Author Archives: Tom

Why Didn’t the MSM Expose Spitzer’s Abuses?

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Regular readers of this blog know that former New York attorney general and current NY governor Eliot Spitzer’s abuses of power have been a frequent topic for a long time, particularly Spitzer’s dubious prosecution of former New York Stock Exchange chairman, Richard Grasso.

Well, as the years pass from Spitzer’s odious term as AG, additional information is beginning to filter out that indicates that Spitzer’s abuses of power were every bit as bad as suspected.

Dealbreaker’s John Carney has posts here and here reviewing Charles Gasparino’s new book, King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange (Collins 2007) in which Carney summarizes Garparino’s research on Spitzer’s dubious tactics in investigating Grasso.

Suffice it to say that Spitzer’s tactics would have qualified him for a key position in any of the secret police units of the former Eastern European totalitarian regimes.

In Carney’s latter post, he makes an excellent point about the mainstream media’s myopia regarding Spitzer’s abuses of power, which were regularly noted in the blogosphere, but rarely mentioned in the mainstream media outside of the Wall Street Journal. Carney observes:

Why didn’t [the mainstream media covering Spitzer’s investigation of Grasso] reveal the slimy tactics of the Spitzer squad?

We suspect part of the problem was the fear of being “cut off” of access. Reporters compete for scoops, and often those scoops depend on sources who will leak information to them. In the NYSE case, reporters assigned to the story were largely at the mercy of the investigators, who could cut-off uncooperative reporters, leaving them without copy to bring to their editors while their competitors filed stories with the newest dirt.

They probably felt — not unrealistically — that their very jobs were on the line.

This reveals an unfortunate state of affairs. Playing bugle boy while government officials call the tunes from behind a veil of anonymity is not investigative journalism — it’s hardly journalism at all. It’s closer to propaganda.

It would have been far better had the journalists turned their backs on the Spitzer squad, or even revealed these tactics to the public. Sure they may have lost some “good” stories but they could have painted a truer picture of what was going on. But that’s probably too much to hope for.

Exactly.

Jerome Solomon’s real bad Aggie joke

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houston_chronicle%20sports%20logo%20111007.jpgKevin Whited catches Houston Chronicle sports columnist Jerome Solomon making arguably the worst attempt at an Aggie joke in history:

It is sad that Texas A&M has spent the ’00s playing the role of little brother to Texas’ big brother.
While the bratty Longhorns constantly rub A&M’s nose in national championships ó no matter how infrequently they come ó the Aggies have to play with matches to get attention. (emphasis added)

Earth to Jerome, Earth to Jerome. The Aggie Bonfire collapse in 1999 was a horrific tragedy for not only Texas A&M University, but the entire state. Making light of it is in extremely poor taste.
My sense is that Mr. Solomon should sit in the corner for awhile after that one.

The Lidge deal

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Lidge%20shocked.jpgNew Stros General Manager Ed Wade’s first major move was to end Brad Lidge’s career with the Stros. Wade traded Lidge and utilityman Eric Bruntlett to the Phillies for CF Michael Bourn (a Houston native and former University of Houston player), reliever Geoff Geary and AA 3B Michael Costanzo.
I’m a firm believer that you evaluate trades primarily on the front end. A Major League ballclub wants its general manager to take reasonable risks in an attempt to improve the club. Because of the nature of risk, a reasonable trade can turn out bad. The Jason Jennings trade is a good recent example. It was a decent trade on the front end, but injury risk undermined the Stros’ purpose for the trade. Sure, many local pundits condemned the trade after the Stros risk was realized, but that’s an unfair way to evaluate a trade. If a GM is going to be ridiculed after the fact for taking risks to help the club, then that’s going to deter the GM from taking those risks. That’s a poor policy for developing and maintaining a successful ballclub.
Thus, evaluating this trade on the front end, it looks like a pretty good deal for the Stros, despite having to give up Lidge. One of the favorite pastimes of Stros fans over the past couple of seasons has been to psychoanalyze Lidge, who has taken it all in good-natured stride. His story is a compelling one. During the 2004 season, Lidge burst on the scene in essentially his second season of Major Leage Baseball and was, at least for a part of that season, the best relief pitcher in MLB and one of the primary reasons why the Stros won 36 out of their final 46 regular season games to make the playoffs and eventually come within a game of the 2004 World Series. In 94.2 innings that season, Lidge had a microscopic 1.90 ERA and saved 26 more runs than an average National League pitcher would have saved in the same number of innings (RSAA, explained here).
Lidge was very good again during the 2005 season (2.29 ERA/14 RSAA in 70.2 innings), but the first cracks in his armor began to show late that season. With the Stros one out away from the 2005 World Series and Lidge dominating the Cardinals, Albert Pujols hammered a game-winning Game 5 NLCS shot that still has not come back down to Earth. Lidge’s confidence seemed to evaporate in the wake of Pujols’ massive tater.
By the end of the following season (2006), Lidge had performed worse over the course of the season than virtually any other regular member of the Stros’ pitching staff (5.28 ERA/-6 RSAA in 75 innings). It was not really difficult to understand why — Lidge lost the ability to throw his devastating slider for strikes consistently. As a result, hitters laid off Lidge’s slider and laid into his fastball, which Lidge does not locate particularly well. Moreover, Lidge has a long history of arm and specifically elbow problems owing to his violent mechanics — as a starter in the low minors, he appeared in just 19 games from 1999 to 2001. His struggles with his control over the past couple of seasons just might indicate that the future injury risk for Lidge is quite high.
Lidge did make a nice comeback in 2007 (6 RSAA/3.36 ERA in 67 IP) from his horrifying 2006 season, but he still struggled with his control frequently. Curiously, the Stros delayed his knee surgery to remove loose cartilage until after the season, so it’s clear now that they were showcasing him for a possible trade. Lidge is talented and an asset for any pitching staff, but his one dominant season (2004) does not mean that he will regain his stature as a dominant closer. My sense is that Chad Qualls may well end up being a better fit for that role.
Inasmuch as the Stros need to re-stock the young talent on their big league club and in their minor league system, trading veteran talent such as Lidge in his last year before free agency makes sense. Bourn is a potential leadoff man with on-base skills that Willy Taveras never mastered, and he runs and plays CF well. The downside risk on Bourn is that he will be an inexpensive OBP and defensive tool for a couple of years. Finally, picking up Bourn allows the Stros to move Hunter Pence to right field and dangle Luke Scott as trade bait for more pitching.
The prospect in the deal — Costanzo — is not a top notch prospect at third, but he projects as an average MLB 3B by his 270 AVG./.368 OBA/.490 SLG in his age-23 season in AA ball. Inasmuch as it is doubtful that Ty Wigginton is the long range answer for the Stros at 3B, it is conceivable that Constanzo could make Wigginton available as trade bait before the end of next season. That’s the kind of flexibility that the Stros have lacked over the past several seasons as their minor league system became depleted.
Geary can be a serviceable reliever for the Stros, but I’m not going to get too excited about him until I see how he adjusts to the short porch in Minute Maid Park’s left field. He pitched very well for the Phillies during their playoff stretch drive this past season, but ge is not a flamethrower. Right-handed offspeed pitchers (starting with the forgettable 2000 performance of Jose Lima) don’t generally do all that well at Minute Maid. especially pitchers such as Geary who do not generate an overabundance of ground balls.
Nevertheless, I like this trade. Bourn has the potential to be what Taveras probably will never be, Geary can contribute right away and Costanzo is a solid prospect. All in all, a good day’s work for the Stros new GM.
Update: Jeff Albert provides this optimistic analysis of the Lidge deal from the Phillies’ perspective.

The smog Olympics

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Bejing.jpgThe photo on the left is from this James Fallows post, which describes the dubious air quality at noon in downtown Beijing, the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics. As Fallows asks:

“But, seriously: how is this not an all-out emergency from the Olympic committee’s point of view?”

Nice guys on the PGA Tour

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01690.jpgGolfweek’s Jeff Rude provides this entertaining column in which he passes along some of his experiences with the truly nice fellows on the PGA Tour, the nicest of which, in Rude’s view, is Beaumont native and former University of Houston great, Bruce Lietzke:

[Lietzke] had all the attributes you want in a next-door neighbor: Self-deprecation, humor, a pleasant nature, a realness, a playfulness, a deep sense of family and a vintage car collection to die for. With Lietzke, you could walk next door and get a golf lesson, borrow a wrench and, for the umpteenth time, hear his famous banana-under-the headcover story or about the time he revved one of his hot cars up Magnolia Lane.
My favorite Lietzke story, and the one that clinched his status as No. 1 favorite, happened in 1995. I needed to interview him but our schedules were conflicting. I was leaving for the British Open, and he was going on one of his long summer vacations and time was running out. So I read him the list of questions while in a taxi on the way to the Dallas airport and asked him to leave his answers on my answering machine. I told him Iíd then listen to his answers and transcribe the quotes during a layover in Chicago on the way to Scotland.
When I retrieved messages at OíHare Airport, sure enough Lietzke had called. Problem was, my voice mail cut off after two minutes. So to make this work, Lietzke had to call back and continue with his answers. And call back and continue. And call back and continue. When I got done writing down his answers, I realized he had called my answering machine 13 times.
I mean, telemarketers looking for cash donít call my answering machine 13 times. And this was a PGA Tour player with 13 victories. I mean, some winless players donít have 13 seconds (as in time) for someone carrying a notepad and pen.
Professional athletes in need of media training donít need a seminar. They just need to hang out with Lietzke for a day.

Read the entire piece. I had the pleasure of playing a round with Liezke years ago at a University of Houston function and concur with Rude that he is a perfectly charming fellow.

An expensive illusion

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Arnold%20Kling%20110707.jpgAs I’ve noted several times previously, EconLog’s Arnold Kling is among the clearest thinkers in the U.S. on reform of the health care finance system. He has been addressing health care finance issues again this week, first in this podcast interview with Russ Roberts, and also in posts here and here addressing issues raised by Greg Mankiw’s NY Times article on the misleading nature of certain statistics that are frequently tossed around in the health care finance debates. But the most insightful Kling health care finance post this week was this Cato-at-Liberty post in which he analogizes the third party payor health care finance system to subsidized prostitution:

Suppose we were 20-year-old guys who hung out together, and one of our friends was down on his luck with women. Heís really depressed about it. We decideñnot necessarily the brightest ideañto hire him a prostitute. We donít want him to know sheís a prostitute, so we all chip in and pay her, tell her to meet our friend at a bar, and make him feel better about himself.
Next morning, we ask him how it went. He says, ìGreat. I really feel better about myself. In fact, Iím going to see her again tonight.î
As friends of the guy, we look at each other and realize that he will be devastated if he learns the truth. So we chip in again and pay the prostitute to make our friend feel better about himself. This keeps happening day after day, and eventually maintaining our friendís illusion about his love life gets to be really expensive.
Similarly, free health care is an attractive illusion. Itís just gotten to be really expensive to maintain the illusion.

Before the blogosphere, discussion and analysis of health care finance — which has become one of the key domestic issues of our time — was largely buried in technical books, economic or medical journals and an occasional op-ed on the editorial pages. As a result, health care finance was largely misunderstood by the public and even a large segment of the medical profession. Now, through the leadership of economic bloggers such as Kling, the important issues relating to health care finance reform are instantly available for the world to review as a virtual cornucopia of economic bloggers has emerged to provide commentary and insight. That’s a wonderful legacy for Kling, and one for which we should all be appreciative.

The DeBakey-Cooley rapprochement

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DeBakey%20and%20Cooley.jpgThe longtime feud and resulting intense competition between Houston cardiovascular surgeons Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley was a part of what catapulted Houston’s Texas Medical Center into the upper tier of the world’s great medical centers over the past 40 years.
Now, the Chronicle’s fine Texas Medical Center reporter, Todd Ackerman, reports in this article that the DeBakey-Cooley rift is no more:

It’s considered one of medicine’s best-known feuds: two brilliant and egotistical doctors on the frontiers of cardiovascular surgery, whose falling-out divided a community and became the stuff of legend.
Immortalized in a Life magazine cover story, the rift persisted for decades. Although the competition spurred them to achievements that transformed the Texas Medical Center into the world’s heart treatment center, the former collaborators avoided each other and barely spoke.
But recently, Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley buried the hatchet.
“I’m glad the rivalry may have passed by,” Cooley said on Oct. 27, presenting DeBakey with a lifetime achievement award at a meeting of Cooley’s Cardiovascular Surgical Society. “I hope this is not just a temporary truce or cease-fire (but) … a permanent treaty between us.”
DeBakey, 99, responded that he was glad to be there for two reasons: “One is, I’m alive. And the other, of course, is to get this award. Denton, I am really touched by it.”

Read the entire article.

What’s really wrong with Ahman Green

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Ahman%20Green.jpgLeading Texans cheerleader, Chronicle pro football columnist John McClain, reports on the baffling nature of the injury that is holding back the Texans’ high-priced running back, Ahman Green:

Meanwhile, the Texans asked running back Ahman Green, 30, to have his sore right knee examined by [Dr. James] Andrews to see if he can find something that might help him stay on the field.
“We’re trying to find out what’s really going on, why it’s swelling and giving me pain and discomfort,” Green said after practice Tuesday. “I’ve had three MRIs, and they still don’t know from that, so I’m going to fly over there and see what we can find out.” [. . .]
“I’m hoping we’ll finally know,” Green said. “I hope we can find a solution for this. We’ll have our finger on the dot to see exactly what it is. Once we find the problem, we’ll have a solution.
“I know what I bring to this team, and my teammates depend on me a lot. And when I’m injured, I can’t do the things I know I can do.”

In reality, the acquisition of Green was a mistake — and a very expensive one at that — from the beginning. Moreover, that it was a mistake should not have been a surprise to anyone. As noted in my annual preview of the Texans’ season:

An example of the dubious decision-making regarding offensive personnel is the signing of RB Ahman Green, formerly of Green Bay. Green was a great running back in his prime with the Pack, but he has averaged less than four yards per carry for the past two seasons. Inasmuch as the Texans agreed to pay Green $23 million over four years ($8 million guaranteed in the first season), the chances that the 30-year old Green will be worth the value of this contract this season are tenuous, at best. The chances of him still being worth the contract a couple of years from now are so speculative as to be off the charts.

In short, you won’t read about it in McClain’s columns, but Green represents another indication that the hiring of current Texans coach Gary Kubiak has not changed the legacy of dubious personnel decisions over at Reliant Park.
Ahman Green = eventual salary cap hit.

Last weekend’s truly biggest game

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NAVY_Football.jpgThe grudge match between LSU and Alabama was certainly the most watched big college football game of this past weekend. But for my money, the most interesting game of the weekend was Navy’s dramatic 46-44 triple overtime victory over Notre Dame at South Bend, ending a 43 year losing streak by the Midshipmen against the Fighting Irish. The win was made even more satisfying for the Middies because a blatant “hometown” pass interference call by one of the referees gave Notre Dame another chance to tie the game at the end of the third overtime, but Navy stuffed the Irish on the retry to preserve the victory.
John Feinstein provides this excellent analysis of what Navy’s victory means:

Skeptics will point out that this is a bad (now 1-8) Notre Dame team. It doesn’t matter. Every Notre Dame team should dominate Navy on the football field. At one point during the game, NBC — also known as the Notre Dame Broadcasting Co. because it pays the school millions of dollars a year to televise all its home games — did a promo for a high school All-Star game it televises in January. Only the country’s top-rated high school seniors are invited to play.
“Twenty-one of the current Irish players have played in that game in past years,” NBC play-by-play announcer Tom Hammond said.
That would be exactly 21 more than are currently playing at Navy. Or, as Hammond’s partner Pat Haden pointed out: “With all due respect, Navy doesn’t get to recruit blue-chip football players.”
Just blue-chip people. [. . .]
The best description I ever heard of what it is like to play football at Navy, Army and Air Force came from Fred Goldsmith, who coached at Air Force: “At a civilian school the hardest part of a football player’s day is football practice,” he said. “At an academy, the easiest part of a football player’s day is football practice.”
Navy can’t possibly beat Notre Dame. Except on Saturday a group of youngsters who were too small or too slow (or both) to play big-time college football did just that.
With all due respect to Notre Dame and all its blue-chip players, Navy’s celebration should be our celebration.

By the way, the game included one of the worst coaching calls that I’ve ever seen. Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis decided to go for it on 4th and 8 at the Navy 24 yard line with 45 seconds remaining in regulation instead of attempting a 41-yard field goal that could have won the game. If a 1-8 record at Notre Dame doesn’t get Weis fired, then that type of coaching decision almost certainly will.

Bad judgment alert

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NFLNetwork_250-175.jpgAs if corruption in the Texas Youth Commission, the bursting state prison system, reform of the judicial selection system, or reorganization of TSU isn’t enough to keep Texas legislators occupied. Now, a local state legislator is teaming up with a colleague to confront a truly important issue — that Texans are not going to be able to watch certain NFL football games on certain cable television networks:

Cable companies and the NFL Network are competing for Texas lawmakers’ support in their national fight over whether cable customers should be charged extra for the football channel.
While some cable companies have agreed to carry the network’s eight regular-season games, Time Warner Cable, the largest in Texas, has not come to terms with the network.
Pressure has been mounting on all parties as the Dallas Cowboys’ Nov. 29 matchup with the Green Bay Packers approaches. The game will only be shown on the NFL Network.
“I’ve had a lot more people contact me about NFL football the last two months instead of child protective services, windstorm insurance or worker’s compensation, which are frankly more important issues,” said Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale, R-Tomball. “I don’t control what constituents call me about.” [. . .]
Van Arsdale and Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, said last week that they would consider introducing consumer-oriented legislation in the 2009 session if the two sides don’t reach an agreement.
“Cable companies need to focus on giving their customers what they want, which is football,” Brimer said. [. . .]
Five Democratic members of the Texas House from Bexar County have sent letters to the Federal Communication Commission asking it to intercede in the argument.

Of course, all of these games are readily available on the Dish Network, so no consumer is prevented from buying that product if they want to see these NFL Network games bad enough. However, that doesn’t stop the seemingly limitless amount of bad judgment in legislative circles over defining a legitimate legislative issue.