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| Lee DeWyze, American Idol 2010 Winner Courtesy of AmericanIdol.com |
I think departing lead judge Simon Cowell last night had it spot on when he pointed out that Lee DeWyze was what the competition is really all about: where a 24-year-old Chicago area paint salesman with outstanding rock and R&B vocal skills can win it all. It's the traditional American success story. It's rare when you can see weekly growth of a performer whom originally seemed to be tentative, almost shy in his performances emerge as a more confident artist. In comparison, a number of past finalists have been struggling artists, have toured or even had minor recording deals. I think Lee's opponent, Crystal, is a talented, more experienced singer but with a less commercial sound; the judges clearly favored Crystal's performances last night. I disagreed with their analyses; I thought Lee's interpretations (e.g., Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer") were fresher, although I was disappointed that he didn't reprise his version of Cohen's "Halleluja". But of the two singers, Lee had clearly been more consistent down the stretch and dominated Crystal and Casey last week; I mentioned to one of my nieces last week that if it had been youth baseball, they would have declared the competition over after the first round/inning.
Bonus Video: DeWyze's Finale Performance of U2's "Beautiful Day"
Obama's Modus Operandi: Too Little, Too Late
How often has this been characteristic of Obama's approach? Remember Gen. McChrystal's options for the Afghanistan surge where it took Obama seemingly forever to come to a decision and then he split the difference between the highest-risk/lowest-manpower options?
So are we really surprised when a request for 6000 National Guardsmen (comparable to 2006's Bush deployment) gets stripped down to 1200 and half a billion dollars and there are suggestions even this additional modest increase doesn't mean 1200 pairs of boots on the ground bolstering Border Patrol efforts. What's even more intriguing and in my view damning is the political gamesmanship Obama did. There was an earlier meeting that day with Republican senators, including John McCain, when the request for additional boots on the ground explicitly came up; Obama did not hint of any imminent border security relief and in fact wanted to jawbone the GOP into supporting his version of immigration reform/amnesty and insisted that he has done more than Bush on border security. To a large extent, Obama was being polemical knowing that illegal immigration patterns have significantly changed in response to the American crackdown, and there have been some disturbing trends in some of Arizona's largest cities, including an escalation in kidnappings and some high-profile drug and other busts. This also shows Obama's faux bipartisanship/compromise that we saw during the health care debate where Obama had a show meeting with Republicans and then afterwards paid lip service to a weak variation of medical malpractice reform.
We have seen the same thing in effect with Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) furiously complaining about federal bureaucratic foot-dragging on his request for an emergency waiver so they can dredge and build barrier islands, even to the point of suggesting he would act first and apologize later at the risk of going to jail. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, on Greta Van Susteren's On the Record, rattled off a number of Obama Administration miscues on the disaster, noting staffing issues and the above-mentioned delayed US Army Corps of Engineers' ecological impact study which must be completed as a prerequisite to dredging activities. There is also some evidence that BP and/or the federal government are not looking at other approaches to spill containment, including the use of supertankers as effectively used during a 1990's Saudi oil spill. Even the 'Top Kill' technique currently being tried by BP had to be approved by the federal government.
But one interesting contrast is clear in this crisis. During 2005 the Bush Administration pushed on the city of New Orleans and the state, then led by a Democratic governor, to act on an evacuation plan before landfall of Katrina and then deferred to higher-standing local and state government decision-making to act in the aftermath of the ongoing disaster. During the current crisis, state and local government are waiting on the Obama Administration, which is providing a case study on the ineptitude of progressive Big Government to respond in a timely fashion to protect the coastline (the oil is already there, even though it took several days to travel from the spill area).
So are we really surprised when a request for 6000 National Guardsmen (comparable to 2006's Bush deployment) gets stripped down to 1200 and half a billion dollars and there are suggestions even this additional modest increase doesn't mean 1200 pairs of boots on the ground bolstering Border Patrol efforts. What's even more intriguing and in my view damning is the political gamesmanship Obama did. There was an earlier meeting that day with Republican senators, including John McCain, when the request for additional boots on the ground explicitly came up; Obama did not hint of any imminent border security relief and in fact wanted to jawbone the GOP into supporting his version of immigration reform/amnesty and insisted that he has done more than Bush on border security. To a large extent, Obama was being polemical knowing that illegal immigration patterns have significantly changed in response to the American crackdown, and there have been some disturbing trends in some of Arizona's largest cities, including an escalation in kidnappings and some high-profile drug and other busts. This also shows Obama's faux bipartisanship/compromise that we saw during the health care debate where Obama had a show meeting with Republicans and then afterwards paid lip service to a weak variation of medical malpractice reform.
We have seen the same thing in effect with Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) furiously complaining about federal bureaucratic foot-dragging on his request for an emergency waiver so they can dredge and build barrier islands, even to the point of suggesting he would act first and apologize later at the risk of going to jail. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, on Greta Van Susteren's On the Record, rattled off a number of Obama Administration miscues on the disaster, noting staffing issues and the above-mentioned delayed US Army Corps of Engineers' ecological impact study which must be completed as a prerequisite to dredging activities. There is also some evidence that BP and/or the federal government are not looking at other approaches to spill containment, including the use of supertankers as effectively used during a 1990's Saudi oil spill. Even the 'Top Kill' technique currently being tried by BP had to be approved by the federal government.
But one interesting contrast is clear in this crisis. During 2005 the Bush Administration pushed on the city of New Orleans and the state, then led by a Democratic governor, to act on an evacuation plan before landfall of Katrina and then deferred to higher-standing local and state government decision-making to act in the aftermath of the ongoing disaster. During the current crisis, state and local government are waiting on the Obama Administration, which is providing a case study on the ineptitude of progressive Big Government to respond in a timely fashion to protect the coastline (the oil is already there, even though it took several days to travel from the spill area).
Political Cartoon
Steve Breen doesn't have the National Guard on site demonstrate the use of the 'Top Kill' technique in order to stop the leak.
Quote of the Day
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Musical Interlude: AFI Music Top 100 (continued)
#41. "New York, New York"
#42. "Luck Be a Lady"
#43. "The Way You Look Tonight"
#44. "Wind Beneath My Wings"
