There’s a BIG difference between winning on a Hail Mary and winning on a bad call.
In a play dubbed “The Miracle at Michigan” on Sept. 24, 1994, in a game between Colorado and Michigan, 100,000 stunned fans watched University of Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart (later of the Pittsburgh Steelers) fling a no-time-left ball 70 yards to Michael Westbrook in the Michigan end zone for the winning score. (What’s more, the ball was tipped in the end zone.)
Years later, my dad (from Big 10 country) and I (a CU alum) were watching Colorado play and I realized he was silently rooting for the other team.
When I asked why, his response was: “I guess because I’m still mad about that CU Hail Mary pass that beat Michigan.”
He was mad. And I understood. But really, you have to let go of a Hail Mary that works.
Bad calls are something else. The blogosphere is rich with rants over NFL bad calls. The Seattle-Pittsburgh Super Bowl XL (2006) seems to be a lightning rod for such posts.
And, though bad to lose on a bad call, no one wants to be defending their win ad infinitum due to an officiating gaff. Yet, they’ll cling to that win. So, how does this tie in to our November election? A couple of ways:
“To serve as vice president beside such a man would be the privilege of a lifetime, and it’s fitting that this trust has been given to me 88 years almost to the day after the women of America first gained the right to vote,” Sarah Palin said.
What’s troubling is Palin’s choice of words. It’s the bad call. See, for her, this is a “privilege of a lifetime” — like winning a big game.
So, who lost this time? Folks, it’s not Hillary. No, McCain (and Limbaugh, and Hannity, and Savage) worked hard to see Mrs. Clinton was not in the game at all. So, who lost because Palin won? How about:
Like Obama, Rell served in the State Legislature (but in the lesser House, not Senate as did Obama), then she served as lieutenant governor for three terms, then became governor. Then was re-elected governor.
Rell received more votes in that re-election than there are people (plus polar bears) in all of Alaska.
Walker also served in the State Legislature, including a term as Majority Whip. Unfortunately, her party trashed her re-election bid and she was not on the ballot for the next election.
Since Lingle is only sitting governor (for two terms) of the state of Hawaii — just twice the population of Alaska — I’ll move along.
While at the EPA, she produced a report, later dismissed by President Bush, itemizing the anticipated effects of global warming on the United States. This puts her more in line, we’re told, with McCain than is Palin (who disclaims the scientific consensus of man’s influence in global warming).
Whitman is also a director of Texas Instruments and of United Technologies. She is deeply involved in energy consulting and is a nuclear power advocate. She even worked on Nelson Rockefeller’s campaign.
I’ll leave it to the reader to look at our nation’s fine female senators and representatives, present and past, and those women who may be past or present mayors of the 16 cities in the U.S. bigger than the state of Alaska.
Some of these women I list have an “issue” hanging in their closet (as do many public figures). To their detriment, these issues were not played out in a big political arena as were Palin’s “Trooper-gate,” her “bridge-to-nowhere support flip-flop,” her “with Stevens before I was against him” plays, and her mini-pork barrel funded hockey arena as mayor of a town a little bigger than my high school.
So, if this “lifetime privilege” is her big win, Sarah Palin has won by bad call. And I’m not referring to her decision to leave for Washington with the nagging family responsibilities of a 4-month-old Down Syndrome baby and her pregnant, unwed 17-year-old daughter.
This bad call was not her decision. Really, it’s “just part of the game. And she’s clinging to her victory.
Enough about the bad call. It’s still McCain’s Hail Mary. And that’s something that’s not been duplicated in sports, or ranted upon in the blogosphere: a bad call on a Hail Mary.
John Thompson lives in Boulder.
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