Baseball ethics

Go check out "Ranking baseball’s ethical transgressions," a description of a recent Willy Stern class at Carlton College.

Then go rank the hundred-odd real-life baseball scenarios yourself.

Which was worse—the murder of minor-league ump Samuel White in 1899 by a player who didn’t like one of the ump’s calls and smashed the poor man over the head with his bat, or the decision to exclude African-Americans from organized baseball for decades?

What about the catcher who heaved a potato (that looked like a ball) into left field in a seemingly failed effort to pick off the runner at third, only to tag the runner out with the real ball when he trotted home?

Obama and ex-Nation of Islamer Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison, a guy with pretty solid record of affiliation with anti-Semitic organizations, is featured on Obama's campaign web site, on a page titled "Arab Americans for Obama." Ellison is the lead character in two videos on that page.

PowerLine's Scott Johnson wrote in June that "Despite the natural alliance that should exist between them, Obama has scrupulously avoided Ellison." Apparently that avoidance does not carry over to elements of the campaign targeting at Arab Americans.

In Obama's defense, Ellison is a duly (if unwisely) elected member of Congress; but I seem to recall Obama taking a wee bit of heat for failing to repudiate some unfortunate affiliations earlier in the campaign.