Political Compulsive Disorder

[!!!]

It’s a funny thing we are seeing these days. Democrats know full well that their tactics of slander and defeatism are not working to win elections, yet they just will not consider their position in any kind of mature light. Strange. Yet we have seen this before, and the problem seems to be based on raw emotion overriding better judgment. Political Compulsive Disorder, or PCD if you will.

Republicans have done it too, of course. Bill Clinton got on Conservative nerves like no one in a long time. This was partly due to his politics, but also his personal character – Conservatives hated the man, and were determined to find a weapon to use on him at almost all costs. That hardly means that the Impeachment was not valid; it was. But the emotions rose and fell at various times, and when it came time to follow, the Republicans in the Senate proved to have no fortitude for the task. And so, despite all the momentum leading up to the Senate trial, the actual event was weak and ineffective.

Of course, it should also be observed that Bill Clinton’s staff was equally obsessed with the same disorder. Just as Richard Nixon never seemed to realize, Bill Clinton failed to understand that he could have avoided all his serious trouble with a bit of candor; both men instead tried to deny and obfuscate and ignore the growing personal crisis, until in both cases the consequences grew too big to handle. In Nixon’s case, it cost him his job and place in history, while in Clinton’s turn it cost him what chance at a legacy he had, and damaged Al Gore’s chances to be President.

As for the Democrats, there’s a lot they need to learn from history. The Democrats owned control of Congress for more than half a century, and the loss to the Republicans has led to a bitter denial of reality in their midst. The PCD phenomenon showed up in the Democrats’ side in their vicious vendetta against Nixon in 1973, never dreaming it could lead to a backlash when an incompetent President put the security of the nation at risk in 1979. A new wave of Leftist PCD rose against Ronald Reagan, who refused to act as if his party were the minority, but instead whose policies and ideals resonated with the American public. That wave failed to harm Reagan, but damaged the fortunes of his successor, the less solid G.H.W. Bush. After Clinton’s election in 1992, under circumstances which outraged Republicans, it was the Conservative turn to suffer PCD, though it led to the beneficial uprising which changed control of the House of Representatives in 1994. But PCD is not a moderate emotion, and it drove GOP leaders to take actions and make statements which appeared immoderate and unstable to many Americans, especially as political gestures became more important to the party than keeping the promises made to gain control of the House. This enabled Clinton to be re-elected and enjoy the majority in the Senate through his time in office.

But time has shown the Leftists’ PCD to be far more severe and permanent. After George W. Bush won the White House in 2000, Democrats and Liberals in particular were extremely angry, just as Republicans were unhappy in 1992. But where most Republicans were able to work past their anger and adjust to reality to their advantage by 1994, the Democrats just got less and less reasonable. The short-lived amity after the 9/11 attacks displayed the intense and bitter hatred most on the Left carried in their hearts, and it drove them to harsh rhetoric and extremely partisan attacks. This, combined with President Bush’s organizational and motivating skills, led to unexpected gains for the Republicans in 2002.

I admit that while I was not particularly worried about President Bush’s chances for re-election in 2004, I did wonder how he would fare in the 2006 mid-term elections, and I sensed that with 5 of the last 7 Presidential elections going to the Republican candidate, the mood for a change might be dominant in 2008. As it happens however, if the Democrats cannot bring themselves to control their emotions and begin to act in a more mature manner, they not only may continue to lose seats in the upcoming 2006 election, but the 2008 as well. The ability to change course after all, is not an immediate thing, and the momentum of the past decade seems to be increasing in a rather unfavorable direction for the Democrats. The key for the Republicans, and especially Conservatives, is to watch for and avoid PCD ourselves if and when it should show again in our own ranks.

Salute A Spook

[ shh ]

You want to talk about 'the few, the proud'? How about a job where you risk your life, but the medals you win will be locked away, because the missions are classified so highly that you can’t even tell your family what you were doing? How about a job where, if someone knew who you worked for, the most common assumption would be that you were practicing deceit, murder, and perhaps the overthrow of legitimate governments? How about a job where even your allies wouldn’t be seen in public with you?

Welcome to the Central Intelligence Agency.

I will say more about the intelligence services over the next few days, but for here and now, I just want to focus on 48 names. There are 83 agents of the CIA who have earned a place in the “Book of Honor”; 48 of those men have been publicly named (and at least six agents have died in the CIA service serving in the present Middle East conflict). All are worth respect, especially seeing as how little of it they saw during their service.

I Salute:

Jerome P. Ginley
Norman A. Schwartz
Robert C. Snoddy
Wilburn S. Rose
William P. Botolex
Frank G. Grace, Jr.
Howard Carey
Chiyoki Ikeda
Leo F. Baker
Wade C. Grey
Thomas W. Ray
Riley W. Shamburger, Jr.
Nels L. Benson
John G. Merriman
Buster E. Edens
John W. Waltz
Edward Johnson
Michael M. Deuel
Michael A. Maloney
Louis A. O’Jibway
Walter L. Ray
Billy Jack Johnson
Jack W. Weeks
Wayne J. McNulty
Richard M. Sisk
Paul C. Davis
David L. Konzelman
Wilbur Murray Greene
Raymond L. Seaborg
John Peterson
John W. Kearns
William E. Bennett
Richard S. Welch
James A. Rawlings
Tucker Gougelmann
Robert C. Ames
Scott J. Van Lieshout
Curtis R. Wood
William F. Buckley
Richard D. Krobock
Lansing H. Bennett, M.D.
Frank A. Darling
James M. Lewele
John A. Celli
Johnny Michael Spann
Helge P. Boes
William Francis Carlson
Christopher Glenn Mueller

Read Bill Roggio

[ *** ]

I have been remiss in linking to the very important work being done by Bill Roggio, write of the The Fourth Rail. Bill went to Iraq recently, at his own expense and significant inconvenience, to be an embedded reporter and relay the real deal about what’s going on in Iraq. The series of reports from Bill are well worth reading, as noted here, here, and here.

The Washington Post couldn’t bother to get the facts right about Bill’s mission, which only goes to reinforce the value of Bill’s work.

Roggio is thorough, honest, insightful, and extremely credible. If you want to know what’s going on in Iraq and why it matters, read Bill and read him again.

Hypocrisy Does Not Befit You, Madam

.!.

A Blogger Responds To A Slap In The Face


I like reading Townhall most of the time. Solid columns which are generally both well-written and intelligent. Sadly, there are a few cases which demand a response, and at times a forceful one. This is such an occasion. Kathleen Parker, an ostensibly educated columnist who directs the Buckley School of Public Speaking and Persuasion, wrote a work which, at best, is foolish and wrongly disrespects the most significant evolution of public debate in our lifetimes, and quite possibly displays the desperation of an archaic aristocracy in denial. In a column titled “Lord of the blogs”, Parker unleashes a series of false presumptions and arrogant insults at the Blogging phenomenon. Accordingly, it seems to me fitting that a blogger should respond to those points, and so I present my answer here.

Parker begins by a brief overview of the Internet, then quickly homes on blogging, which she describes as the “insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility - the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification.”

At that point, I couldn’t help but think of the MSM’s marriage to the Democratic Party, and quick manner in which supposed scandals of public figures are so quickly touted on television and in the mass media. I do not mean just the scurrilous lies thrown out about George W. Bush, but the false allegations in the late 1980s that his father had an affair, and even the disgusting way that the most lurid rumors about Bill Clinton, including many which were far from carrying even a seed of truth, were presented. Parker, however, was not admitting to her own industry’s focus on the seamier side of rumors, but pretending that this was something new, that “Yellow Journalism” somehow began with the Instapundit. Not picking on Glenn, but I suspect a fact- and link-laden site like his is anathema to Ms. Parker. Permit me to doubt your veracity, madam.

Parker then goes on to denounce bloggers as “creepy”, “recently wired squatters”, and to sniff at “power untempered by restraint and accountability.” Parker somehow manages to write this without once considering Rathergate, Mary Mapes, or any of a dozen pathological liars granted prime-time spotlights to throw out allegations without substance, to pursue personal vendettae against anyone of the wrong sort of politics, and to not only display bias in their product, but defend it falsely as objective journalism. Mainstream media demonstrates no sense of responsibility, no duty to the nation or to the rights of the people they attack. And for Parker to blithely dance past the hate-spattered frauds which only came to light because bloggers uncovered them, is beyond the pale. Hypocrisy does not become you, madam.

The money line in the column comes next:

“Say what you will about the so-called mainstream media, but no industry agonizes more about how to improve its product, police its own members and better serve its communities.”

That, put bluntly, is a lie. There is clear evidence of a left-leaning bias in the newspaper and television news industry, and not only has this been well-researched and explained (see “Bias” by Bernard Goldberg), the backlash to it in the public has also been noted (see “South Park Republicans”, by Brian C. Anderson). But Parker does not see the inconvenient; she is too intent on her enemy. She goes on to dismiss most bloggers as people who “babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.”

According to Parker, bloggers “are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision. Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi.

“They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I'll say you're important if you'll say I'm important) and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.”

Given the behavior at, say, the New York Timesor the Washington Post, I would say a certain parable about ocular lumber needs mention, but I suspect the lesson would be lost on Ms. Parker. She’s here to show us our place, not mess about with facts and truth, you know.

Parker excuses the outright crimes of her professional colleagues by chirping that “[w]hen someone trips, whether Dan Rather or Eason Jordan or Judith Miller, bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging. Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim.”

Fraud is a felony in the conditions employed by Mr. Rather. And attempting to subvert a federal election as Rather tried, or to falsely indict an innocent man as Ms. Miller appears to have hoped to do, are criminal acts. Excusing such conduct hardly impresses to the public or a discerning mind a desire for accountability or professional standards in your profession, Ms. Parker.

Ms. Parker’s solution to bloggers?

“We can't silence them, but for civilization's sake - and the integrity of information by which we all live or die - we can and should ignore them.”

And the Mainstream Media wonders why they are still losing viewers and readers…

For the record, Ms. Parker: I am forty-five years old, married and a professional in my own field, with decades of experience. I am neither rich, nor do I have an abundance of “toys” or time, but I blog to serve the responsibility to answer aristocrats like yourself, the sort who wrongly think the common man is unable to understand or analyze the complex matters of state, economy, and culture. I am, in a manner, one of those people who has to clean up after the likes of you, presenting facts in place of your lies, the actual history in place of your fables, and an alternative analysis in place of your diatribes. Accountability is instantaneous; my readers will not let me slide on a falsehood, because unlike the MSM, I allow comments and a debate begins immediately upon publication. I give credit to sources and link to them, so that readers can check the facts for themselves, and they do.

You, to be blunt, represent a useless past. The mainstream press can be of great value, but not as long as you continue to lie about standards you rejected long ago because they were inconvenient, and as long as you ignore the public demand for responsible journalism.

Blogging exists for a variety of reasons, but it would not have an audience for commentary and analysis, except that your cadre of politically correct partisans drives people with common sense to seek alternatives and balance. Bloggers do not hate journalists in either the individual or collective sense, but we take on a code of honor which is sadly lacking in your numbers, and when we see a Rather or a Miller act in such an unconscionable way as they have, we present the facts and challenge falsity. Rather and Miller and Jordan received nothing which did not come from their own bad judgment and rash arrogance; indeed their positions have wrongly protected them from a fully just consequence. Rather, as an example, was neither arrested nor censured for his acts, but retired with a large pension and his pride unpricked. That is simply wrong madam, and you know it, or if you remembered your J-school standard, you would.

I am a blogger, and I am very good at what I do. Unlike you, however, I neither pretend to be better than other people, nor do I refuse to look hard into the mirror. And there are many like me. We are the future of journalism, not to replace the people who gather and report the news, but to drive them back to the ideals which used to matter; honesty, integrity, balance.

You know what I find “creepy”? That someone like you would be teaching future journalists. Watch and see, madam. Blogging is neither going away, nor is it ignored. Within ten years, you will start to see major journalism schools take it up as a necessary skill. Within five you will see a blog report segment on the major news networks, at least the ones which can keep their viewers. It’s simple really, just supply and demand – as long as you refuse to supply real news, people will demand it from us.

Back To Basics: Constitution 101

[wtp]

The Democrats have reached a new low; Afraid not only of Republican majorities in the House and Senate, they now seek to dilute the authority of the Executive Branch, by denying the President powers needed to do his job. I am speaking of course, about the recent noise frumped up from the Left over surveillance of communications for purposes of foreign intelligence. The Left would have people believe that warrantless searches are illegal and so use that issue to attack the President. Examination of the actual facts not only proves the falsity of such claims, but demonstrates the shallow and deceitful character of the people who present such charges.

First, as to warrants. I call to the stand Andrew McCarthy, who presented a long list of court-sustained instances where a warrant is not required for a search, and certainly the fact that the intent of this surveillance is to monitor the conversations involving foreign nationals discussing plans to attack the United States meets this standard. And it should be understood as well, that since many of these calls are from non-citizens or to non-citizens, the question about the rights of American citizens is not really at issue.

Also, is it really necessary to remind people of the difference between collecting information for use in a criminal trial, and information used to detect and prevent a terrorist attacks? I’ve said it before, but it needs saying over and over again – we should be shooting terrorists, not reading them rights as if we wanted to avoid getting sued.

But back to the question of President Bush. If there’s anything since 9/11 that Americans ought to agree on, it’s that we must protect the nation from another horrific attack. There can be no doubt that our enemy in this case is one with no scruples against killing innocents, or who would hesitate for an instant to use any weapon which could harm the United States. The 9/11 Commission wanted a better job of “connecting the dots”, which is simply a euphemism for collecting and analyzing intelligence data. Since our enemies are not likely to broadcast their specific plans, that rather means we have to spy on them, their phone calls and their emails and any international communication. It’s obvious to most of us, that if we had been intercepting phone calls between the United States and, say, Afghanistan in late 2000 and early 2001, we might have caught the hijackers before they carried out their plans. And no, terrorists have no expectation of privacy, under any interpretation of the Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution, believe it or not, sets out rather clearly that there are three branches of the Federal Government, each with its own powers and character, all equal to each other. Article I discusses the character and powers of the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government. Article III discusses the character and powers of the Judicial Branch, and between them is Article II, which addresses the Executive Branch. Even schoolchildren are aware that the three branches are equal to each other, with none intended to take precedence or supremacy. Apparently liberals are “re-educated” to indoctrinate them into missing that fact.

As the Constitution makes clear, the “President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices”. This is to say that on a matter of foreign intelligence, especially one which concerns possible military action, it is the President who has authority to act and use his judgment, rather than the Congress or any court, even the Supreme Court. Court reviews have supported this fact before, as John Schmidt observed:

“the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the ... courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence ... We take for granted that the president does have that authority."

The passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 did not alter the constitutional situation. That law created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that can authorize surveillance directed at an "agent of a foreign power", which includes a foreign terrorist group. Thus, Congress put its weight behind the constitutionality of such surveillance in compliance with the law's procedures.

But as the 2002 Court of Review noted, if the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches, "FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."

The Supreme Court has also upheld such Presidential authority, inherent in the office, as noted in UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), citing “the Government's right to protect itself from unlawful subversion and attack” and specifically stating;

“We begin the inquiry by noting that the President of the United States has the fundamental duty, under Art. II, 1, of the Constitution, to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Implicit in that duty is the power to protect our Government against those who would subvert or overthrow it by unlawful means. In the discharge of this duty, the President - through the Attorney General - may find it necessary to employ electronic surveillance to obtain intelligence information on the plans of those who plot unlawful acts against the Government. The use of such surveillance in internal security cases has been sanctioned more or less continuously by various Presidents and Attorneys General since July 1946.”

The distinction then, between the normative conditions of legal proceedings and criminal charges, measured against the imperatives of National Security and the collection of foreign intelligence information, is a crucial one.

Leftists often fall back on the Fourth Amendment, but a reading of that article simply notes that searches and seizures must not be “unreasonable”, and as Mr. McCarthy so eloquently cited, there are already literally dozens of conditions in criminal law where a warrant is not required at all. What manner of logic must be used to suggest that a private citizen’s yacht may be searched on the open sea without a warrant, but foreign nationals have a right to privacy for their e-mails to or from places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran? I rather suspect that if those emails should later prove critical to advance knowledge of a plot to, say, irradiate Washington D.C. with a dirty bomb, the same leftists now demanding new rights for suspected terrorists would be the first to demand to know why we did not intercept the communications.

In the end, I do not worry overmuch about the Democrats and their agenda. While they manage to smear good people’s names, and have managed to distract focus from the War on Terror all too often, the Democrats can’t fool all the people, most of whom I can trust to recall why we are in this war, and to understand the need for responsible but functional strategy.

Getting The Business From Business School

$$$

Gee, how I wish my house was paid for. It appears that I would need to take another mortgage on it, to get the money necessary for a first-class MBA. People I speak to have one and all assured me that getting a top-school MBA will pay for itself, but few can explain how ordinary folks can pay for the thing.

Of course, I'm in a foul mood for a number of reasons besides the sticker shock of schools. My dad has learned he is likely to be completely blind from macular degeneration inside of six months, and this after surgery for cataracts and treatment for glaucoma. Also, my daughter caught Strep Throat last week, and in the process of things my wife and I have come down with it as well, along with those ubiquitous "flu-like symptoms" that could be anything from a bad cold, to the first human cases of the Avian Flu in the United States.



So anyway, here I am trying to figure just what, precisely, I intend to do with my MBA after I earn it. Assuming, naturally, that two years of hard work and sacrifice will result in getting the degree. For a number of reasons, going to a school out-of-town or becoming a full-time student are not feasible options, so that leaves Online or Part-Time. There is a remote but real chance I could get into Rice or Texas (who now offers an MBA course in Houston), but while both of those schools enjoy solid reputations nationally, both run around $74,000 tuition for the program. Well, UT says $67,000 for tuition, but throws in another $7,000 for various fees and costs, so that it amounts to the same thing. My employer would reimburse me, but only up to $5,250 a year maximum. The tax benefits would amount to another $3,000 a year maybe, so that leaves me somewhere around $57,500 short of the deal. Suffice to say, I do not have $57,500 in discretionary funds available to me, which means getting a loan or scholarship. Unfortunately, my age, undergrad degree and GPA, to say nothing of how long ago I earned it, all work against scholarship hopes, and it is very difficult for a Part-Time student to get any love from the Federal Government in terms of a student loan. Argh.

I know, I know. Lots of students bite the bullet and sign on for that devil's deal and get a bank loan, hoping to pay it off after the super-job is lured in by their shiny MBA. But my whole career is Risk-Averse, and the notion of adding that much debt before I have a sure idea of who I will be working for as an MBA, much less how much I will be making, makes that a bad idea on most fronts.

I understand Scrooge much better these days.

RISK

*+*+*

Back when I was in college, I loved to play RISK, a board game where the initial objective was to take over the world. As we learned the different layers of the game, however, my friends and I learned that it was often a greater imperative to prevent someone else from taking over. That was because RISK is a difficult game to win, which makes it all the more satisfying if you can do it, and which therefore drives people to form alliances and coalitions with the aim of preventing a specific person from winning. That’s where we are today in the modern world; a lot of nations know they have no chance of “winning” in any global contest, so they band together, not for any constructive purpose or mutual gain, but simply to prevent the United States from “winning”.

Why would nations want to make that kind of useless agreement? In some cases, it’s because the leaders of those nations are tyrants and despots, and they understand that a United States in full power will make their personal position very unstable. Others understand that while they may be able to claim that they are effectively democratic, a superior American influence may force them to abandon uneven practices and tactics, and to live by the terms of their own rhetoric. Still others fear that a victory for American methods and ideals will lead to American dominance in culture and trade.

Historically, there is little for a free nation to fear from the United States, but the dirty secret of the Left is that free elections is feared by Socialists, Communists, and Jihadists, especially the thought of giving votes to women and ethnic minorities; they lose the fulcrum by which they either oppress those groups, or by which they pretend to champion those people. The Welfare State takes many forms, but it kills Liberty even as it pretends its defense.

Another lesson I learned from RISK, is that sometimes a player is far too strong to oppose. When this happens, the only smart move is to be his buddy, so he has less reason to go after you. I wonder how long it will take for the real world to learn that particular lesson.

And A Little Child Shall Scare Them

+++

Today celebrates the birth of Christ Jesus, the Son of God come to Man for the forgiveness of our sins and the reconcilation of Man with God. This simple proposition has found opposition ever since its first suggestion,and in modern times the very concept of Christianity comes under fire for all manner of supposed evils; the essentials of Christianity are all too often ignored in order to pillory the people leading the faith.

Of course, the rise of mega-churches has led to a peculiar interpretation of the Gospel mesage. Far too many of these self-praising palaces emphasize the pursuit of earthly success, while doing little if anything to remind their members to think of the less fortunate around them. This leads to congregations which are outwardly successful, but wondering why their faith is so weak.

Over on Beliefnet, I have seen a lot of attacks on the Christian faith , deriding it as no better than any other, indeed no different in history or source than many Babylonian and Pagan myths. This is a pretty thinly-veiled attempt to bring those cults up to the moral level of Christianity, but it’s not true.

The whole notion of Christianity was radical for its time. The very notion that the Kingdom of God would have nothing to do with the affairs and priorities of Man, was a revolt against the order of every regime controlled by Man. And the notion that forgiveness was freely given by God to all of His creatures, so that the rituals and complex doctrines of established dogmas was not at all necessary for someone whose heart sought God in truth, was unacceptable to the traditional establishment. Jesus was, in word and action, an observant Jew, an obedient subject to the Romans, and an innocent man. Yet he was hated by most of the Sanhedrin, by the Roman authorities, and by many men, simply because he taught a truth greater than they could control. And a generation after his crucifixion, His followers were quite willing to die for their faith, rather than recant. After Constantine came to power, Christianity gained human favor, and with it temporal power and wealth which has changed in nature and character, but has never quite returned to the original faith of the disciples, except at the individual level, as Christ always taught.

So it is, that many people do not really know Jesus Christ. They see the politics, the money, the history of one church or denomination. It might do, then, to remind people of the Christ whose birth is celebrated today:

God, desiring to reach men directly, took on human form and limitations. This is why we say “The Trinity”, because the Father remained Sovereign in Heaven, but sent His Son Jesus to live as man.

Deserving by his person to live in luxury and comfort, Jesus instead accepted the mean birth in a stable, and a life of relative poverty and disadvantage. This continued all through his life, as men who should have seen him as the promised King of Kings, instead rejected Him, and men who ought to have bowed prostrate in His presence, arranged instead to murder Him. Yet Jesus did not even condemn them for this, but forgave them as the paramount example of mercy and forbearance.

Jesus lived the perfect life by example, and taught the Kingdom of Heaven. He spoke to crowds, but His message was always to the individual, and is a message of hope and solace.

After his death, Jesus rose from the dead, but neither avenged Himself on His enemies, nor sought to overthrow the human order. Instead, he showed Himself to His believers as a sign of His power, but commanded them to spread the Gospel in love and hope and mercy.

That is the child we celebrate today. Far too scary for many to face.

PFL Week Sixteen

.<>.

Week Sixteen Scoreboard

Teddy Roosevelt (15-0), idle
Washington (15-0), idle
George W. Bush (15-0) 58, Ford (6-9) 0
Reagan (15-0) 56, GHW Bush (7-8) 0
Eisenhower (14-1) 76, Buchanan (0-15) 0
Jefferson (13-2), idle
FDR (13-2), idle
Grant (13-2) 27, Jackson (6-9) 9
Monroe (12-3) 55, Taylor (6-9) 0
Truman (12-3) 58, W Harrison (2-13) 3
JFK (11-4) 51, Pierce (2-13) 3
Polk (11-4) 69, A Johnson (0-15) 0
Lincoln (10-5), idle
Taft (10-5) 25, Arthur (7-8) 12
John Adams (9-6) 45, Coolidge (3-12) 9
Cleveland (9-6) 27, Nixon (7-8) 25
McKinley (9-6) 47, Fillmore (2-13) 3
JQ Adams (8-7) 28, Garfield (3-12) 9
Hayes (8-7) 32, Hoover (2-13) 9
Madison (8-7) 60, Harding (2-13) 10
Wilson (7-8), idle
B Harrison (6-9) 44, Clinton (0-15) 9
Van Buren (6-9) 27, Carter (4-11) 9
LBJ (3-12) 23, Tyler (4-11) 16

Division A
[02] Washington (15-0) Division Champion
[09] Monroe (12-3) Wild Card berth clinched
[12] Polk (11-4) WC3 pending

Division B
[05] Eisenhower (14-1) Playoff berth clinched
[07] Jefferson (13-2) Wild Card berth clinched

Division C
[01] T Roosevelt (15-0) Division Champion
[06] Grant (13-2) Wild Card berth clinched

Division D
[03] George W Bush (15-0) Division Champion
[10] Truman (12-3) Wild Card berth clinched

Division E
[04] Reagan (15-0) Division Champion
[13] Lincoln (10-5) (one game out of 3rd WC slot)

Division F
[08] FDR (13-2) Division Champion
[11] JFK (11-4) WC3 pending
[14] Taft (10-5) (one game out of 3rd WC slot)