Todd's Mischief Blog

A not-so-sappy Thanksgiving message I realize that Thanksgiving Day is nearly over and that, for many, the Black Friday shopping has already begun. But even though the people and not the birds are the ones now stuffed, I don’t think it is too late for a few Thanksgiving thoughts. Besides, it gives me some room to fire off a rather harsher message than the more cheerful and reverent holiday messages that seem to come earlier while the big parade is still on. Gratitude. That’s the point of Thanksgiving, isn’t it? Not just feeling it, but showing it, too. Now, I don’t care whether you use the day to give thanks to God or your forefathers, your fellow man or to fate, or if you just want to share in a general, overall attitude of appreciation. It’s not my business to tell anyone where to direct his or her thanks. But it should go without saying that in order to show thankfulness, first you have to be thankful. Now it’s about to get gritty: The expression “Gratitude is an Attitude” was proba...

The smear campaign against Cain continues   By now the internet, radio, television, and wagging tongues everywhere are all abuzz over the latest campaign blunder by Herman Cain. But is it really the gaffe everyone says it is? Or was it a selective editing job a la Ed Shultz ? Well, call me cynical, but I’ve seen enough media shenanigans to be suspicious of anything taken out of context and this definitely tripped my radar. In the clip that has gone viral (below), Cain does appear to be caught off-guard by a question on Libya, a topic he ought to have been ready for. My first reaction was to wonder how many clips like this land on editing room floors instead of online. In a world used to hyper-slick video and equally slick candidates, a moment of thought gathering can seem disastrous. Still, this isn’t about a some candidate’s “senior moment.” Rather, it is about a hatchet job gone awry. This clip was released by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel along with the entire half-hour interv...

Is JoePa guilty of being too human? I would like a little help understanding something. Joe Paterno did a) nothing wrong, b) not nothing, c) not too little, but d) exactly what he was supposed to do and still has been fired. What am I missing? I'm not saying Joe shouldn't have retired years ago--he should have--but his ousting yesterday strikes me as having more to do with finding a scapegoat than anything to do with misconduct. Shouldn't it be Jerry Sandusky receiving everyone's ire? Yet I hardly hear his name. And how does Mike McQueary keep his job if he is held to anything resembling a similar standard that which Joe is being held to? I don't even care about Penn State except for next weekend's matchup with Nebraska— Go Big Red! — but this sorta throws a pall over that. I just can't help but see JoePa as a fall guy.  First, I take issue with the notion that we have rules we are expected to follow, but when those rules prove insufficient for w...

This is good stuff. I had to share. http://www.bigdawgmusicmafia.com/profile/HiCaliber

I'm gonna miss this face. How this, too, is about Obama Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, paragon of fashion and autocratic ruler of Libya since 1969, is dead, presumably by sudden lead poisoning.  The winner of the race to see who can jam Obama's name into a headline about Col. Gaddafi's demise first seems to be the Financial Times, with a piece entitled " Gaddafi death boosts Obama reputation ." Clocked in at 4pm London time, FT beats President Obama's speech by a full six hours. Nifty headline, considering new polls have yet to be taken since the late Colonel's passing. I have no doubt President O will get a handy post-Gaddafi bump. But considering how quickly his after-Osama bump spoiled, I wouldn't expect this one to last even as long. Did he even get a bump from al-Awlaki? Don't expect the spelling of Gaddafi / Qaddafi / Kadafi to stop changing, either. Now with Gaddafi off the stage, the world is wondering, who will be next in the Obamistration'...

Rick Perry's campaign released a new ad on Tuesday. I just wanted to share my thoughts on it and invite others to express theirs: This ad makes me think that perhaps Perry is a different breed of Republican than we've become accustomed to. I already know that his campaign strategist, Dave Carney, is a different breed of strategist. But this goes beyond mere strategy. Perry actually adopted the "President Zero" tagline, which is exactly what all the right-wing talkers were suggesting on radio and cable news. That is a major curveball. I was not expecting any candidates to take advice from the talkers. That is a very anti-establishment move. That really demonstrates Perry's receptiveness to the conservative base. As for the ad itself, it is extremely cinematic. The approach is not necessarily novel among political ads anymore, but it’s still not the norm. What sets this ad apart is its full embracing of that approach. He's not just dipping his toes in. This is a...

Nancy Pelosi is pissed off at Republicans. While that isn’t all too surprising, her reason is. In advance of President Obama’s jobs address before a joint session of congress tonight, Boehner’s office announced that no one from the Republican Party will issue a formal rebuttal. Boehner spokesman Mike Steel said Obama's proposals "will rise or fall on their own merits."  But apparently Pelosi was gearing up for a row, and she’s going to pick a fight no matter what. Pelosi claimed that by not offering a rebuttal, Republicans are being “not only disrespectful to [the president], but to the American people.”  Aren’t politics confusing? It seems that since Obama took the oath of office, Democrats have been admonishing Republicans to lay off the president. Furthermore, I thought the American people were tired of partisan bickering. Forgive me for thinking this looks like a double-dose of giving people what they want. Surely there is some calculation behind the Republicans’ deci...