BASEBALL DIARY: the Tigers get swept at Minnesota, losing yesterday 6-5. Ugh. They waste a 6 plus inning, 13 strikeout, shutout performance by Justin Verlander. The bullpen then blew the game, giving up walks, big hits, and a 6-run seventh inning. Once again, the Metrodome is the haunted house. And as the linked article suggests, who are the Tigers? A good team? We were starting to think so, after last weekend's sweep at Cleveland. But now the team is back to just 1 game over .500, and not sure who they are...
But man, when it comes to the Texas Rangers, people are going to start asking--who are these guys? The Rangers won again yesterday, 3-2; they've now won 10 of 12. Once again, the team got a great start from Matt Harrison...and clutch home runs in the 9th inning from Hank Blalock and Chris Davis to pull the game out. They're getting decent pitching...look out...
Though we'll know more after this weekend--the defending division champ Angels come to town.
And the Cubs won again, their 4th straight, beating San Diego, 11-3. The Padres look to be in trouble...they've lost 11 straight on the road. But the Cubs did well taking advantage of it. Ryan Dempster gave them good starting pitching, going 7 strong innings. Bobby Scales, a career minor-leaguer, had two doubles; he's helping fill in for Aramis Ramirez. Just keep your head above water, Cubbies...
FAVORITE TEAM UPDATE: whew! The Detroit Red Wings took game 7 of their series with the Anaheim Ducks, winning 4-3 on a late Dan Cleary goal, and they advance to the conference finals. It was impressive--no, not the fact that the Wings blew a 2-0 lead and the game came right down to the end. Rather, it was that they kept their poise...and, though the announcers on Versus suggested the Wings looked tired early in the third period, they regained their footing, and put on most of the pressure in the last 10 minutes of the game. That's what champions do.
So President Obama will continue using military commissions to try accused terrorists, and won't release photos of detainees--what does this all mean? Rich Lowry has it right:
"Dick Cheney is getting vindication from an unlikely source — the very Obama administration he’s bedeviling in all his TV interviews. The former vice president has dared to defend the Bush administration from the charge it ran a torturing, Constitution-shredding criminal enterprise for years under the guise of the “War on Terror.” He’s been duly subjected to the Two Minutes Hate — on an endless loop — from all the people who want him to slink to an undisclosed location never to emerge again....No, this is a job for a man with stomach of steel, who can take satisfaction in Obama’s Cheney-like turn. Obama has decided to “delay” the release of photos of detainee abuse — maybe secrecy does have an important role in national-security affairs. Obama is considering indefinite detention of terrorists on U.S. soil and reviving military commissions — maybe the system of detention and trials the Bush administration created wasn’t so lunatic after all."
And remember--when Democrats try to tell you that the Republican Party is full of "liars", ask them about Nancy Pelosi. Leon Pannetta, the Democrat who is now director of the CIA--even he suggests she's not telling the truth when she suggests the CIA lied to her and didn't tell her that waterboarding etc went on.
