I’ll be rolling out bright and early Sunday morning to participate in the 2004 Sunbelt/Cohutta Springs Triathlon. I’ve never competed in a triathlon and only have one small issue in doing so: I can’t swim, at least no farther than a pool length or so. But that’s the beauty of a relay team.
The event is a mini triathlon, so I’ll only be bicycling for 18 miles. I don’t imagine we’ll be in the running for a top placement, so my main goal is to complete my leg in no more than 55 minutes. That and to avoid being hit by any rural North Georgia drivers. We’ll see how it goes.
POST-RACE UPDATE: The bicycle riding went fairly well. The only issue I had was some rare cramping in my calf muscles along the way. I guess I had too much heat and not enough water. I completed the leg in 56 minutes–only one minute off my goal. Overall, however, our relay team didn’t fare well. The team–consisting of three 30ish year old males–lost to several females and barely edged out a 61 year-old solo male competitor. It was pretty brutal.
Mixed Up Doctrines
Thomas Friedman is back from hiatus and has a pretty good assessment of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq:
What happened? The Bush team got its doctrines mixed up: it applied the Powell Doctrine to the campaign against John Kerry – “overwhelming force” without mercy, based on a strategy of shock and awe at the Republican convention, followed by a propaganda blitz that got its message across in every possible way, including through distortion. If only the Bush team had gone after the remnants of Saddam’s army in the Sunni Triangle with the brutal efficiency it has gone after Senator Kerry in the Iowa-Ohio-Michigan triangle. If only the Bush team had spoken to Iraqis and Arabs with as clear a message as it did to the Republican base. No, alas, while the Bush people applied the Powell Doctrine in the Midwest, they applied the Rumsfeld Doctrine in the Middle East. And the Rumsfeld Doctrine is: “Just enough troops to lose.”
Priorities are priorities.
Photo Hiking
Last week I climbed Mount LeConte and took some pictures along the way. They don’t do the scenery justice, but I’ve posted a few of them here.
I’m not the biggest of hikers. So for me an 11 mile trip on a moderately-difficult trail is a pretty big deal–especially when I’m lugging my 50 pound tripod. But wow, the view from the top was worth it. I’m already thinking about going again sometime.
VolcanoCam
Don’t Forget Poland!
For all Bush’s talk about how he doesn’t worry what other nations think when he acts to “defend America,” the president sure seems to be worried about the sensibilities of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing.” Whenever Kerry criticizes the pre-war coalition, Bush’s standard response has been, “Why are you denigrating the contributions of our allies”?
I’m not sure why Kerry has had such a difficult time countering this; the response should be short and sweet:
“Yes, I appreciate the contribution that foreign soldiers have made; the problem is there’s simply not enough of them.”
Kerry’s responses have been getting better lately, but he’s still got room for improvement.
Clothes Too Big
Fact is, 9/11 didn’t change Bush, it just changed his rhetoric. And while the smirk now floated above terra-fightin’ and tyrant-smashin’, it was still the same smirk that had accompanied social security privatization and medicare reform. But while we all knew and understood that he had been a lightweight in the days of domestic policy — at least, we tittered, he hadn’t been an atrocious dullard like that Gore — we began pretending that something had snapped in George W. Bush and he was now a somber leader prepared to face down a time of grave danger.
But tonight the curtain lifted and Bush was back onstage with a competitor, without a teleprompter, and facing a barrage of unfamiliar and even unfriendly topics. But the way George debates — rigid adherence to message, down-home charisma, a quick grin and general geniality — was sadly unsuitable for the occasion. Past confrontations have been reasonably light, occurring in times of relative prosperity and in opposition to barely-liked incumbents whom the public liked seeing taken down a few pegs. But tonight, George was supposed to be serious, to be somber, to show himself the sort of timeless leader appropriate for such a crucial stage in history. Instead, he was like a glitchy boombox machine-gunning the phrase “mixed messages”. Where Kerry had calm presentation and logical progressions, George jumped from story to quote, personal attack to platitude (“I know how the world works”). Where he was supposed to run on a record, he instead ran on an ethic (“It’s hard work”). Where he was supposed to act dignified, he was draped over his podium. Where he was supposed to be the country’s commander, he was instead a mediocre candidate.
Tonight, for the first time in a number of years, George Bush the individual — a wholly different creature from the stage-managed president — was forced to face his times. And the truth is that George isn’t cut out for these times. He’s not a capable war leader. His moral clarity is a kind term for simplicity, not a synonym for vision. His straight talk is all there is, he’s not obscuring a capacity for complexity that he chooses to obscure for the sake of uninformed audiences. Tonight, George Bush was by turns petulant and belligerent, and by all accounts lacking. But the truth is that this is how George always was, the lie will be the conservatives who attempt to spin this into a single bad night. That Bush has turned in better performances before is all part of the problem. The Emperor, after all, has a coterie of very fine tailors. It’s just that they insist on making clothes that are far, far, too big for him.
The sad thing is that Bush/Cheney ’04 carefully constructed the rules of this engagement to put Bush in the best possible light, and he still looked bad. Imagine how he would have fared in a true debate.