Resting on (and Resetting) Past Laurels.

So, I noticed last night that my old GitM coxing columns at Rowersworld, written a decade ago, had at some point disappeared into the midnight realm of the 404, and that my writings page was thus featuring tons of dead links. But, with the aid of the trusty Wayback Machine, I was able to recreate them again here, where they can reside until this entire site falls into its inevitable disrepair. I’m not sure very many of my regular readers are of the rowing persuasion (anymore). Still, in case y’all are interested, the articles are back up.

Also, while searching for the lost articles, I found this essay on how to throw your coxswain correctly, which references the pic above. Just to clarify, I have “a blissful smile” on my face mostly because we won, yes, but also because I’m fully aware it’s early May in Massachusetts, and the waters of Lake Quinsigamond won’t immediately close down my bodily systems. Getting tossed at Dartmouth in early April is considerably less blissful.

Andrew: Enough.

“‘He has shown such mettle under fire,’ Andrew said in the interview. ‘The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.‘” A Clinton endorser since Day 1 of her candidacy, former DNC Chair Joe Andrew switches to Sen. Obama, and is ready for the fallout.”If the campaign’s surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton’s cabinet, a ‘Judas’ for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.” Heh.

Throw in DNC member John Patrick of Texas for Obama and AFL-CIO head John Olson of CT for Clinton and that puts our post-PA super count at Obama 11-5. Once you add the automatic add-ons from NY (Clinton +4) and IL (Obama +3), Clinton is down nineteen from her needed 2-1 split. Clinton -5, -10, -13, -19…anyone else noticing a pattern?

The Petrol Pander.

“I don’t think it’s brilliant economics; unfortunately, it may be good politics. The smart people say ‘It’s stupid,’ and the people who aren’t as schooled say ‘At least it will do something for me,’…I don’t know that anyone connects the dots: that there have been a series of politically expedient decisions…that have added up to an economic picture that is not at all rosy and in fact fairly disastrous.” In an A-1 story this morning, the WP joins the recent general calumny against the Clinton-McCain gas tax cut (which Clinton is now campaigning heavily on in IN and NC — Obama is now pushing back on TV.) “‘You are just going to push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut,’ said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.” Indeed, it’s apparently such a dumb idea that even diehard Clinton cheerleader Paul Krugman is forced to concede thus. Of course, the reality of the situation hasn’t stopped Bill Clinton from entering full-Pander Bear mode on the issue.

Update: Clinton doubles down, and introduces legislation promoting McCain’s lousy idea in the Senate. Responded Obama: “It’s a Shell game, literally.”