Posted on 06/21/2004 5:34:20 AM PDT by SJackson
Under Ronald Reagan it used to be so easy. "We win. You lose." That's politics and, yes, that's horse racing.
The two don't mix? Oh sure they do. I am here to prove that a single thoroughbred is more than just a horse, he is us.
Even Americans who think Secretariat means a grandee at the UN, and even Israelis who say "King David" when I say "Bold Ruler", should pay heed. Smarty Jones speaks for America and for Israel. He came along just in time, to remind us that the wall of sound from the rafters sounds too much like the Oy Vey Chorus.
So here's Smarty Jones, a horse of small size but big heart, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, but then lost the Belmont by a measly length - and people are calling him a failure. All this happened over the past few weeks. This stouthearted colt, born and raised in Philadelphia, far from the bluegrass and bluebloods of Kentucky, missed the Triple Crown by that margin, a length, and the locals are carping, "Figures. Philly always loses when it counts."
Yup, that's the lament. Philadelphia -- city of losers.
Get a grip. To win the Kentucky Derby, this alone makes you champ. Then to move forward and win the Preakness by the widest margin ever, this makes you near immortal in the annals of thoroughbred racing. But this gutsy colt didn't win the whole package, so in the mind of Philadelphia, the horse is a loser and so is the town.
Philadelphians are back to counting their lone champion over the past generation, Sylvester Stalone, you know, "Rocky."
But this is not a Philadelphia Story, not by a long shot. No, this is an American story, an Israeli story.
How does all this compute? What's the link? They are all winners who think and act like losers; that's the link.
Philadelphia still hasn't recovered from the collapse of the Phillies in 1964. America still hasn't recovered from Vietnam. And Israel still doesn't know that it beat the odds in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. Here in the US, we're still kvetching about what we did to them, not what they did to us, meaning Islam. (Okay, radical Islam.)
From the halls of Congress to the Leftist Occupied Territories of ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, it's much ado about Abu Ghraib, still.
Everywhere you turn - Vietnam quagmire.
Over at MSNBC, Chris Matthews has relented on his Bush-bashing to give some air to Ronald Reagan. This is most kind to those of us who loved this great man and this great president, and even kinder to Judith Miller, who is the best there is at the New York Times. Judith Miller's sin? Why is she being jeered by Matthews and others? Allegedly, she got it all wrong on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
Never mind that she has yet to be proven wrong; but years ago - maybe 10 years ago or more - she was darned prophetic. The gist of what she wrote was that given demographics mixed with testosterone (boys of rock-throwing age dominating the Arab/Muslim world in the years to come), there was bound to be unrest that leads to uprisings and chaos. The real gist of what she reported was this - Beware! I know of no other reporter who got it so right - while the rest of us were asleep, she absolutely predicted 9/11.
Praise for Ms. Miller - who is among our most brilliant analysts, period - especially on Islamic extremists? Not in this Zap America atmosphere.
Over in Israel, well gee whiz, who won all those wars? The Arabs? You sure would think so. Israel's leaders can't give up territory fast enough. Israel beat Egypt and who gives up Sinai? Israel. So it goes onto Hebron, Joseph's Tomb, the Temple Mount, and coming to a pogrom near you, Gaza and more chunks of Judea and Samaria, plus the re-arming of Arab terrorists with Jewish guns. All this retreat from the winners to the losers. (You figure it out. I can't.)
Late word has it that Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now ready to chop up Jerusalem. How quickly Israel's hawks turn to mush.
So what we're talking about are winners who act like losers. That goes for us here in the US and it sure goes for Israel. People ask, "Do horses know when they win?" The answer is, yes. I should know. I wrote the book on thoroughbred racing. Horses know when they win. They kick down the barn door and flex their power.
If only we were that smart.
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