Mornin' News

--Tom Knott opens both barrels:

Linda, Linda, Linda. My, my. Look what you have done. You have baseball blood on your hands. Can we talk?
Seriously. Do you have a moment on your busy docket,
loaded as it is with jettisoning the team formerly known as the Nationals and entertaining the notion of a mayoral run in 2006? You must know something the rest of us don't, which is: Killing baseball increases your political viability. Otherwise, why all the deal-breaking histrionics in the 11th hour? Why all this woman-of-the-people maneuvering that reveals Mayor Anthony A. Williams to be an emperor with no clothes?

--Dan Daly calls DC and MLB equal partners in stupidity. That about sums it up:

Linda, you don't know who you're messin' with. These are the guys who thought it would be a good idea for the Expos to play some home games in San Juan. These are the guys who let the Montreal franchise wither away, treated it like a junior member of the National League, while they took their sweet time shopping around for the club's next home. These are the guys who — whoops! — allowed their All-Star Game to end in a tie and their players to bulk up to the size of the Incredibles before they started testing for steroids.
These are the guys you're messin' with, lady — guys who
could match the District stumble for stumble, bumble for bumble. If you try to reopen stadium negotiations, try to lighten your constituents' financial load, these guys won't sit calmly, look at the balance sheet and say, "Well, yeah, I guess we did kind of stick it to you a bit. Maybe the new owners, whoever they will be, could bear a little bit of the burden, cover some of the cost overruns or something."

--Thom Loverro urges us to get out the clown suits--cause we’re havin’ a parade!

However, the clown suits being fitted for the D.C. City Council — which, led by chairman Linda Cropp, torpedoed the proposed ballpark financing that was part of Major League Baseball's agreement to relocate the Montreal Expos to the District
late Tuesday night — should be ready soon, as well as those for Mayor Anthony Williams, his staff, baseball commissioner Cadillac Bud Selig, lieutenant Bob DuPuy, crony Jerry Reinsdorf and too many others to name here.

There are enough clowns in this relocation circus to fill a fleet of Shriner cars in a parade. Hey, maybe those who led the opposition to baseball — after generations of political and business leaders in this area spent the last 33 years trying to get it back — can declare Dec. 14 a city holiday, and have a parade with those little cars. Cropp can drive the lead car, with fellow city council members David Catania and Adrian Fenty following.

--A Washington Times Op/Ed urges Mayor Tony Williams to go back to the drawing board to make this thing work.

--Some fans are idiots. Cropp has received death threats and racist e-mails and phone messages.