Why aren't we worried about this?

The Oakland Raiders suck. Hard. I've been a Bengals fan for as long as I can remember and rarely did they suck this much (On another tragic note, this week I have to hope against all odds for a Raiders win in order to maybe get the Bengals into the play-offs... why my life??). Earlier in the season much of the blame was put on Tom Walsh, the ex-offensive coordinator.

The big knock on Walsh (other than his willingness to sign on with Art Shell and the Raiders) was that he had spent several years running a Bed & Breakfast on some sleepy west coast town. Sports writers across the nation obsessed about this. At the time, I was far more inclined to blame Aaron Brooks and a suspect offensive line. No one can win with Aaron Brooks. If Michael Vick is a coach-killer, Brooks is a coach nuclear holocaust. But then the Raiders set records in ineptitude.

The Bed & Breakfast jokes reached a crescendo and even Art Shell was forced to make some changes. After thinking about this for a while (as I come up with possible ways the Raiders could win this week. Right now I'm hoping that Nnamdi Asomugha grabs a pick for every vowel in his name) I realized that Robert Gates, our new Secretary of Defense is the political equivalent of Tom Walsh.

First off, the last time Gates was in the game, it was 1993 (Thanks Wikipedia). During that time he'd been an itinerant academic, traveling to various east coast schools. Probably talking about stuff he worked on... ie. the Cold War. Then he spent some time tending to his bed & break... well cushy job as President of Texas A&M. Now, faced with a totally different game, he's brought back in to try and help guide a struggling franchise (or the military).

Why aren't we worried about this?

Seriously.

I understand Rumsfeld was terrible. But everyone seems to think things will be okay now. I doubt it. We still have the equivalent of Art Shell as our coach (perhaps a post for another day) and the media readily acknowledges that Gates is going to bring an old-school realist approach to international relations. He is not a bold visionary. Who knows if Iraq or the Raiders can be fixed in the next couple of years, but bringing in a guy who hasn't been in the game since 1993 is certainly not a guarantee for success.