Upset by Galley Friend L.B.’s earlier disparaging of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, Soxblog emails:

(1) 32-4. That’s the Pat’s record the last two years. I don’t see how one could logically dismiss that as anything less than an incredible accomplishment, one of the greatest in league history.

(2) Level of Competition–In their first Super Bowl Victory, the Patriots defeated the Rams, the Greatest Show on Turf, a team considered to be on the verge of dynasty at the time. Few remember that the Rams were a two touchdown favorite. It also should be added that Super Bowl XXXVI was played in a Dome, on turf. In other words, the Patriots defeated the premiere team of the era under the most inauspicious conditions possible.

In addition to the Rams, the Patriots beat the Colts last year and this year. Although it’s hard to recall, only five days ago the Colts were considered unstoppable, the greatest offense ever.

(3) The teams from one’s youth almost always seem greater than they actually were. None of LB’s listed teams were at their peaks simultaneously.

(4) The Snow Game against the Raiders was not settled by a bad call. It was settled by an undeniably correct call that was predicated on a stupid rule. Walt Coleman is no Don Denkinger or Larry Barnett. It’s not his fault he had to enforce the Tuck Rule.

(5) The Esiason-Marino thing was hilarious. Dan was upset because Boomer was so on the money with the Manning/Marino observation.

It had to be particularly painful for Marino because he lost two conference championships at home and one Super Bowl as well, all three of which were played in adequate weather conditions and all three of which he played poorly in. Peyton has also failed to play well in the biggest games of his career. Facts are facts.

But Manning can take comfort in the fact that five years into his career Magic Johnson was often derided as “Tragic” Johnson because of his dismal performance in the 1984 Finals. By the end of his career, that performance was almost completely forgotten.

So for Manning there’s still time to write a different ending. For Marino, alas, the story is written.

The battle is well and truly joined.

The New York Post‘s Niles Lathem has a big story on Jack Kemp’s contacts with Samir Vincent, the fellow who was helping Saddam rig the oil-for-food program.

It doesn’t look like Kemp has done anything illegal. But this unsavory behavior is in line with other things we’ve seen from Kemp, namely his apologies for Hugo Chavez.

The blogosphere has derailed another Big Media plan to sand-bag Bush. Read about it here.

I’m certainly no Bush partisan, but objectively speaking, that was the best speech of his presidency and one of the best speeches I’ve heard from a president in modern times. Simply beautifully crafted, elegantly written– hat’s off to the team who put that piece of prose together. The lines which stand out most to me:

* You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs.

* In America’s ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the week. Liberty does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love.

*We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as he wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.

That’s really something, isn’t it?

It’s also an incredibly ambitious speech. Bush said, for instance, that “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we will stand with you.” If you live in Sudan or China or Saudi Arabia, this signals an important change in U.S. policy, no?

Bush also came closer to naming radical Islamism as the ultimate enemy than he has in the past, alluding to it, and the Arab world as a place “prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder.” He’s not there yet, but it’s a start.

If the speech had a deficiency, it came in the passage about spreading freedom to other societies: “Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen . . . and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. . . . America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice . . .”

The president is right in all of this, but I can’t help wondering, What if, given the freedom to choose, people in Iraq or other Middle Eastern states, choose Islamism and to turn further away from the West? We’ve seen this in Kuwait, where democratic reforms produced a parliament more hostile to women’s rights and to Western nations than the monarchy was. We all hope that liberty, tolerance, and a yearning for the rule of law (and not sharia) are universal values, but isn’t there some evidence to the contrary?

This is a big question, and one which will be settled by events, so let’s not dwell on it here. Instead, it’s important to give credit where it is due. President Bush gave a stirring, ennobling speech at his second inauguration. This is a moment during which all Americans can be proud.

During a conversation with Galley Friend L.B. the other day I mentioned how eerie it is that today’s crop of great quarterbacks resemble the last great crop. Think about it:

Manning = Marino

Brady = Montana

Vick = Cunningham

McNabb = Elway

Culpepper = Moon

L.B. had much deeper thoughts on the subject, which you may find interesting:

Your QB comparisons are pretty apt. Manning is definitely going to get stuck with the Marino tag. (Dan Fouts would also be a good comparison, too–all great AFC QBs with gaudy stats who had the misfortune of playing on teams with shitty defenses.) Btw, did you see the post-game show on CBS after Colts-Pats, when Boomer Esaison said Manning was becoming the “Marino of his generation”? Boomer must’ve forgotten that Marino was sitting just down the table from him–Marino shot him a glare that said “If we weren’t on national TV right now, you would be a dead man, blondie.” Anyway, that team just needs some more guts and toughness, mostly on the defensive side of the ball and also on the O-line. Marvin Harrison is also a big X-factor in their losses–you never saw Rice or Michael Irvin disappear in big games the way he has. (But I suppose you could pin that on Manning too–Rice and Irvin never disappeared b/c Montana and Aikman weren’t weenies in big games.)

Vick/Cunningham is also a good analogy, but I think Cunningham was a better passer early in his career than Vick is at the same point now. Why the hell are they shackling Vick in the damn West Coast offense? He’s clearly not comfortable with it yet. He shouldn’t be throwing little 5-yard dump offs to fullbacks and slants all day to his wideouts; he needs to be in a system where he can air it out.

Brady/Montana–it’s also a good comparison, even though I’m sick of it. Both guys from big-time college programs (Michigan, Notre Dame) who got drafted low because they didn’t fit the 6’5″/rocket arm QB/God mold. All they do is win. Where the comparison falls apart for me, at least now, is that while Brady is matching Montana in Super Bowls, Montana was a more complete passer–threw a better deep ball, I think, and put up marginally better passing numbers. (Of course, Jerry Rice might’ve had a little to do with that–it’d be interesting to see what Brady could do with a top-flight receiver instead of all the small guys he’s got right now).

And I like the Pats a lot, too–I guess I’m just tired of hearing how great they are. If they win the Super Bowl this year, people are going to start talking about them being a dynasty in the league of the ’70s Steelers, ’80s 49ers, and especially the early-’90s Cowboys (the only team to win 3 rings in 4 years)–which is bunk. The Pats win because they play great team football in a league made mediocre by parity–by which I mean, they haven’t had to beat as many really great teams to win their titles. The ’70s Steelers had to deal with the great Madden Raider teams, the Griese-Csonka-Shula Dolphins, etc. The ’80s Niners always had to get through Parcells’ Giants, Gibbs’ Skins, or Ditka’s mid-’80s Bears teams. And the early ’90s Cowboys had those epic NFC title games (the real Super Bowl in those years) against the Young/Rice/Watters 49ers, and also had to get past the excellent Packers teams of Farve’s early years (with Reggie White, Sterling Sharpe et al). Meanwhile, these Pats are two late-4th quarter field goals away from losing both of their Super Bowls (and to who–Carolina?), and if not for that ridiculous non-fumble call in Foxboro when the Raiders’ Charles Woodson sacked his former U-M teammate Brady, the Pats don’t even get to the 2002 Super Bowl.

I guess I’m just an obnoxious Cowboy fun stuck back in the glory days, but I think either of Jimmy Johnson’s two Cowboy Super Bowl teams would dismantle the Pats–simply a matter of having more talent and depth.

McNabb-Elway is another pretty good analogy, though Elway scares me more as a passer, McNabb more as a runner.

Culpepper-Moon is interesting but Dante still has his work cut out for him. Moon is one of the great overlooked QBs of all time. Don’t forget all the yards he racked up in the CFL before coming to the NFL, because no one in the NFL wanted to draft a black QB when he came out of U-Washington–even though he was a Rose Bowl MVP. Over his entire pro career, the guy threw for **70,533** yards! (far more than anyone else) And if it hadn’t been for the Oilers’ craptacular collapse against Buffalo in the playoffs one year (remember–35-3 before the Bills came back?), and a 2-point nailbiter loss in Mile High to the Broncos in another year, he would’ve been in at least one Super Bowl. For my money, Moon had the most amazing arm I’ve ever seen on a QB (along with Marino, I guess). I say this with all due respect to Favre, Elway etc.–the difference was that Moon threw rockets while always making it look effortless. Farve and Elway look like gunslingers–when they threw hard, you could tell they were putting every ounce into it.

Does anyone else have thoughts on the matter?

“I used to think … that the English cook the way they do because, through sheer technical deficiency, they had not been able to master the art of cooking. I have discovered to my stupefaction that the English cook that way because that is the way they like it.”

–Waverley Root, author of The Food of France, as quoted by A.J. Liebling

“When the [French] government pulled out, Root invited me to accompany him in pursuit of it in a small French automobile. ‘Maybe we can find some good regional food on the way,’ he said. I left France for the United States eleven days later; Root, with his French wife of the epoch and their infant daughter, followed in a month. He returned to France and spent most of his time there. The Food of France is a monument to his affection for a country as well as for its art. He has another French wife now.”

–A.J. Liebling on Waverley Root in Between Meals

Thomas Joscelyn is both a friend and a writer I greatly admire, so it’s excellent news that he’s started his own blog, the Venona Project. He’s well worth adding to your bookmark list.

Update, 1/24/06: Tom has moved is blog address here.

Charles Johnson has an interesting post about the three CBS executives who were “asked to resign.” Evidently, it was not a rhetorical request.