Thu 25 May 2006
One of my favorite chess players is the 8th world champion Mikhail Tal. From the Wikipedia:
Known as “The Magician from Riga”, Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and imaginative play. His approach over the board was very pragmatic – in that respect, he is one of the heirs of the ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed material in search for the initiative in chess, which is defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. With such intuitive sacrifices, he created vast complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his conceptions. Although this playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than “tricks”, Tal convincingly beat every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres are two of the few with a significant plus record against him.
Today the Chicago Tribune is reporting that House Republicans are going to be holding a free-flowing debate on the war in Iraq. The report labels it a gamble. I agree, and I also call the move brilliant.
With good, solid, aggressive action the Democrats could punish the Republicans for allowing this discussion, using it as a vehicle for clearly demonstrating the years of failure. But we all know that the Democrats are completely incapable of good, solid, aggressive action. They don’t want to look soft, and so will try to out jingo and flag wave the Republicans as our troops sink further and further into the quagmire. If successful, the Republicans will have removed from the table the single most important issue in the 2006 elections.
Given the lay of the board, I think that this is just the sort of play that could help keep the Republicans in control of the House. Let’s hope the DCCC gets a clue and isn’t once again pushed off the board by this risky play from the House leadership.
You see the dilemma don’t you. If you don’t kill me, precogs were wrong and precrime is over. If you do kill me, you go away, but it proves the system works. The precogs were right. So, what are you going to do now? What’s it worth? Just one more murder? You’ll rot in hell with a halo, but people will still believe in precrime. All you have to do is kill me like they said you would. Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to. You still have a choice Lamar. Like I did. – Minority Report
I think at this point the Republicans are just as inept as the Democrats and can’t convert anything. I’d call this move just one more was or a neg for the Repubs.
We can only hope the GOP would make such a bold and poorly caculated move. Instead of being able to distance themselves from El Presidente Bush they would be caught defending thier leader. To GOP would have a futher problem in finding a way to silence Jean Schmidt to keep her from another “Murtha” moment.
Don’t totally discount the Democrats in thier ability to show backbone. I would put Tim Ryan out front at some point and let him pummel them with that sledgehammer he carries in his hip pocket. Send Pelosi to Europe and take the gloves off.
As for silencing Schmidt, there was a very interesting comment in the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsement of Schmidt. Not only was it a bit flat, the last paragraph made a very striking comment….that Schmidt must be careful not to become the Pelosi of the Republican Party.
Having said that, it is a shame the only real spokesperson for the Dems is on the same level as CW Schmidt. I can only hope a Democrat steps forward, and provides a fair and adequate discussion of the Iraq conflict. I do not know much about Tim Ryan…I can hope he is a decent Democrat, and not a party-line mouth. We need to have a good exchange of dialogue and start working together to reach the goal of turning over the country of Iraq to the residents and the new government, and bring our brave men and women home.
I hope y’all are right. I hope that the Dems step up and punish the Republicans for this start to finish disaster. I just don’t see it. They think like losers. They act like losers. They are losers. They have a billion dollar industry being losers. Why rock the boat? Why take chances?
Boy, I’d love to be wrong. Please prove me wrong.