The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

You’ve got to admit, this country has gone weird. Maybe it’s always been so, but if a Massachusetts Mormon wins South Carolina, the state that started the Civil War, you know something is not right with the world.

Most of the pundits are predicting that an uber-rich Mormon from Massachusetts is about to be the Republican nominee for president. According to the Irish odds-maker Paddy Power, the largest bookmakers in Europe, Mitt Romney is the odds on favorite to win the South Carolina Primary at 2-5. Newt Gingrich should take second at 7-2, while the odds on Rick Santorum stand at 11-2. It’s 25-1 for Ron Paul, 33-1 for Rick Perry and 100-1 for John Huntsman.

If Romney wins there, experts say it is going to be hard for his rivals to continue their presidential campaigns, to raise the money to go on and build a national infrastructure to take him on.

The same press release from the Paddy Power press office has Romney the 1-8 favorite to become the Republican nominee, but he only has a 6-4 chance of becoming president. The black guy from Hawaii, President Barack Obama, is favored 8-11. I’ll take that bet and throw in a 12-pack of Sweetwater Georgia Brown.

According to Gallup, Romney has finally broken the 30 percent barrier among Republicans. In the latest poll on the subject, Gallup reported that Romney has “finally surpassed 30 percent support among Republicans nationwide and is now their majority pick for the GOP candidate most likely to win the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.”

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A memo obtained by former Bush political aide Karl Rove’s American Crossroads reveals his plan to kill any jobs bill in Congress before the 2012 presidential election: Vilify union workers.

Karl Rove is at it again, and a new coalition has launched a concerted campaign to hold the former political guru for president George W. Bush and his GOP colleagues accountable in the upcoming election.

CampaignAccountabilityWatch.org, a new coalition of dozens of fair election non-profit organizations and advocates, is fighting back against Mr. Rove and others, such as the Chamber of Commerce and American Future Fund, to make sure that they do not violate campaign finance law in the upcoming election — as they have done in the past.

Just last month Rove announced that his American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS groups are planning to spend $120 million in the 2012 electoral cycle to ensure more conservatives are elected to Congress and President Obama is defeated.

“Over the past few months, we have seen the absolutely devastating effects of unlimited, secret money drowning out the voices and votes of hard working Americans. Campaign Accountability Watch will let U.S. Attorneys in over 40 districts know that their constituents want them to empanel grand juries and prosecute FECA violators,” attorney and campaign spokesman Kevin Zeese said in a press release announcing the campaign. “These violators may think that they can hide their donors and their books while doing the bidding of corporate barons but they cannot hide them from criminal investigations.”

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Secret Corporate Campaign Cash Subverts American Democracy

When Karl Rove learned he’d be able to channel unlimited corporate money into the 2010 elections, he must have felt like a kid in a candy store. But apparently this wasn’t enough — he’s taken advantage of tax-exempt non-profit laws to funnel tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns.

Rove’s organization, American Crossroads GPS, was one of the largest sources of outside funding in this election, but because Rove is refusing to disclose his donors, this massive source of secret funds is unchecked by campaign finance laws.

Rove’s organization shouldn’t have free reign to exert enormous influence on our elections while receiving special tax status!

Click here to demand an investigation of Karl Rove’s Shady Election Spending.

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
- Paul Newman as Luke, in Cool Hand Luke

“Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
- John Muir

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

LITTLE RIVER CANYON – Sitting as quietly and patently as could be expected on such a quick, short trip to the mountain waterfalls around Mentone, Alabama over the weekend, I gazed until I knew the sun would soon disappear from view behind the treetops at one of the Littler River Falls overlooks.

In this preserved idyllic setting, I thought about my Cherokee ancestors who lived here for hundreds of years before the United States of America was a gleam in Ben Franklin’s eye. I thought of the men who killed the Cherokee too, and connected the dots in my mind to understand the modern descendants of those killers.

Is it possible that a grudge could linger from a human gene, and not just pass down from one generation to another through the culture?

I thought about the social and political problems in the world today, chiefly focusing on this country — and my native state.

There in that muted fall beauty, as muddled as the world has become today, my thoughts also turned to the Scotsman John Muir, an early American botanist, one of the first American naturalists and nature writers to roam from the hills of Scotland to New England, through Appalachia to the Gulf of Mexico and ultimately California by way of South America.

Glynn Wilson

Click on the image for a larger view…

Muir never saw this exact spot, and for that he missed one. But he passed through these mountains on the Georgia side as surely as DeSoto. (See map below).

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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

The news could not be any worse.

I honestly wish there was some good news to report. Sorry to say, there’s not any.

Well, the Crimson Tide did manage to pull out a victory over Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, football being about the only thing worth mentioning on the good side of the ledger in Alabama. But the Atlanta Braves were knocked out of post-season play last week, so baseball season is over. So much for sports.

I traveled to the Gulf Coast again last week for Shrimp Fest, hoping upon hope to see some signs of things getting better along the formerly beautiful Gulf of Mexico. I’ve spent a fair portion of my life visiting the Gulf, and lived in Gulf Shores and New Orleans for some very interesting runs over the years.

Alas, I came away with empirical data indicating that the air and water are still dangerous and may not get well anytime soon.

On the political front, the elections of 2010 are shaping up to be compared to Richard Nixon’s midterm elections in 1970 and his reelection campaign in 1972, when corporate and individual donations were secretly pouring in to the Committee to Re-Elect the President, otherwise known as CREEP.

Nixon said he was “not a crook,” but he was certainly a creep. No historical rehabilitation will ever exonerate him for that.

The record of all that illegal Republican campaign cash was stored in the president’s secretary’s desk, and is now in the National Archives and referred to as “Rose Mary’s baby.” Unfortunately, the Washington Post‘s investigation of the Watergate break in did not pick up enough steam to stop Nixon’s reelection, even though it did culminate in his impeachment and resignation after the election — and jail time for some of his cronies.

Is it possible that a similar scenario is developing this time around?

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Sean Hannity of Fox News Disagrees?

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Something is going awry in Tea Party-GOP Land. Rove got Bush elected governor in Texas the first time by perpetrating a false rumor that Ann Richards was gay. Now when a Republican wins an election doing exactly the same thing, he doesn’t like it? Has he grown a conscience since leaving the Bush White House? Surely not. Watch the video above to see what I mean.

AmericanCrossroadsWatch.org, a group of national watchdog organizations dedicated to clean elections and corporate accountability, launched a new campaign this week to try to stop Karl Rove from using dirty tricks and dirty corporate money to manipulate the mid-term elections by buying candidates who will support Big Business and deregulation.

Rove created American Crossroads (“AC”) several months ago in a sort of hostile takeover of the Republican National Committee, and funded it by joining forces with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a cabal of billionaire corporate barons opposed to any common sense regulation, health care, environmental protection or financial accountability, according to the group. AmericanCrossroadsWatch.org filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice based on AC’s questionable activities.

“We are fighting back on behalf of the 87 percent of Americans who do not want corporations buying politicians and controlling our government,” said attorney Kevin Zeese, the group’s spokesman. “We are telling Karl Rove to keep his dirty politics and dirty money out of our elections.”

The chamber’s chief counsel, Steven Law, was named AC’s CEO. AC plans to amass more than $50 million from companies making secret donations, and spend that money to influence elections and buy candidates, the group claimed in a press release.

AmericanCrossroadsWatch.org says that AC’s hostile takeover of the duties of the RNC without the concomitant regulatory accountability appears to be “illegal on its face.” Also, the secret funding of AC from corporate CEO’s, without board or shareholder approval and without disclosure, “smacks of money laundering” and campaign finance violations.

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Let Tebow Cry…

Glynn Wilson

Paul “Bear” Bryant’s image casts a shadow over Tuscaloosa and all of Alabama. One spot stands open on the walk of fame, for the next coach to win a national championship. Will it be Saban? This year?

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

Class. It’s been awhile since we’ve heard that term used in the way Florida quarterback Tim Tebow did, through his tears Saturday night after losing the Southeastern Conference championship game, to describe the University of Alabama and its football team.

He was not using the term as a noun to talk about a group of students or an economic or social class of people. He was using it as an adjective to describe a world-class program characterized not only by its drive for “success” through “excellence,” but also by the way Alabama got the job done this year, with determination, practice and perseverance yes, but also with style, integrity, dignity and yes character, humility and grace.

That is a lesson we all should learn, if possible. It’s not easy. But life never is, is it?

While sports and American culture have both been diminished by “trash talk” over the past couple of decades, and our politics has been diminished by partisan rancor, the Georgia Dome Saturday night was the site of a remarkable departure from that nastiness. Tebow deserves credit for that, although some Alabama fans have not shown the same class toward him, which just goes to show you that class does not always trickle down to the masses.

Due to the way the Alabama defense shut down Tebow, and due to Mark Ingram’s dominance on the field, he will now most likely win the coveted Heisman Trophy for NCAA player of the year. He fully deserves it not only because of how many yards he gained or the number of touchdowns he ran. He deserves it because of his personal character and class in the way he handled it.

He never once said on camera he deserved the award. The same was true for Nick Saban, until that brief TV interview Saturday night, when he once again downplayed it by placing an emphasis on “the team.”

In case this is a burning question on the minds of people all the over the country and the world today, as I suspect it is judging by the remarks on my Facebook home page, here’s an essay on class I’ve been thinking about writing for some time. This is not just about football or sports in general. It is about life, which includes journalism and politics.

It is a story of why Nick Saban is the quintessential college football coach and was never suited to the pros. The short answer? Saban is at heart a teacher. By the time the players get to the pros, they can’t be taught anymore. By then, they either have it or they don’t.

It is a story also of why the United States became the greatest country the world has ever known, and the story of why the New York Times became the greatest newspaper ever published.

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