President Obama gave a very good speech on why America should act against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Now its time for Congress to do their job and hold a debate and vote on action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. As Representative Peter King said a Republican from New York City, “President Obama should use military force against ISIS and Congress should approve of it”. Time for the House and Senate to step up here and do their job and hold a debate and vote on American military action against Syria and Iraq.
As far as the Senate elections. The jury is still out on who will control the Senate in the next Congress. I see it still at 50-50 either way because of vulnerable Senate Democrats running for reelection in red states. But again Georgia, Kentucky and now Kansas are all in play for Senate Democrats as well. Which means even if Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia fall to Senate Republicans, that is only a net plus of two seats for them if they don’t hold Georgia, Kentucky and Kansas which are all in play for Democrats. If that is the scenario, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alaska will decide with party controls the Senate in the next Congress.
Without the Bush Campaign literally bashing Bob Dole in South Carolina in 1988 and doing things like accusing Mr. Dole of fathering African-American babies which I guess was considered a sin for Caucasian men to do at least back then, Bob Dole probably wins the Republican nomination for President. The story would’ve been that the ranking Republican Leader in Congress, the highest ranking Republican in Congress beats the Vice President of the Untied States the 2nd highest ranking officer in the Federal Government and the 2nd ranking officer in the Republican Party. At the time Bob Dole was the Republican Leader in the Senate as Minority Leader. George H.W. Bush was Vice President of the United States.
Because of course George Bush was going to win New Hampshire. He’s a Northeastern Republican a Yankee if you will against Bob Dole who’s from Kansas that looks a lot like the deep South culturally and perhaps even politically. So Dole was probably in better position to beat Bush in South Carolina just for those reasons alone. Plus the fact with Dole’s long conservative record in Congress not just as Minority Leader, but Leader and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans in the South and Midwest back then tended to trust Bob Dole over a Yankee Northeastern Republican like George H.W. Bush.
So Bob Dole did what he had to do in Iowa which was win the caucus in 1988. Knowing that George Bush was probably going to win New Hampshire and the real test for both and the primary that would give either one real momentum going forward with an opportunity to win several states after that was South Carolina. The Bush Campaign swung for the fences and put in everything they could to beat Dole in South Carolina, including lying about Dole’s record in Congress and they succeeded. With the Dole Campaign apparently unprepared for the Bush attacks.
What Dan Rather wanted Vice President George H.W. Bush to talk about in their 1988 interview was what did the Vice President know about Iran Contra. Which was a situation that happened in the Ronald Reagan Administration where George Bush was obviously Vice President the 1st Officer and General Counsel to President Reagan. A member of President Reagan’s National Security Council with deep knowledge about national security and foreign policy.
Common sense tells you that Vice President Bush knew about the Reagan policy when it came to Iran Contra, which was about selling arms for the release of American hostages in Iran. Why, because the Vice President you would think again with his resume and position in the Reagan Administration. So when Dan Rather asks the Vice President about those meetings and Vice President Bush says he doesn’t recall being there instead of saying he was or he wasn’t, you could see why Rather wouldn’t take that answer at face-value and try dig deeper into what the Vice President may of knew.
That interview was about Dan Rather trying to get the Vice President to talk about Iran Contra. For obvious reasons the Vice President didn’t want to talk about it. Because if he did, some embarrassing information about either him or President Reagan may have come out like both of them knowing more than they earlier admitted to. And it would’ve given the Democrats even more things to hit Vice President Bush with as he was running for President in 1988.
I wouldn’t call former Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan the father of the 46 Defense, but he certainly was one of the fathers. You could make a case that what former Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville is the father of the 46 Defense. They just didn’t call it that in Atlanta in the mid and late 1970s and even into the 1980s when Glanville was still coaching the Falcons defense before he moved on to Houston. In Atlanta this defense was called the Grits Blitz.
But what is the 46 Defense and why is it called that when the Bears didn’t even line up four men up front and six right behind the defensive line. The Bears would line up four DL generally, two defensive ends and two defensive tackles. With Otis Wilson and Wilbur Marshal who were normally linebackers would line up next to either defensive end Dan Hampton or Richard Dent. With middle linebacker Mike Singletary covering the middle of the field almost by himself.
The 46 Defense to paraphrase Buddy Ryan was based off of a simple mathematic proposition. That if the offense lines seven up front and we line eight up front, at least one defender will always go unblocked and free to either rush the QB or stuff the runner. Which meant the Bears on defense would generally have eight guys lined up in the box. Not all of them on the line of scrimmage. Four down front, two linebackers again right next to one of the DE’s, Mike Singletary right behind the DT’s and a safety right near the line of scrimmage as well.
What also made the Bears 46 special was just because they generally lined up eight guys in the box, that didn’t mean eight guys were always rushing the line of scrimmage. They wanted the offense to always believe that was a possibility and have to prepare for that. Most offenses fell for that trap and played the Bears 46 conservatively and tried to keep more guys in for protection and run blocking. Leaving fewer people in the play that the QB can throw the ball to and also making it harder to run the ball. Because instead spreading the 46 out, you leave everybody in making things very crowded.
The opposite is true in how you attack the 46. You don’t go conservative especially if you are a good offensive team with a good QB and passing game. You bring in extra WR’s and spread the defense out, which gives you more room to operate on offense. And once you establish the passing game and can even hit a few passes deep, now you got the Bears thinking about the passing game. Which gives you room to run the football.
As I mentioned last night, the Dolphins were the only team that figured out how to attack the Bears 46 in 1985 and have the personal to do it on offense. The Redskins studied that and used their own variation of that in 86 and 87. By using maximum protection, but not to run the football, but to hit big passes down the field. And spread the Bears out as well to throw short and that is how they beat the Bears in 86 and 87 in the NFC Playoffs. As well as being good enough on defense to stop the Bears.
Senator Prescott Bush who of course is the father of George H.W. Bush and the grandfather of George H.W. Bush’s children, was what we would call a Northeastern Republican today. Someone who leans conservative, but who isn’t anti-government and someone who believes government should help people in need, but not try to run people’s lives for them. Someone who believes that physically and mentally able people should work.
A Northeastern Republican is no Progressive New Dealer or Great Society advocate, but not someone who fits in well with the anti-government more libertarian leaning Tea Party movement of the Republican Party either. Or the Religious-Right in the Republican Party. Who leans right on economic and foreign policy, but not anti-government. Someone who believes the best government is the government that is closest to home and shouldn’t be running people’s lives for them. Out of people’s wallets and personal lives.
As much trouble as President Jimmy Carter was in politically in 1979-80, having an approval rating somewhere in the thirties and looking very vulnerable to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election with all the economic problems and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, President Carter whipped Senator Ted Kennedy in most of the Democratic presidential primaries. Senator Kennedy didn’t win many if any states outside of the Northeast in 1980.
With a better stronger more personally disciplined presidential candidate with the same popularity in the Democratic Party as Ted Kennedy had, President Carter would’ve been a lot more vulnerable and perhaps isn’t renominated for president. But Ted Kennedy turned out to be a lousy presidential candidate for a few reasons.
He didn’t want to be president and was running out of some obligation he believed he had to the Democratic Party.
He didn’t even know why he wanted to be president as Roger Mudd made clear in the CBS interview.
And he had a lot of personal issues that he was dealing with at that time. Like getting divorced and rumors around he was involved with multiple women.
The then Democratic controlled House of Representatives looked into tobacco by investigating the industry and looking at ways of regulating the industry. The famous scene with all of those tobacco executives lying under oath that tobacco isn’t addictive. Which no one with a brain who’s familiar with tobacco believes, was the big moment during that investigation. People who support regulating tobacco like a drug didn’t achieve their goals in the 103rd Congress. But with a Democratic Congress both House and Senate and a Democratic President in Bill Clinton, it was worth the effort.
As far as health care reform and the Clinton Administration’s attempt to reform the health care system in America. If it wasn’t dead by the spring of 1994, it probably just had a heart attack and needed emergency surgery in order to save it. If you look at the plan that President Clinton proposed and what President Obama was able to get through another Democratic Congress in 2010, both laws are very similar. Expanding health insurance through the private insurance system and helping people who aren’t officially poor, but do not make enough money to buy health insurance. And regulating the private health insurance system.
But the problem that President Clinton and his economic council had was that they weren’t able to explain what I just did as simply as I did. And the plan was dubbed socialize medicine, even though there was never a plan offered by President Clinton or the Democratic Leadership in Congress to nationalize health care system. Either health insurance or health care delivery. And the Clinton Administration was never able or never did fight back in an effective way. And argue that the Clinton health care plan was mainstream and not some big government socialist takeover.
I was well sixteen months old on St. Patrick’s Day 1977. So to state the obvious, I don’t remember it. My memory starts really in the summer of 1978 when I’m three years old and right before I started nursery school that year. But I’m obviously interested in American history as this blog makes that clear and part of that history has to do with news history and what broadcast news looked like back then and the stories they covered and how they covered them.
What the CBS Evening News was covering on this day in 1977 was a lot of bad weather. America had a pretty long and brutal winter in 1977 and this was just a few days before spring officially started that year and winter was still happening for most of the Northeast and Midwest, but the Mountain West and Northwest as well. They also looked at what I at least from what I saw looked like a cult. Which wasn’t an uncommon thing back then even by the late 1970s. So it looked like an interesting day.
The reason why the Bears 46 Defense isn’t ranked as high at least by a lot of NFL historians as lets say the Steel Curtain Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s or even the Ravens of the last decade or so, is because the Steelers and Ravens were great on defense for a decade and not just one season or a few seasons. After the Bears lost to the Redskins at home in the 1986 Divisional Playoff, the dominance and fear of the Bears I wouldn’t say was gone, but teams knew how to beat them now. Which is what I’m going to get into.
I have a friend on Facebook who I met on YouTube who actually who disagrees with this. But Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins figured out how to beat the Bears defense in 1985 and not just figured it out, but had the offensive personal to get it done. And the Dolphins were the only team that beat the Bears in the 1985 season. Most NFL teams believed the way you beat the Bears was establishing the run so they can’t kill you with the blitz. Well there are a couple of problems with that. The Bears were excellent against the run. Second with always having seven guys if not eight in the box, it makes it very difficult to run against that formation especially with the size and strength the Bears had on defense.
The Dolphins approached the 46 differently. One for strategic reasons that they had a great QB in Dan Marino with a very quick and accurate release who got rid of the ball quickly. They also always had at least three very good wide receivers in the 1980s with Marino when you are talking about Mark Duper, Mark Clayton and Nat More. The other reason being practical for the Dolphins. Lets be real here, the Dolphins didn’t have a running game other than maybe Tony Nathan. Who was better suited as a change-up back and a wing back, hybrid between a halfback and wide receiver. Someone who catches a lot of screens and passes out of the backfield and runs draws.
So what the Dolphins did is what they did better than anyone else in the NFL back then except for maybe the San Francisco 49ers was throw the football and throw it a lot. And just didn’t throw the football a lot, but threw it very well. They spread out the Bears and threw a lot quick short routes to the guys I’ve already mentioned and forced the Bears with all of their big men to play a lot of pass coverage. So their horses upfront didn’t have the time to get to Marino who was getting rid of the ball on quick drops anyway. The Dolphins turned their Monday Night game against the Bears into a shootout. Thinking the Bears couldn’t keep up on offense and they were right.
I’m not saying the Bears secondary was a weak link and their linebackers sure as hell weren’t. At least one more of their linebackers should be in the Hall of Fame, Wilbur Marshal comes to mind real fast. But they didn’t have that one strong cover corner like a Rod Woodson or a Mel Blount. And they didn’t have a lot of speed and range with their safety’s. Which meant they played their coverages and their assignments, but when something broke down, or they had to cover one-on-one against a very good or great WR, their defense became exposed.
The Dolphins beat the Bears in 85 by spreading the 46 out and throwing a lot of quick passes. The Redskins beat them in the 86 and 87 defenses by going maximum protection and taking shots downfield against single coverage with WR’s Art Monk and Gary Clark. The Bears linebackers were hitters and stuffers first, but could get exposed when it came to pass coverage because of a lack of running speed and the fact they didn’t play a lot pass coverage. There job was to hit and to destroy, not cover.
Now the positive aspect of the 85 Bears. If I had to take one defense for one season as far as how dominant they were, I take the 85 Bears over everyone else. Because of how dominant they were not just in the regular season, but in the NFC Playoffs not giving a single point against two good teams in the LA Rams and New York Giants. I think the 86 Giants had better overall personal on defense especially in the secondary and that their linebackers could play pass coverage as well. But nobody was more dominant on defense for one season than the 85 Bears.
If you are familiar with the old CNN version of Crossfire from the 1980s and 1990s, this is what it looks like. Where the two debaters let’s say aren’t really there to answer the others questions or points, other than to try to turn it around and make it look like something else. Where they are there to actually respond to the other side other than to say what they are there to say. Get their talking points out and to make their case. But not to actually have a discussion with the other side.
If this was a real interview, Dan Rather asks questions or makes points. And then George Bush has the opportunity without being interrupted as long as he’s responding to the questions and points about what the interviewer asked. Not trying to respond to every single point that is made before the other has the opportunity to finish their point and make their case. Didn’t see that here, what we saw was two people not really talking to each other, but for the most part talking past each other.
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