Would it be too much to ask for sanity in the debate over these secret wiretaps? From the uproar you'd think it was Harry Reid, Michael Moore and Al Franken who were being surveilled and not people with suspected terrorist ties who are communicating internationally.
What would civil libertarians, or those finding it politically expedient to don the civil libertarian mantle, have done if Orwell had never written 1984?
They might have had to actually think of a reasoned argument when the question of civil liberties was raised rather than just reflexively running through the town square screaming "BIG BROTHER, BIG BROTHER, BIG BROTHER!!!!!!!!!"
A similar post could be written about the Ben Franklin "those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither" quote.
Today's winner:
If Americans extract information from terrorists by torture, would Americans be any different than the terrorists?
YES WE BLEEPING WOULD! Because we wouldn't be targetting innocent civilians and bleeping beheading our captives! This writer seems to have just absolutely zero comprehension of what the terrorists are.
They're mostly full of idiots looking to trash anything and everything in an effort to show that they're smarter than the people who run the teams for a living. Why bother to look at the full effect of a trade when you can crame it down into one dimension and feel superior? Did a trade just help the team in 3 or 4 different ways? Eh, doesn't matter, you can always cherrypick the stats and prove that your GM is a raving loon because there's no way the pitcher he just picked up will ever hit .300. I open up these pages and I just have an intense urge to get all Coulter-like and inform them of their stupidity.
Luckily the Enquirer's Reds blog is a bastion of relative sanity.
Honestly I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Yes Casey consistently hit above .300 and yes he's a great person. He's also slow as molasses, has a penchant for hitting into double plays, and has no power.
And yes Dave Williams "only" went 10-11 last year and yes his ERA was 4.41 and yes, he's given up some homers. He got those 10 wins with the Pirates, a team that only got 67 total. And outside of PNC he was 7-4 with a 2.65 ERA. And let's remember Tony LaRussa has called this guy one of the best southpaws in the league. Let's not be so quick to dismiss this guy as a scrub.
This deal saves us 5-7 million dollars this year, at the very least that's enough to keep everybody else who's going through arbitration and it may even help us land another decent pitcher.
This deal also solves the outfield problem, allowing us to play all 4 of our outfielders.
Again, Casey is a good guy. I wish him nothing but luck against everybody except the Reds. But being a good guy will only get your club so many wins. Deciding whether to keep a guy based on whether he's a good guy and popular in the community is a bad way to run a ball club. That's the Lindner way of running a ball club. That leads to losses.
As much as people love to bash O'Brien, this trade doesn't fly in the face of logic. There seems to be solid enough reasoning to back it up. It does solve at least one problem for the Reds and it's far too soon to label Dave Williams a bust, he has potential.
Looks like Alzheimer's might turn out to be type 3 diabetes.
