My favorite moment of the year involved one Dr. Patrick Moore, the gadfly, climate change denier and apologist for Roundup™ who said that the stuff was actually so safe that you could drink it. At which point, the interviewer said, "Well drink it"and the guy stormed off, saying that he wasn't an idiot...
I am so glad that I was brought up in the age of newscasters like Huntley/Brinkley, Cronkite and Sevareid. Journalists that mostly called things right down the middle.
Now we merely pick the news source that most easily reinforces our saintly preconceptions and the other side are of course damnable and evil. The days of the middle of the road tableau, e.g. Newsweek and Time are over, have no place in the brave new world, now supplanted by slanted rags like Townhall and the Daily Kos. I, for one, think it is a shame.
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Sort of funny that master tactician and West Point graduate Mike Krzyzewski is challenging Barack Obama's strategy and tactics in dealing with terrorism. Coach K, an Army Captain, said Obama's statement about not putting boots on the ground against ISIS was a bad strategy in a game theory sense.
“I know it’s upsetting to many of you when you hear ‘no boots on the ground.’ It upsets me too, because that’s like saying I’m not going to play two of my best players,” he said in his speech accepting the 2014 George Catlett Marshall Award, AUSA’s highest honor. “Because that’s what you are trained to do. And for decades and decades, the fact that we are a free country and we don’t play home games here is a result of having boots on the ground. That’s the problem.”Hard to argue with the coach.
After a round of applause, Krzyzewski explained why Obama’s public announcement that he won’t use ground troops against ISIS was just bad coaching – because it allows the other team to stop preparing for it and gives them added confidence.
“It’s about letting your opponent know we are going to use our best players. And whether we use them or not, that’s up to the coach. You never tell your opponent you are not going to use [them], like I’m not going to play Grant Hill, J.J. Redick, -Christian] Laettner,” he said, rattling off the names of some of his biggest stars at Duke.
The former Olympic coach then turned the metaphor to international play, comparing Obama’s words to saying, “‘Hey Spain, I’m not going to start Lebron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] tonight.’ I don’t think you do that. Now how much I play them? Let the guy try to figure out how much I’m going to play them.”
3 comments:
I would say unbelievable, however so believeable!
I understand what Coach K is saying, however, politically, sending troops to fight in the Mid-east after the past dozen years of war, just does not sell. Our folks, moms and dads of young people especially, just don't want to send their kids to that God forsaken place. The politicians are reflecting the wishes of the country.
Sometimes something has to be done no matter if it "sells" or not. No one wants war but at times it is moral and necessary. The United States was late to World War II, you have to wonder if the exterminations might have not taken place if they had been on board earlier. Ditto the Cambodian killing fields. Unfortunately the world is a nasty place full of all sorts of predators, hard to bury an ostrich head in the sand.
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