by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
Starting Five
Broadway Jeaux
The name Joe has a terrific bloodline among quarterbacks. There was Joe Namath, of course. And Joe Montana. Now here comes LSU’s Joe Burrow, who led the Tigers to victory at Alabama on Saturday, 46-41.
Few programs ever acquire the veneer of invincibility, particularly at home, that the Crimson Tide have this decade. Miami did in the late Eighties up to the mid-Nineties, winning 47 in a row at the Orange Bowl. The Tide had won 31 in a row at Bryant-Denny Stadium before LSU, which had lost eight straight to the Tide since 2011, came to town.
Led by Burrow, the Ohio State transfer who would throw for 393 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions, the Tigers roared to a 33-13 halftime lead. When the Tide surged, twice, in the fourth quarter to bring themselves within one score, Burrow twice answered immediately with touchdown drives.
Is Nick Saban’s reign over? Not yet. But Burrow, who is second in the nation in both passing yardage per game and touchdown passes, is now the Heisman frontrunner. And he’s got LSU first or second in the playoff selection committee rankings this week.
Super In Seattle
For many, Sunday’s biggest football game took place in Seattle (the Seahawks were idle) as the Sounders defeated Toronto FC to win the MLS Cup.
Playing in front of nearly 70,000 rabid fans at Century Link Field, the Sounders defeated Toronto 3-1 to win their second MLS Cup of the past four years. These two teams have now met in three of the past four MLS Cup finals.
“I Only Have Eyes For You”
Traitor or patriot? In her new book All Due Respect (awful title), former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley writes that fellow Trump Cabinet members Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State) and General John Kelly (Chief of Staff) worked to undermine the president: “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country … It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing.”
Haley resisted.
In this interview with Norah O’Donnell on CBS Sunday Morning, Haley basically uses the logic that Well, yeah, the mob boss ordered the hit but it was never carried out, so what’s the problem?
O’Donnell has now famously failed to ask follow-up questions on two big interviews. Here, when Haley says, “The American people should decide this; why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making this decision?” the natural response from an interviewer should have been, “Because it’s part of the Constitution, dummy. Do you not adhere to the Constitution (never mind that no Republicans were making this argument 20 years ago)?”
A few years back, during the Ray Rice kerfuffle, O’Donnell sat Roger Goodell down, who confided that once they saw the tape of Rice hitting his girlfriend, things changed. O’Donnell never asked him why he needed to see a tape when the evidence of her beating, and Rice owning up to it, were already in play.
O’Donnell is extremely presentable and very pretty (in a but-she-looks-smart-enough-to-have-graduated-from-Columbia way). But if the average-looking person handled big interviews the way she does, that person would not be the anchor of the CBS Evening News.
Meanwhile, I had a fairly heated discussion with an old college friend a year ago about the Kelly/Mattis conundrum. I said that anyone working for the president who does not believe in his policies or values, etc., should resign (never mind that they were idiots for taking the positions in the first place). He said that they were heroic, trying to save the country from within by protecting us against Trump.
I think we were both right. Of course Kelly was trying to do exactly what my friend says, but why put a band-aid on top of a giant festering sore? Moreover, now he comes off bad on both sides. The Trumpers hate him for trying to undermine their Orange Overlord while people like myself see him as someone who was providing cover to a corrupt and venal man.
You can’t solve a problem by attempting to cover it up. Be transparent. And stand up for your values. Kelly and Tillerson did not; they thought they could push a Republican agenda while working for Trump and push back on his radical agenda at the same time. Can’t serve two masters. Nope. So now they look bad to both sides.
Never align with Trump: You’ll eventually come out looking bad in the end. With all due respect.
Five Books For Veterans Day
Thank you to all the veterans of the Armed Forces who sacrificed in all sorts of ways in defense of this country and its freedoms. Although I’m not sure if we need tanks protecting us from immigrants in Queens…
And I’ll make the same point I always have: nothing protects Americans quite like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We should really have a day of remembrance for them.
Anyway, I always enjoy reading books about World War II because I believe it was America’s (and Great Britain’s) finest hour. Here are three that Phyllis and I read in 2019 and two others from the past that I’d also recommend:
—With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E.B. Sledge
Much of this book showed up in the HBO series The Pacific. Besides it being a near-miracle that Sledge survived these two campaigns, his reportage of his memoir is detailed and grisly. This is suffering.
—The Jersey Boys, by Sally Mott Freeman
A first-time author, Freeman writes about the World War II odysseys of her father and two uncles. This will surely become a series on HBO or some other streaming service. Incredible stuff.
—Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre
A truly incredible, almost comical, story about how the Allies planted a corpse with fictitious battle plans behind enemy lines and how the Germans bought it hook, line and sinker. And it’s all true.
—Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
The book is so much more powerful than the film.
—Flags Of Our Fathers, by James Bradley
A completely unvarnished account of Iwo Jima. Once again, war is hell.
Five Films: 1952
- Singin’ In The Rain Inexplicably, what’s now regarded by many as the greatest movie musical ever and is ranked No. 7 on AFI’s “Greatest 100 Films” list, did not receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (or Best Actor or Best Actress). Not only is this Gene Kelly/Donald O’Connor/Debbie Reynolds (she was only 19) flick wildly entertaining, it’s also smart and colorful and nostalgic. The first MGM talkie, The Broadway Melody, used snippets of the song in 1929 and would win Best Picture. The song would be performed onscreen by MGM legends Jimmy Durante (1932) and Judy Garland (1940), so the title itself is a tribute to Hollywood’s transition to talkies. Also, Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” is maybe the funniest dance number ever choreographed. 2. High Noon Gary Cooper is the sheriff who must stand up to the bad guys while Grace Kelly attempts to avoid going from wife to widow in record time. John Wayne hated this film and dubbed it “un-American.” A lot of people say it as an allegory for McCarthyism, which it was. Cooper was the lone guy who’d stand up to black-listings and the cowed townspeople were Americans who were afraid to stand up to McCarthyism. Wayne, as the then president of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) helped have the film’s writer, Carl Foreman, black-listed. 3. The Quiet Man John Wayne not in a western, but in Ireland, where he heroically (?) drags the lovely Maureen O’Hara across neighbor’s farms to return her to her brother 4. The Greatest Show On Earth Cecil B. DeMille directs, it wins Best Picture 5. Clash By Night Slight film noir, more like dude hooks up with his best friend’s girl. But it stars some heavyweights in Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan and Marilyn Monroe.
Reserves
The New York Times has an editorial on billionaires this morning, per our conversation last week…
The Cowboys had likely already blown this game versus the Vikings, but they ordered their return man to fair catch this punt before the play trailing 28-24 with :17 left. He probably returns it at least 20 yards if he fields it.
Et Tu, Canada?
You know, when you begin a rant with “You people…” it’s not going to go well.
Great film list! The 1st several times I watched High Noon, I’d had no idea it was an allegory of anything, much less McCarthyism (hey, I was a kid!). I don’t think I was aware of Wayne’s animosity towards the film & that he was instrumental in having the writer blacklisted. (I’m confused about this – how did WAYNE get the HUAC to make him testify? Apparently, he had been a Communist & refused to name names, so he was going to be blacklisted, so what did Wayne have to do with it?)
I’ve long known of Wayne’s politics & actually, for 5-7 years or so back in my late teens-mid 20s, *I* blacklisted HIM (& Henry Fonda) from my movie viewing. Eventually, some time after his death, I relented, mostly because I just missed watching so many of my fave WWII & western flicks. John Wayne was a man of his era. Not all good & not all bad. The McCarthy era was a heinous time in our country’s history, but our biggest mistake was thinking something like that could never happen again…
So, I’d planned to watch at least some of LSU-AL, but did not. I did keep up with the scoring from time to time, noticed LSU was DOMINATING the 1st half & that Bama clawed back into it, but still lost to the better team. They LOST. So, imagine my surprise to see Bama fell alllllllll the way from #2 to…….#4 on the AP list. WHAT?! Really? Are ALL the other teams so bad that Alabama just must be in the playoff? AGAIN? Are YOU fine with this?
Of course, Penn State losing to Minnesota has thrown a wrench into things at the moment but come on, isn’t there at least one or two other teams at LEAST as good as Alabama right now?