Andrew Sullivan Weighs In

On feeling melancholy about the President's speech.

The final piece of the puzzle strikes me as this: the big ramp up in CIA activity in Pakistan. This is the second channel, the one Obama barely mentioned last night. It may be the more important one. My sense is that Obama wants to get bin Laden. Well, of course he does. Which president wouldn't? But the international and domestic impact of such a coup is hard to overstate and Obama's sense of how it would transform him and the entire dynamic of the terror war is typically cunning. I see the Afghan effort as one last chance to get al Qaeda's leadership, to bring justice to the 9/11 perpetrators, while hoping, in the medium term, to tamp down the raw civilizational conflict that empowers them.

As always with Obama, look a little deeper. He has made the very best of a very bad situation. And he is playing a long game for a win or a necessary withdrawal or both. I retain all my doubts; but I give him and Gates and McChrystal and Clinton and the troops all my support for the two years ahead. This much he and they deserve.

One more try, guys.

Really? This is the big ole ace in the hole? Ramping up CIA activity to get Bin Laden? When did we ramp down trying to get Bin Laden? This is Spinal Tap going to 11. Sullivan is obviously delusional. Look a little deeper? What the hell does that mean? You could say that about Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo and it wouldn't make it Days of Heaven (mark that as the two most inappropriate and random movie references of all time).

Hmmm...

A study on pornography ran into a funny problem.

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn’t find any.”

Although hampered in its original aim, the study did examined the habits of those young men who used pornography – which would appear to be all of them.

No comment.

More Strange Logic - 2 Points

Thinking more about Afghanistan and the speech...

"War of Necessity vs. War of Choice"

Obama argues Afghanistan was (and still is) a war of necessity (vs. a war of choice). He argues, Afghanistan will become a terrorist safe haven and attacks against the US will likely be orchestrated from there. This was true prior to 9/11, but is clearly no longer true. Al Queda is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Obama knows this. Any attacks on the US Homeland at this point are more likely to originate there. Or elsewhere. Sudan at one point was also an Al Queda safe haven. Yemen has a lot of Al Queda activity. And Saudi Arabia exports the money, foot soldiers, and ideology. All of these places "could" become terrorist safe havens again and have been in the past. What differentiates Afghanistan in this logic?

The war in Afghanistan started as a war of necessity, to punish and drive out Al Queda. It became a war of choice once Al Queda left for Pakistan. Ironically, Iraq started as a war of choice, but when Al Queda arrived, it became a war of necessity. While this isn't elegant from a legal or rhetorical perspective, sadly, it is the way this war works.

"Taking Our Eye Off the Ball"

Obama argued the reason Afghanistan became an Al Queda safe haven was that "we took our eye off the ball," after the Soviet invasion and subsequent Civil War. He also argues that we "took our eye off the ball," in our initial hunt for Al Queda in order to focus on Iraq. But then he goes on to argue, we need to surge in order to leave Afghanistan to it's own security. Or, in other words, so we can "take our eye off the ball" again. I've never fully understood this "eye off the ball" argument. First, it surmises that by merely paying attention we are able to affect a positive outcome. We know this is not true. In Vietnam, our eye was on the ball and it didn't cause a positive outcome.

The Left argues, generally, two things - one, we ought to leave countries to decide their own fates - we should not be imperial and not meddle. And two, when things go awry in the world it generally stems from American neglect and pursuit of our narrow self interest rather than a more humanitarian and worldly attitude. These two concepts are of course, completely opposite philosophies and the Left vacillates depending upon the issue and the political wind. (the Right slips around, too, but in different ways). I'll give a few examples of point one - Iraq, Vietnam, Iran (in the communist coup, the revolution, and now with WMDs), various South American countries during the Cold War - in all of these cases, the Left argued we ought to leave these countries alone and to their own devises. However, let's look at examples of point 2 - Afghanistan after the Soviets left, Rwanda, Darfur, Kosovo, Palestine, Lebanon/Israel - in each of these cases, the Left argues we ought to intervene or have a bigger hand in preventing atrocities from happening (note - usually after the atrocities have occurred, which is a pretty strange position and akin to me saying the Patriots should have run the ball on 4th and 2 after the pass failed).

So what is it? Do we take our eye off the ball or not?

Conclusion

I am admittedly confused on this issue and don't think there is an easy solution. What I appreciated about the Bush Administration's approach to the WOT was their willingness to take a bold position and stand by it and defend it. They articulated a doctrine to combat radical Islam and did not narrowly focus on Al Queda. I still think this overall logic is correct. And what I hate about the hard Left throughout this debate is the immature and unreasonable handcuffing of the issues and incessantly focusing on what won't work without coming up with a sensible alternative or even bothering to engage with the nitty gritty details of the foe we face. They instead chose to focus on the failures of the Bush Administration. Well, now their candidate is in office, and he's borrowing 90% of the playbook from Bush. What does this tell me? What I already knew - their position was no position all along.

Goals vs. Strategy

Finished listening to Obama's Afghanistan Speech...it was long and I cannot cover it all, but a few basic thoughts. His plan: Add 30,000 troops to shift the momentum away from the Taliban and help train the Afghani Army in order to begin withdrawing troops in 2011. In short (and oddly, he doesn't mention this), it is the same "surge" blueprint Bush pulled in Iraq. Surge to create a space for Sunni/Shiia reconciliation, avoid Civil War, dismantle Al Queda, and allow a nascent government to form. One other note on Iraq - he pointed out how he didn't support Iraq and lamented the divisions it brought within this country and the world, but on the other hand suggested that because the mission was a success, we are able to bring the troops home. I found that a bit strange.

But onto the issue -

1. Obama is confusing (or misrepresenting) his goal as a strategy. His goal is to bring the troops home so we can concentrate on more pressing domestic issues. His strategy - is to surge troops, hope we can swing the momentum back around, pray the Afghan center holds, and bring the troops our respectably. He says bringing the troops home on a timetable is a strategy to put pressure of the Afghanistan government to get it's act together and keep it's own house. That is inaccurate and misleading. And if it were true, there would be no reason to surge troops. It would just be a matter of setting up a timetable for withdrawal. The whole idea of a timetable has always been illusory, a way to "sell" a troop pull out.

2. A perfectly respectable goal, by the way. I rather wish he would just say it - my goal is to bring the troops home without allowing the Taliban to recapture the country. That is his goal. He explicitly says he doesn't expect to wipe out the Taliban or Al Queda by 2011 when we pull out. I do wish he didn't couch it as a strategy. And I also think there are smarter strategies to achieve the stated goal than the troop surge, but I suppose that is up to debate.

3. Wiping out Al Queda and the Taliban. I think McCrystal's request for a troop surge is designed at eventually wiping out Al Queda and the Taliban from Afghanistan they way Al Queda was destroyed in Iraq. That is, getting their allies to turn on them and coupled with American power, crush them. This, however, was not Obama's stated goal (nor Bush's by the way). I am behind this goal, but for whatever reason, smarter people than me seem to think it is unachievable. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it has to do with Pakistan...in fact, I know it has to do with Pakistan. It benefits them to keep Al Queda around because a) it indentures the US towards them (vs. India) and b) it serves as a tactical threat towards India, their more powerful neighbor and rival. So in the absence of being able to achieve this goal, it makes me wonder what a troop surge is going to do in the long run. So long as Pakistan has an interest in keeping the Taliban and Al Queda around, those forces are going to be expansionary and will try what they are doing today in 2013.

Niners Chances

If the Niners are to make the playoffs, they simply cannot slip up. I don't think they have it in them. Five more games, they need to win 4 of them at least, and must beat the Cardinals. Luckily, the remaining schedule is fairly easy: Seahawks, Cardinals, Eagles, Lions, Rams. They should win easily against the Lions and Rams. They should beat the Seahawks, but the game makes me nervous. I think they CAN beat the Cardinals and Eagles, but likely will not.

They would need to play above themselves to beat the Cardinals again and I suppose it is possible. I'm worried about this weekend. The Cardinals are playing the Vikings. I like that game, because I'll be happy with either team losing. If the Niners win against Seattle, the Cardinals on Monday Night becomes a must-win game. For some reason, I actually have confidence in this 49er team to be able to step-it-up in a big game. For the first time in years, they actually have some talent on both sides of the ball. They are also prone to stupidity and let downs, however, but I suppose it goes with the territory. The best case and entirely plausible possibility is that the Cards lose to the Vikings this week and the Niners beat the Seahawks and the Monday Night game basically decides the division.

If the Niners lose to the Seahawks, the season is over. And even if the Niners could tie up the division in two weeks (and own the tie-breaker), they could blow it by losing to the Eagles (although I think that is a winnable game).

Hat tip, Andy.

Obviously, the Chinese know what happened with Tiger and his wife. I think they need to do a series like this using FrameForge or other story-boarding software to re-enact various real-life dramas. Can't you just see it - the Chinese Frameforge Reenactment of OJ Simpson Killing His Wife followed up by the Reenactment of Lorena Bobbit Chopping off John Wayne's Wiener followed by the Elizabeth Smart Story. No joke, I can see this.

District 9

This supposedly awesome movie didn't pass the sleep test. I tried watching it twice over Thanksgiving Weekend and fell asleep twice. Bad writing. And come to think of it, I wasn't much enamored with the whole concept. Like many movies these days, it failed to live up to the hype. It had good posters and a good marketing campaign. It was cool they set a sci-fi movie in South Africa. That's about it. The documentary style and handheld - been there, done that. Main character was kinda interesting - a bit of a doofus - and unintentionally funny. But none of the science made any sense and after all, if the Aliens had all this kick ass weaponry, why didn't they fight? Also hated the transparent and stupid "socially relevant" attempt at a message. I mean, honestly, who advocates putting immigrants into concentration camps? No one. So what am I supposed to take away? We should treat aliens that look like giant insects like human beings? No thanks, much more fun to blow them to pieces.

What To Believe?

In this era of photoshop and political spin, it is hard to know what to believe anymore.

I find this nearly impossible to believe:

However, Gary Berntsen, the CIA operative who led the pursuit of bin Laden at Tora Bora, said in 2005 that his request for up to 800 U.S. troops to cut off the al Qaeda leader's escape route was denied.

I find it nearly impossible to believe someone had a bead on Bin Laden, asked for more troops, and was denied. How is that even possible? It denies all common sense. How stupid would the Bush Administration be?

And Things, They Are Not Working

Catching up on a Thanksgiving weekend Left, Right, and Center Podcast on the way to work today. Matt Miller spoke about a meeting he had with business leaders who feel particularly gloomy about the state of the country. This echoes an article Peggy Noonan wrote the other week. The spirit, right now, of America's elite, is down. Too many problems seem insoluble from the debt, to healthcare, to the economy, to jobs, to Afghanistan. Too many interest groups are influencing the debate. No one trusts government to put things back on track. No one trusts business to put things on track themselves.

I can't speak to the big issues, but only the small ones. It seems to me, there are too many passwords and account numbers. Somewhere along the line, we decided everything needed to be secure and efficient and what we have now is a world of passwords. These are things I need passwords for, off the top of my head -

1. Email
2. Bank Account
3. Computer Server at home
4. Electricity Bill
5. Car Insurance Bill
6. Cable Bill
7. Blogger
8. ATM code
9. Old Email Account for junkie stuff
10. Retirement/Investment Accounts
11. Bike Lock
12. Cell Phone Bill
13. CC security code
14. Zip Code
15. Alumni USC Password
16. Wireless Password
17. Online Tax Forms
18. Medical Insurance Number
19. Library Card Number/Password
20. Blockbuster Movie Rental Password

For Work
1. Server Password
2. Work Email Password
3. Blackberry Passwords x 3
4. Amazon Account password
5. Staples Password
6. Calendar/Computer System Password
7. Phone Messages Password
8. Credit Card Security Codes x 2
9. IMDB Pro Password
10. FedEx Password
11. PW Password x 2
12. Other computer passwords x 4
13. Variety password
14. Verizon password
15. Wifi Password

In total it equals about 46 passwords. Of course, there is the strategy of re-using similar passwords, etc, but let's think about this for a moment - I life a relatively simple life all things considered. I'm not married. I have one job. I don't own a home. I have one credit card. I pay taxes. I live as simple as anyone I know. I have nothing fancy or complicated financially. And yet, I have 46 passwords. I can't remember them all. They need to be written down (which makes them completely insecure).

Imagine running a business. Imagine making a feature film. Imagine running the finances for a family. Now imagine trying to fix the US Healthcare System or winning the hearts and minds of Afghani's or the Muslim World. There's a reason things feel insoluble - because if its goddamn hard to make meals, pay the bills, and muster the energy just to get through the day for one dude like me who keeps it pretty simple - how can we possibly run this gigantic organizations and systems such as the world economy or a country as complex as the US or even small countries like Afghanistan?

The problem with the financial crisis is that no one freaking understands it. Not the layperson or the politicians or even, I suspect, the boards at these institutions. How can anyone make informed decisions about problems we don't understand? We have to defer these decision to "experts" like Geitner and Lawrence Summers and we can't really tell or have any means to tell whether they are competent or not other than gut instinct. Something similar happens frequently with our computer systems and blackberries. No one understands how these things function with their passcodes and updates and databases. As a result, we are completely dependent on computer tech support and the more complicated the the issue, the more work they need to do (and money they make). Same thing with contracts and lawyers. I see 75 page contracts for a 10 G option. Just to review such a contract costs regular price 5 Gs. How can a society function like this? Our administrative costs exceed our output.

It's like we need a goddamn super computer to keep the world economy from crashing and another super computer to keep the supercomputer from crashing and a country to keep that super computer running. And it's falling apart as a result.

Angelina Not An Obama Fan

Huh.

"She's into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise," adds the source.

and

"Angie isn't Republican, but she thinks Obama is all smoke and mirrors," the source says.

Interesting.

Language, Language

And this is exactly what I was talking about in my last post:

1 IN 4 BORROWERS UNDER WATER: Home sales may have risen in October, but this ought to damp any celebration: The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth rose to 23 percent. With nearly 10.7 million households having negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, a sustained housing recovery is unlikely.

How can it be said you own a home if you owe more money to the bank than it's worth. That's like saying you own a credit card with thousands of dollars of debt on it. In these instances, the card and house own YOU, not the other way around.

Obama's Katrina

Arianna Huffington wonders if unemployment will be Obama's Katrina.

Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.

The vacuous slogans of Hope and Change from the Obama campaign are revealing themselves right now. Has Hope or Change created jobs? Has it sorted out Afghanistan? Has it created a better healthcare system or pose any reasonable shot at doing so? Can we reasonably say the economy is back on track? Can we reasonably say there seems to be a plan to get the country back on track? Can we reasonably say there is a philosophy or overall approach to getting the country back on track?

What we have instead is a grab bag of compromises, superficial attempts for "everyone to get along", random decisions that do not seem rooted in a philosophical approach or outlook, and big displays of overcompensation that are out-of-sync with the realities on the ground.

We have beer summits and cash for clunkers and extended unemployment benefits a half-hearted stimulus, a half-hearted commitment to Afghanistan, and a ridiculous and overly ambitious healthcare debate.

JOBS. While the Obama administration is talking about Healthcare, Economic Recovery, and boasting about how the stimulus and bank bail out worked, people are out of work and don't know when or how jobs are coming back. We keep hearing about stimulus this, stimulus that, and it sounds to me like the check is in the mail. The stimulus was designed to bring back jobs. It hasn't. They argue, it has helped saved jobs that might have been otherwise lost. Maybe. Who knows. Many economists think the stimulus wasn't large enough. Others, like myself, am more worried about the massive debt and moral hazard created by the bank bailout. The Obama Administration seems to be toeing the compromise line - not spending big enough to fix it or not being committed enough to lower deficits in order to ride out the storm. I could honestly get behind either choice if were laid out to me and this is why we are doing this and why it's going to work and here are the drawbacks. Instead, I feel like we're getting juked stats and mission accomplished banners. "1 Million Jobs Saved" headlines, meanwhile half of my friends can't find work and the other half are worried about losing their jobs which they're already overqualified for.

AFGHANISTAN. He committed on the campaign to fighting there because it was the "good" war and created a nice (but false) narrative split between Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't know what the Obama Administration actually thinks about this issue. I know their "position," but I don't know what they actually feel in their gut. I don't get the sense he believes in winning the war the same way Bush believed in winning Iraq. I know people on the left criticize the very notion of winning and believe it impossible and irrelevant and unadult. I don't know...I guess I'm just old fashioned in that I think that if we start something, we ought to finish it or if the situation has changed or we learned more, figure out our interests and either cut our losses, continue the status quo, or just take some sort of position. I mean, from what I can tell, Obama is just following Bush's policies exactly except now he's bending over the generals and going to make a half-hearted commitment to Afghanistan with more troops to say he tried with the intention of pulling out in a couple of years regardless of what happens. To borrow from Chris Rock, it's sort of like the guy who goes out to the club, feebly asks one girl to dance, gets rejected, and then gives up and goes to the titty bar.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN. In the words of Zabotka in season 2 of the Wire, "we used to be a country that made things, now we just have our hands in the other guys pocket." We need to stop juking the stats and start making things again. It is the only road to real recovery - both financial and spiritual. Because the spirit of Americans right now is in dangerous, dangerous territory. We are down and don't see the fix. And the fix isn't in jigging the unemployment numbers to make them look better. It isn't falsely propping up housing prices again or borrowing against the future to pay for more entitlement programs. It can't be. Wealth does not come from inflated housing prices or tech stock booms. Real wealth comes from making stuff that is useful selling it to people. I don't see why everyone thinks various pyramid schemes are going to work. I know Healthcare costs are expensive. But how does it make sense that we are going to pay for this stuff with a government mandated program to cover the uninsured? How is the answer to rising healthcare costs expanding healthcare coverage? We already know Medicare has a 30 billion dollar unfunded liability. That means, we don't have the money to pay for it. And sure, Medicare is good for some people. If the government just gave me a million bucks to be paid back later by someone else, it would be good for me. No doubt. But don't pretend it makes any sense or is sustainable.

All of this would be change no one wants to believe in. Everyone just wants entitlements, easy money to cover their risk, and to be taken care of by someone else. We've all got our hands in each other's pockets and it's all turning American life into a game of hustlers and spinsters and phonys and beggars. And these people are the easiest to please.

"Kick a Ginger Day"

Ohhh Middle School...how I miss thee...one of my absolute funniest, laugh out loud moments of my life was one morning in homeroom, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker:

"We would like to announce there is a game being played at lunchtime called Chewy's Prison Camp that will no longer be allowed."

Chewy's Prison Camp was exactly what it sounds like - an eight grader named Chewy would "trap" random 6th graders and force them to do all sorts of humiliating things, like push ups or eating grass or running wind sprints, etc. Not coincidentally, we were learning about WW2 in history class at the time... In any case, I remember the game's peak when Chewy somehow managed to lock two kids into the batting cage and demanded they fight. They were actually locked in - someone grabbed a lock off a locker and they were trapped. Kids were climbing all over the batting cage and yelling "Fight, fight, fight," like a scene out of Max Max Beyond Thunderdome. It was hilarious and surreal and cruel.

Facebook is being blamed for getting a redhead beaten up at school for spreading the rumor of "kick a ginger" day.

Now I hate Facebook as much as anyone, but even I can't really blame Facebook for the cruelty of 12 year old boys. This stuff happened before Facebook and will happen after Facebook. Although, I suppose there is that whole issue of making cruelty easier...

Ahhhh....Yeah

Megan McCardle breaks down the healthcare bill -

I have to say, I'm woefully underimpressed with the argument that I am now hearing to the effect that "Medicare will bankrupt America anyway if we can't cut health care costs, so we might as well do health care reform."

Anyone who has dated a manic-depressive has heard some version of this argument. "I can barely make ends meet now, so I might as well use my tax refund check to buy a boat! After all, if I can't figure out a way to fix my budget, I'm going to go bankrupt anyway."

The argument Matt Miller often offers is the old "bending the cost curve," argument, that by getting more people under the Medicare or Public Option or Govt Paid For Healthcare umbrella, you begin to cut costs. I don't know why this is assumed...I've heard this argument before in a lot of contexts - and it kind of boils down to "if I only had some money, I could make some money." And well, usually the exact opposite is true - "If you could make some money, you'd have some money."

I'd See It

Lil' Wayne movie being blocked by Lil' Wayne even though he likes it.

And for some reason, this makes sense.

Anything Worse?

A New York Times Magazine article about when DNA testing reveals the father isn't the real father.

Not a lot things worse than discovering something like that.

He Was Just Pondering All His Options

Interesting op-ed on a WW2 blunder by Eisenhower.

Eisenhower was also a cautious, some would say indecisive, commander who favored a “broad front” strategy with all Allied armies moving in tandem on a solid front. His military objective was Germany’s main industrial area to the north, the Ruhr. Devers was operating too far south to help that effort.

True, the Germans knew the Ruhr was vital to them and fiercely defended it. But, as we know from several of their generals’ postwar memoirs, what they really feared was an incursion across the Rhine, which would have been a military catastrophe and a devastating symbolic blow to the German people.

The Rhine wasn’t crossed until March 1945. Had Eisenhower let Devers make his attack, we might now be celebrating the 65th anniversary of a cross-Rhine attack that quickly ended the war in Europe. Instead, we will soon mark the anniversary of the costliest battle in American history, the Battle of the Bulge.

It is obviously silly to Monday Morning Quarterback 65 years after the fact and impossible to know the outcome or Eisenhower's logic. But this author thinks it pretty certain the War in Europe could of ended much sooner with a more aggressive southern campaign. 80,000 American men died in the Battle of the Bulge. Today, we'd have pundits calling Eisenhower a war criminal. I don't see why Americans love to fondly remember WW2 as a good war. It was an awful war. A genocidal war on multiple fronts. Morally offensive beyond our imagination on numerous sides. It was necessary only because it wasn't prevented. The fact that we long for the clear black and white stakes presented in WW2 is somewhat disturbing.

Obama and Foreign Policy

Andrew Sullivan likes to say Obama's approach differs from Bush because he behaves like an adult when it comes to foreign policy. This well may be true. But I would counter, much of the rest of the world treats foreign policy like petulant teenagers, and behaving like an adult won't always get you anywhere when dealing with teenagers.

There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."

Haven't these people seen Children of the Corn?

Breaking Up Banks

Per the Huffpo, the WSJ Editorial Board calls for a return to splitting up commercial and investment banks.

I admittedly know nothing, but the premise of lowering the moral hazard of bailing out banks for taking heavy risks seems sound. And I'm a person who likes risk. I like gambling. I like aggressive play. But not with the rent and the safety net. And not with the country.

Who Is The Worst NFL Quarterback?

After watching Jay Cutler's performance last week, I found myself wondering "is anyone worse than this guy?"

The nominees are:

JaMarcus Russell
Derek Anderson/Brady Quinn
Mark Sanchez
Kerry Collins
Jay Cutler
Brett Farve

Kerry Collins is bad, but I think can be removed from the list because he no longer starts. Derek Anderson no longer starts as well, although with a passer rating of 36.2 an exception might be in order. In Anderson's defense, the Browns are such an awful organization right now, it is hard to get a fair evaluation of his contribution to the awfulness. Cutler sucks at times, but also dangerous and plays for an organization who seems to be handicapped at the quarterback position. That leaves JaMarcus Russell, Brett Farve, and Mark Sanchez.

I vote for Sanchez. Here's why: everyone knows Russell sucks and he plays on a team without much potential. The Jets on the other hand, have a tough defense and a good running game and by the sheer awfulness of Sanchez have turned into one of the worst teams in the league. I also particularly like this fall from grace, as he ditched out on USC and was getting hyped all over ESPN and New York the first three weeks of the season and I heard chicks at the bar saying he was the cutest quarterback in the league even thought I knew he wasn't any good.