Defending Sarah Palin

Well, more political stuff from me. Hopefully this will be the last political stuff for a while...at least until after the inauguration. I'm not sure how this is going to come across, or how rambling this is going to get. So, here goes.

I'm sick and tired of those in the McCain campaign and the media who are trying to blame Sarah Palin for the election loss. Let's look at the statistics. In a recent Rasmussen study, 69% of Republican voters said that Sarah Palin helped the ticket. Additionally 91% of Republicans view Governor Palin favorably, and 65% view her very favorably. A further 64% list Palin as one of the top contenders for the nomination in 2012.

She did what she was supposed to do...she solidified the base. In fact, the most fired up I got was after her speech at the convention. When I asked my mom who she was voting for, she told me she was voting for Sarah Palin.

Is Governor Palin rough around the edges? Yes! Did she look bad in the Katie Couric interview? Yes! (But, as Glenn Beck said this week, that was a 2 hour interview, and Couric cut it down to those 6 minutes, so a little media bias there). Was she ready to be President on day one? No! But in my opinion neither is Obama. Both Obama and Palin have similar experience levels, however, no major media outlet would dare question the anointed one's experience. At least Palin has executive experience as the Governor of Alaska. Oh wait, I forgot, Obama ran his campaign, and that qualifies him to be President.

But I digress...John McCain is to blame for this loss. If he and his inner circle didn't like Sarah Palin, why did they pick her? That's McCain's fault, not Gov. Palin's. So, to the McCain campaign...stop trying to blame Governor Palin for this. Look at yourselves...look at the candidate. It's the top of the ticket that matters, and in the end, McCain didn't do enough to differentiate himself from Obama.

Here's hoping that in 2012 we get a Republican candidate that can draw a true distinction between himself (or herself...Palin) and Obama. A candidate that gets back the fundamentals of small government and personal responsibility. If that doesn't happen, the Republicans are doomed to defeat again in 2012.

I'll amend that a little...the Republicans have a shot in 2012 if Obama really botches this as badly as I expect him to. I truly hope I'm wrong about all my inner predictions of doom and gloom though, as our country doesn't need to live through 4 down years.

It's just a game

While basking in the glow of last night's 34-30 win by my beloved Denver Broncos over the Cleveland Browns, I happened upon this column by Rick Reilly.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3682223

I am not a Rick Reilly fan. Most of the time I find him obnoxious or annoying or both. However, this one really struck a chord with me. As a Denver Broncos fan, I've followed the career of Jay Cutler, the starting Quarterback, with great interest. Ever since John Elway (a.k.a. the Greatest QB ever!!!) retired, the Broncos have had a steady stream of pretenders filling the QB role. With Jay Cutler, I think the Broncos finally have a really good one.

In the off season, Cutler was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and had to start a daily insulin regimen that he has to follow for the rest of his life. Cutler was diagnosed after losing 35 lbs. last season, and being so tired that he was sleeping 10-13 hours a day.

This Rick Reilly column explains how Cutler, by playing a game, is inspiring kids with diabetes all over the country. This season has been a very up and down one for Jay Cutler. The Broncos aren't a very good team, and he has struggled at times, although he's probably been good more often than he's been bad. Lately, the media and fans like me have been hard on Cutler, as the Broncos had lost 3 in a row. This column really hit me and reminded me it's just a game.

Because I sometimes take Denver Broncos football too seriously, I'll probably forget all this the next time Cutler throws an interception that is returned for a touchdown, so hopefully columnists like Rick Reilly will occasionally remind us fans that this is just a game.

And, by the way, in last night's win, Jay Cutler carried the Broncos, throwing for a career high 447 yards and 3 Touchdowns. Woohoo!!!

Golf for Fun???

I just wanted to do a random golf post, because based on the weather forecast, this may be all I get to do for quite a while.

Last Friday, along with 3 friends from work, I went golfing at a local course. I always feel fortunate when I get to golf in October or November, so I was just glad to be out there. The weather was perfect, about 70 degrees with no wind. We chose to play a relatively easy course because it has fewer trees, so less leaves laying on the ground to obscure golf balls.

I had a really good, relaxing time, probably because I was just glad to be out there and had no expectations on my score. This may surprise some of you, but occasionally, I take golf too seriously. ; - )

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finished with a 72 (even par). Now, I've shot better scores than that before, especially on that course, but what amazed me, was how easy it seemed. I didn't even feel like I was playing all that well...but I was relaxed, laughing, and I just kept making pars.

You know, there might be something to this relaxing and having fun on the golf course. Hopefully I can take that attitude into next golf season. I know I'll enjoy myself more, and who knows, maybe I'll even play better golf!

Ranger's Apprentice - Book 5

Ok, so I'm addicted to "escape" reading. If you've looked at my profile at all, you'll see that my favorite books are Harry Potter, Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and the Ranger's Apprentice series. These may not be my most favorite of all time, but they're fresh in my head, so they make the list right now. As you'll note from the list, I'm not really into "heavy reading." In fact, I'm sort of into "nerd" books...I mean that in a good way.

I'm extremely excited because I just bought Book 5 in the Ranger's Apprentice Series. For those of you who don't know, Ranger's Apprentice is written by Australian writer John Flanagan who started the books to get his son interested in reading. It follows the story of a 15 year old boy name Will who is taken on as a Ranger's Apprentice in the mythical kingdom of Araluen. Here's a link to the Ranger's Apprentice website:

http://www.rangersapprentice.com/

Yes, I know, it says it's a series for young readers, but I guarantee adults will like it too. I had stayed away from the books for a long time because it was for "kids." Earlier in October, I had to go on a business trip. I always take a book to read on the plane. My wife gave me the first 2 books in the Ranger's Apprentice series. I was hooked 20 pages into book 1, and quickly read books 1 - 4.

These books are fast paced, easy to read and filled with great characters. The lead character, Will, is extremely likable, and you root for him right away. His mentor, Halt, takes some getting used to, but you quickly discover that he's a terrific character as well. In fact, I've liked all the characters I met as I went through books 1-4, and I can't wait to see what's in book 5.

Election Night

Alright, so one of the reasons I started this blog is I wanted to write some political commentary. This will not be the entire focus of this blog, I promise.

So, here we are on election night. Based on the polls, our country is about to elect Barack Obama President of the United States. As I'm sure you all know, my political leanings are way to the right of Mr. Obama, so I'm pretty disappointed that this is the case. I hope I am wrong and I hope the polls are wrong. I hope I wake up tomorrow and John McCain is the next President.

I could write paragraphs on what I think is wrong with Obama, but it won't do any good at this point, so I'll just say that he didn't get my vote, and I pray he won't do too much damage to this country should he win.

I'd like to address the media's coverage of this election. I believe the media has been criminal in their reporting of this election. The media has a duty to report the news to the people and inform the people. This election year, we know more about Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin's brother-in-law than we do about Barack Obama. There's always been a liberal bias in the media, at least as long as I've been paying attention, but this year it has been taken to a whole new level. Most of the media, especially MSNBC, has been an advertisement for Obama. They've ignored or buried stories about Obama, while digging like crazy to find whatever they could about John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I firmly believe many of the problems in this country can be traced to the 24 hours news media and their unwillingness, with a few exceptions, to report the whole truth to the people and let them make their own decisions on what to think.

There, that's the end of my first political post. I will ramble some more later about other topics. Now, I'm off to choir practice.

Welcome to my Blog!

Hello all, welcome to my new blog. I started this blog for theraputic reasons. There are so many things that happen to me every day that I have an opinion on that I just decided I should start writing them down.

Topics will range from serious political and religious discussion to funny anecdotes to analysis of the latest Denver Broncos football game. During golf season, I'll probably have a lot of stuff to say about golf.

So, if you read this and enjoy it great. If you read this and hate it, well, it's for my therapy, so I guess that's too bad for you. I hope you will feel free to comment on anything you read here.