The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Former George W. Bush speechwriter and current Fox News contributor, Marc Thiessen, wrote an article yesterday which I felt needed mentioning. The article is entitled, "...Here's why conservative Christians are sticking with the president," and here's how it begins: "As '60 Minutes' prepares to air its interview with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, conservative Christians are being accused of hypocrisy. How can so-called 'values voters' continue to stand with President Trump despite revelations that he allegedly had affairs with a porn star and a Playboy model, and paid them for their silence? No doubt some Christian leaders have gone too far in rationalizing Trump's past personal behavior and excusing his offensive comments while in office. He is a deeply flawed man. But Trump does have one moral quality that deserves admiration: He keeps his promises." That's right, ladies and gentlemen - Donald Trump's most moral quali...

Rumor has it that Michigan head football coach Brady Hoke and Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz were out partying all weekend. That may be the only possible excuse they could give for the pair of bonehead decisions they made toward the tail-end of their games this past weekend. Down 9-6 to Northwestern late in the 4th quarter on Saturday, Brady Hoke decided to go for it on a 4th-and-2 inside the Northwestern 10-yard line. Quarterback Devon Gardner ran to the outside, only to be stopped short of a first down - handing the ball back over to the Wildcats. Luckily for Hoke, Michigan was able to pull off a miracle field goal with no time remaining to send the game to overtime, only to win 27-19 in triple overtime. I'm curious what Hoke was thinking. His offense has struggled immensely this season, especially of late. The game had not featured a single touchdown to that point in the game. The chip-shot field goal would have been almost automatic, tied the game, and likely sent it to ove...

After New York Jets' rookie quarterback Geno Smith got picked off three times in yesterday's preseason game against the New York Giants, it appeared as if the quarterback competition had been settled and Mark Sanchez was going to be the starter heading into the regular season. That was until head coach Rex Ryan decided to put Sanchez in the game with just 11:21 remaining in the 4th quarter and Sanchez got hit, injuring his throwing shoulder in the process. The severity of the injury is unknown at this point. After the game, Ryan basically said he placed Sanchez in to try and win the game. It's a preseason game. While preseason games can help a team build chemistry and help coaches decide on whom to start and whom to cut, they're not going to play any factor on whether or not a team makes the playoffs - that is, barring a serious injury to a key player. While Geno Smith was given an opportunity to showcase his skills against a first-team defense in this game, he made i...

Word broke a couple days ago that head coach Ben Howland was going to be fired from UCLA men's basketball team following the team's disappointing first-round loss to Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament Friday night. Minnesota fell last night in the 2nd-round to 3-seed Florida and have since fired head coach Tubby Smith as a result. In my opinion, both are bonehead moves. Let's first look at Ben Howland. The guy has been at UCLA for 10 years, has reached the NCAA Tournament in 7 of those 10 years - going as far as the Final Four twice (2006-2007 and 2007-2008) and the Championship Game once (2005-2006). His Bruins finished 1st in the Pac-12 this year with a 13-5 conference record and 25-9 record overall. His overall record at the school is 118-58 in conference play (.671) and 230-105 overall (.687). Under Howland, UCLA has been crowned the conference regular season champion four times (2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2012-2013). The team won the Pac-12 conference tourname...

On Friday, Mitt Romney released his 2011 "effective tax rate," which was said to be at 14.1%. Yeah, you know it's been an awful week for the Romney campaign when they divert attention to the one area they tried to avoid said attention for so long - Romney's tax returns. At the end of the day, the released information led to more questions than answers and may wind up hurting the Romney campaign in the end, due to them bringing the story back up front and center. Republican strategist Alex Castellanos had this to say following this bit of news: "At first I thought this was an April Fool's Joke. But it isn't April. I can't imagine that David Axelrod will now say, I'm glad Mitt put this issue behind him. This will drag Mitt's taxes back into the debate. And there's not many days left. I just can't imagine why they would do this. There are 40 days left and you have now made more of them about Mitt's taxes....you don't serve ...

In the Outback Bowl today, Michigan State came back to tie Georgia 27-27 to send the game to overtime. In their first possession, Spartans' quarterback Kirk Cousins was intercepted, so all Georgia needed to do was score some points, any points, to win the game. On the first play, the Bulldogs ran the ball for a yard to reach the 24-yard line. On the second play, the quarterback, Aaron Murray, centered the ball and went down. Head coach Mark Richt then sent the kicking team out to attempt a game-winning field goal of a little over 40 yards on 3rd down. The kicker had made just over 60% of his kicks on the season. For every 3 he made, he missed about 2. Yet, Richt played the ultra-conservative card, ran the ball on first down, centered it on 2nd and went for the three on 3rd, in case something wrong happened and they could attempt it again on 4th. It doesn't get much more conservative than that and it backfired. The field goal was missed and Georgia wound up losing 33-30 in tripl...