U.S. Senate more than 10 years ago. Since then, the Georgia Democrat, who made his name nationally as a defense-minded hawk, has watched what’s happened to the country, and he’s more than a bit ticked — at the “fiasco” in Iraq, a federal budget spinning out of control, the lack of an honest energy policy, and a presidential contest that, he says, seems designed to thwart serious discussion of the looming crises.

In an hourlong interview, in his small office on Marietta Street on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus, Nunn acknowledged that he — like former Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich — is considering a run for the White House next year.

But unlike Gingrich, Nunn would run outside the traditional two-party structure. “It’s a possibility, not a probability,” said Nunn, now the head of a nonprofit organization out to reduce the threat posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. “My own thinking is, it may be a time for the country to say, ‘Timeout. The two-party system has served us well, historically, but it’s not serving us now.'”

The 68-year-old former senator, still considered one of the foremost experts on national security, confirmed that he’s discussed a presidential run as part of several conversations with Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor. More important, Nunn said he’s been in touch with Unity ‘08, a group with a goal of fielding a bipartisan or independent ticket for president. Initial talks began with Hamilton Jordan, a co-founder of Unity ‘08 and former chief of staff to President Jimmy Carter. Doug Bailey, a Republican strategist and another co-founder, said Nunn was given “a more detailed briefing” from the group this summer.

Nunn said he’s not likely to make up his mind until next year, probably after the early rush of presidential primaries have produced de facto nominees for both parties. He said the decision will depend largely on what he hears from the current candidates. The only certainty, he said, is that he won’t be anybody’s candidate for vice president.”

Nunn is a middle-of-the-road Democrat with solid credentials on foreign policy and if he did run, he could prove problematic for the Democratic nominee because his views are much more in line with those of a large swath of the Democratic party and left leaning moderates than the very liberal nominee’s will be. Like Bloomberg, he would be a problem for a Democratic nominee.

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