A break in the routine.  One of Clapton’s finest. 

How ironic is it the best music sometimes comes from tragedy.

San Francisco continues to amaze me.

First, the attempted ban on the Blue Angels goes down swinging:

Another attack on the Blue Angels rebuffed

…the latest attempt to kick out the Blue Angels has failed:

San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly’s hopes of halting the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels show from performing its aerial acrobatics over the city during Fleet Week crashed today when the board of supervisors failed the resolution.

Supervisors voted down the resolution just before 2:30 p.m. Newly appointed interim Supervisor Carmen Chu, who attended her first meeting today as the representative for District 4, voted against the resolution.

Not wanting to be painted anti military he resorted to some spurious reasons to support his ban. 

Daly camouflaged his anti-military motives by playing the safety card, but the board did not buy it:

Daly submitted the resolution because he said it is “not a necessary risk that the city needs to take.” He believes that having the fighter pilot exhibition over a densely populated area like San Francisco poses an unwarranted risk to life and property.

“It is strictly for entertainment and an accident would cause significant loss of life,” Daly said.

Whatever.  If anyone has a doubt about the mentality in The City they should consider this:

San Francisco is at it again

KGO reports that San Francisco is dissing the military again (hat tip - readers Thom and Tim):

New York said “yes,” but we said “no.” Why were the U.S. Marines denied permission to film a recruiting commercial on the streets of San Francisco? San Francisco is, once again, the center of a controversy over how city leaders treat the U.S. military. This time, it involves an elite group of Marines who wanted to film a recruitment commercial in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

I saw this on several blogs today and at first I was of the same mind as the others, but as the day has gone on, I think there is an unanswered question.

The situation is that David Shuster was interviewing Rep Marsha Blackburn, and he decided to sandbag her on the air by demanding if she knew the name of the last GI killed from her distract. 

She didn’t, and gleefully, he trotted out the name to shame her:

SHUSTER: Let’s talk about the public trust. You represent of course a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?

MARSHA BLACKBURN: The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq from my district? I do not know.

SHUSTER: OK, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn’t know the name?

Now obviously the only reason HE knew was because he was setting up operation duck shoot on his show and he needed ammo, but there was still a little problem:

Jeremy Bohannon was NOT from her district.

Oops.  He issued an apology later for screwing up the name.  But despite that, and aside from the fact that he would not apologize for playing duck hunt with a guest, I have a few problems with this.

Now, most bloggers are chortling at him falling in his own pit, and indeed he scored a minor own goal.  I see it as minor only because she still didn’t know, so his point was made, unless there has not been any killed in her district.

But I would also argue that most Representatives and Senators do not carry a list of the war dead with them.  Maybe they should, but they don’t.  I would bet happily most in Washington would reach for a staff member to find out if asked.

And, I would bet that Shuster does not know the latest dead soldier from his own home town.