Next GOP chief: blessed or not a dime's difference?

THURSDAY'S WASH:

Today's book-length profile of Tea  Partyer Tom Zawistowski in the Beacon Journal even overwhelmed the return of Mike Brown to the Cavaliers, who merited no more than a front-page blip directing the readers to the sports page.

The latest threat to the GOP establishment, Zawistowski has decided to offer himself up as a candidate for the chairmanship in a showdown with Matt Borges, whom the party's front office had projected as a replacement for Bob Bennett.  But new concerns about Borges arose among the Party's moral compasses when it was learned that their man owed more than $161,000 in federal taxes.

On the other hand, his challenger, who is from Portage County, said he was urged by local party officials to rescue  the older party from its certain fate.  He has the typical Tea Party profile, including his expressed opposition to the bailout of General Motors.

Enough of that.  I was more interested in the skittish responses to BJ inquiries from two  of the most prominent GOP locals regarding their preference in this historic clash.  County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff said he wants whatever Gov. Kasich and the four state officeholders want, whomever that may be.(Guess!)  And then Lauren LaRose, a Republican central committeewoman and wife of State Sen. Frank LaRose, offered still more perspective on the party's untidy situation.  She thought  the party was "blessed to have two good candidates for chaiman".   But she  thought the better of the blessed  would be Borges as "the best fit to lead our party".  Even with the tax lien.  

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Speaking of Mike Brown, he was replaced by Byron Scott a couple of years ago for not winning a championship with LeBron James on the floor.   So now we have more to add to the Cleveland athletic teams' revolving doors, through which an endless number of coaches and managers come and go.  Mike Brown is now back to replace a fired coach (who replaced him when he was fired.)  Owner Dan Gilbert , however, says Brown, a former Coach of the Year  winner,  should not have been fired in the first place.   Go figure.

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The fallout from some Republican senators who voted against the background check law is getting serious.  Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has seen her approval rating drop 15 points.  And Sen. Rob Portman is drawing a lot of heat in  the letters I've seen from his hometown area of Cincinnati..  Some of this miscalculation by the Ayottes and Portmans has the taint of  the Iraq invasion apologists like Dick Cheney , who declared the U.S. would  be recognized as saviors in a war that might not last more than a few monthe.  Portman, a positive thinker, says background checks are useless, which is what the NRA says,which is not what 90 pct. of the public says.

The Cavs splash to PD and BJ front pages

THE WEEK HAS given us sports news of Biblical proportions: The woeful LeBron-less Cleveland Cavaliers nailed the top pick in the collegiate draft! We weren't even slightly aware of the importance of this event until the Plain Dealer ecstatically stretched it across large portions of its front pages two days in a row (the Beacon Journal was more reserved, opting for only a single day's Page One tribute that told us HOW THE DRAFT WAS WON, offering us a cutout of a numbered pingpong ball gently held by somebody's hand. There were also photos of promotional T-shirts and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert's 14.year-old son, Nick,who was around to represent the team in the draft. The Plain Dealer merely teased us by inquiring, What Are the Odds? It joyfully called the fateful moment a "stroke of luck". Cool.

As a sports outsider who has survived decades of Cleveland sports despair, I am fully aware that none of what I just said will earn me anything but disgrace from the media and the Cavs' other partisans. All the more so because the the draft occurred as the Cleveland Indians have risen from the ashes to dominate their division this spring.

Alas, with all of the good news, it would be another event of of Biblical proportions that would interfere with the celebrations hereabouts. That, of course, would be the Rapture that a California seer has forecast will occur at 6 p.m. Saturday (Just when I got a new computer and learned how to operate most of it.!) But Harold Camping, the 89-year-old zillionaire who has predicted the end of days, staunchly defends the idea that when the violent end comes, everyone will be divided between the saintly and sinful for their next stop.

I have my doubts. And I really don't think God is so vindictive that He would rain on the Cavaliers and Indians parades. Besides if I am wrong who will still be hanging around to gloat, "Told you so!."

On the other hand, if it doesn't happen as planned, we will still have those gloom-and-doom GOP presidential candidates with their daily warnings about America's dreadful end of days under President Obama. As Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann were saying just the other day..,.

The lingering countdowns of Cleveland sports

IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING with the dysfunctional Cleveland sports enterprises. Intrigue... Suspense...Recurring seasonal disorders. The latest version of the epic Cleveland Countdown began last year (or maybe even earlier before I got on the bus) over when-where-never LeBron James would jump ship despite his iconic moorings in Northeast Ohio. Months of columns, talk-show callers, sly smiles by the self-described King. Like that, it played out and the disheartened fans could finally turn to new matters, such as...

Would Holmgren fire Mangini? When? And if not, why? On and on. Which game would determine the unfortunate coach's fate? This countdown would deflect the ugly fact that the Browns were finishing the season with a four-game losing streak. But then, Mangini was gone before the uniforms from the final game were laundered...The light at the end of the stadium tunnel? Not really, because....

There was a new reason for daily speculation.

The Mangini narrative would merely be the prologue to another countdown in which everybody but Knute Rockne was mentioned in a non-stop shakeout of his possible successor while days passed and passed and passed. .

Sadly, that's how it has been going on the lake where revolving doors have long been a growth industry in the hopeless search for a winner. You are again reminded of that as TV had the audacity to show us the entire annihilation of the Cavaliers by the Lakers by a record 55 points even though L.A. coach Phil Jackson tried to be merciful by playing his regulars for less than half of the game.

May we hope that a new Browns coach will be hired before the start of the Indians baseball season with its own dismal expectations. Will Manny Ramirez be mentioned as the new manager after Manny Acta is dumped? Let the speculation begin! And don't laugh.

LeBron's decision: A tawdry departure

WELL, THE KING has abdicated.

Within moments after LeBron James revealed The Decision, it was old news not only in Cleveland but also London, Paris, Rome and wherever else modern technology can take you in an instant. Unlike the stuffier exit of King Edward VIII to satisfy his yearning for Wallis Simpson in 1936, King James, a.k.a. The Chosen One, chose ESPN to disclose that he would leave the Cavaliers after seven championship-free years to form a cartel-like buddy system with the Miami Heat.

At a minimum, the staging was a shamefully tawdry example of our hype-worn society - so excessively repugnant that Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik went on-line to accuse ESPN of "whored-out, dazed, confused and crass" behavior. As if the mere protagonist's imminent decision wasn't seductive enough for reeling in the viewers, the bit players - the panelists and hosts - could not resist reminding us that everyone in the world was "on pins and needles" - including our troops, I suppose, who put down their guns in Afghanistan. "Up next," a host declared, "LeBron James will tell the world where he will play next season." But first, a commercial break.

The production, with LeBron fresh out of swagger and seated rigidly on an elevated stage as if a classical artist was there to capture for posterity the throne's significance, lacked only a rousing Rossini overture to lead us into the moment of truth.

Did I say truth? Come now. Did you really buy into his explanation that he didn't arrive at his decision until he had talked to mommy that morning? Or that he hadn't closed the deal with his two superstar friends on the Heat - guys named Wade and Bosh - many weeks ago? All this from a pampered Midas -rich athlete who has literally been running the Cavaliers since his arrival as the owner and coaches acquiesced to his demands for the sort of comfort zone that he needed. It was to his benefit that a fawning, awe-struck media played along with his every move. (I should confess that I'm not a serious basketball fan and it wouldn't have mattered if he had declared that he would play on the Big Dipper next season.)

Well, as the entire front page of the Plain Dealer noted with a full figure LeBron with his back turned to the reader: Gone. *

That absence was obvious by his shabby performance in the playoffs against the Celtics. He was already gone. By the same token, Kobe Bryant was seen sweating and struggling for breath as he and his teammates fiercely nailed the championship in a brutal seven-game series. There was a hint of the difference between a guy with five championship rings and the former King, who has none.

Believe it, Cleveland, in your tearful nightmare. Maybe LeBron James wasn't the King that you thought he was. Not yet - and maybe never.

The benefits of the crab dribble

THE SAVING GRACE  of professional sports  is that it mindlessly thrusts you away from the burning issues of the day.  Today I learned of something called "crab dribble" which may or may not have cost the Cleveland Cavaliers a victory.  It is a kind of dance step executed regularly (it says here) by LeBron James as he bursts demon-like to the basket.  Whatever.  I have heard of crab cakes, crab casserole and crab bisque, as well as human crabs (take your pick).  But crab dribble?   Save your explanations.  I won't understand them anyway.  In what little intramural basketball that I played in my tiny high school,  I was merely told to aim the ball at a hoop and, maybe, once a week it would go  all the way through.  There, I've forgotten the economic crises already.