This past weekend was filled with several events worth opining about - chief among them: the death of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.
Paterno was 85-years-old and had about as much business coaching a Division-1 football program at that age as Strom Thurmond did casting votes in the United States Senate. In fact, Paterno himself practically admitted as much in his now infamous Sally Jenkins/
Washington Post interview when he he said "I never heard of rape and a man"... an absurd revelation for anyone alive in the year 2012, let alone for a 61-year employee of the State of Pennsylvania.
My beef with Paterno, though, is less about age and more about the manner in which he allowed himself to become canonized, immortalized - free from authority and wholly above the law (both natural and otherwise). The video footage showing the hoards of mourners holding an impromptu vigil around Paterno's iconic statue was indicative of such idolization and will undoubtedly bring much deserved comfort to Paterno's friends and family in the days ahead. But those watching the vigil unfold on this morning's news had to have asked themselves: if it was held for victims of child abuse instead of for a football coach, would nearly as many people attend?
After doing a job - and doing it well - for 61 years, its a shame that the first line in Joe Paterno's obituary will be about the Sandusky debacle. But as the headline reads in today's Daily News above yet another blunt yet brilliant Mike Lupica column devoted to the subject: "Sad. Old. Beaten. Broken."
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Keeping with the football theme: the New England Patriots are headed to the Super Bowl.
Terrific.
For the next two weeks, all I'm going to hear on the radio, read in the newspaper and see on television is "Good Luck Patriots!" and "Go Pats!" and all of those other corny little tag-lines that Stop & Shop and Big Y and every other proprietary business in Connecticut will use to lure more customers. Ugh!
My loathe for the Patriots is predicated on three separate but equal truths:
1) I am a fan of the New York Jets.
2) I generally dislike all Boston-area sports teams.
3) About 15 years ago, that scumbag Bob Kraft took my beloved state of Connecticut for a ride.
To make matters worse, the Patriots are playing the Giants. Unlike some Jets fans, I do not hate the NY Giants... but I am dreading the inevitable (and inevitably unbearable) "New York vs. Boston" hype that both the local and national sports media will play-up.
And let's be honest: who doesn't think Bobby Valentine will enter this fracas by the end of the week?
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The best story-line from the weekend was without question Newt Gingrich winning the South Carolina Republican primary. (Full disclosure: I am a partisan Democrat who already has an Obama 2012 bumper sticker on his car.)
Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.
Newt is the guy who single-handedly created "the politics of personal destruction" in the late-1980's when he brought down then-Speaker Jim Wright on ethics charges. He rose to the Speaker's chair after the 1994 elections and within a year faced an ethics investigation of his own. During his six years as Speaker, he caused a government shut-down, was found guilty of ethics violations and managed to impeach the extremely popular President of the United States for inappropriate sexual activity while he himself was having an affair with a member of his own staff. Eventually his party lost seats in the 1998 midterm election and he chose not to run for Speaker again the following year.
The man is a walking hypocrisy... and now also (thankfully) the darling of the conservative nut-job wing of the Republican Party. He is currently leading the Florida polls by 9% - and if he wins there next week, I think he's going to be the Republican nominee.
Can we as Democrats really be that lucky?
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Finally, a shout-out to soon-to-be former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. There are no words to describe the miracle that is her mere existence, and I applaud her for showing us all the true personification of courage. Arizona, Congress and all of America is better for her having served... and I guarantee she will be back.
