Tom Brady & The Boston Corbetts

(736 words)

I thought I’d said all I needed to say about DeflateGate in January when I proposed the NFL change the name of the New England Patriots to the Boston Corbetts.

Civil War buffs will recall Boston Corbett is the name of America’s most famous eunuch.

Corbett was the man who killed the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. He said God told him to kill John Wilkes Booth, which he did in a Port Royal, Virginia, tobacco barn 150 years ago April 26.

He’s a fascinating character. Prior to the Civil War, Corbett, a devout Christian, used a pair of rusty shears to sever his own testicles. He undertook this rash act because he was repelled by an all-consuming lust for Boston prostitutes and blamed it all on his balls. 

And that’s as good a place as any to return us to the topic at hand.

Sure, calling a ream the Corbetts would confuse generations of casual football fans, but no worse than those who wonder why even caucasian players from Cleveland are called Browns.

It’s interesting that Brady’s misdeeds are causing far more outrage than what one of his headline-making teammates recently got busted for doing.

I guess it says something about the character of your typical American sports fan that most people care more about Brady artificially deflating footballs than Aaron Hernandez ballistically deflating fellow human beings.

Anyhoo, here’s how I feel about the punishments:

They make me happy. They warm my soul. I think it’s because I can empathize with every single human emotion except arrogance and hypocrisy.

Brady and the Patriots are guilty of both.

I despise the Baltimore Ravens, but I respect them (with the obvious exception of their murderer and his buddy, the wife-beater) because I never suspect the Ravens of resorting to any smarty-pants rules infractions to get an edge.

It’s always been that way with the Patriots.

Understand, Tom Brady should be beloved the way Peyton Manning is. Both are tremendous quarterbacks. But Brady whines when he’s hit. He screams at his receivers when they drop one of his passes. He acts entitled.

He lost me forever in an episode few even recall, but one that seared me with Brady hatred.

It was the 2008 Super Bowl between the Patriots and the underdog New York Giants.

The Patriots were such heavy favorites that there was much ridicule when Giant Plaxico Burress predicted the Giants would win 17-14, people howled, none more loudly than the smirking Brady.

“He thinks we’re only going to score 14 points?” Brady asked. When the prediction was confirmed, Brady descended into the squealing kind of laughter I hear from my 8-year-old daughter when Spencer does something funny on an “iCarly” rerun.

Worse, before kickoff I remember seeing Giant QB Eli Manning approach Brady for a collegial handshake.

Brady slapped his hand away and shouted a profanity at him. It was very unsportsmanlike.

So I was thrilled when Eli led the Giants to a huge upset victory by the score of 17 to, uh, 14.

Of course, DeflateGate would have been a non-starter had Brady resorted to questions with what I call the “Otter Defense,” which works in any situation where a guy gets busted doing something guys like to do.

Eric “Otter” Stratton and the rest of the “Animal House” Deltas were summoned before a Faber College disciplinary board to respond to accusations that certain immoralities involving female guests occurred at their toga party.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he says, “the issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female guests. We did.”

And with this frank admission, he looks directly at Dean Wormer and gives him a lascivious wink. It’s funny because viewers know Stratton’d spent the previous evening boinking Mrs. Wormer.

I don’t mind my miscreants if they show even a little contrition, some humility.

Brady is incapable of either.

So my enmity has nothing to do with the heinousness of the crime, and everything to do with my sanctimonious opinion of whether or not a guy’s a real jerk.

It’s why I’ll forgive Mark McGuire, but not Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds.

It’s why I was happy actor Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle didn’t win the Academy Award for his role in the 2004 movie, “Hotel Rwanda.”

It’s something Brady should think about.

Cheadles never win.

Related . . .

Change Patriots name to Boston Corbett

Boston Corbett: America’s Greatest Eunuch

Inaugural oath goof & right wing crazies

Tom Brady & a gay news extravaganza

Baltimore Rays & NFL’s on-going disgrace

Fresh air about cash for clunkers

I’m enchanted by “cash-for-clunkers” because I’m hopeful the program will fulfill an offbeat prediction I heard years ago in a progressive publication.

The magazine quoted experts who said the way to solve air pollution problems was to take all the cars from the 1950s and simultaneously empty the air from all their tires.

This would release the sweet, wholesome air of the Howdy Duty era and allow it to crowd out the pollution. The ozone hole would magically close, asthmatic coughing would be eliminated as the more pure air circulated, and network TV censors would find themselves out of work as people began to say things like, “Gee, Beaver . . .” instead of “Holy @*&#!” when stuck in traffic.

The magazine was the great Weekly World News.

Feel free to dispute the wisdom of “experts” who would allow themselves to be quoted on pages next to stories headlined,
“Baby Born with False Teeth!”

How that lively magazine went out of business while weekly snoozers like Newsweek and Time remain solvent still mystifies.

But the story points out something even today’s bona fide experts are overlooking, and that is that good things can sometimes come from unexpected places.

I tried to make this point the other day with a cranky WWII veteran from The Greatest Generation.

He told me the country is in the midst of a historic collapse. He cited the exploding deficits, the trade wars and the legitimacy of a president who may not even be a real American.

Want to take a wild guess where he gets his news?

There was a time not long ago when I would reflexively bow to the opinion of any man who’d bled on the beaches of places like Normandy.

No more. I’m no longer a young whippersnapper. I’ve been alert and informed for more than 40 years now.

Sure, for many of those years I’ve been tipsy from various heady inebriates, but the parking lot at the VFW near my home’s always full, too, so it’s a fair fight.

And he may have toted a M-1 in Europe, but he’s not going to outgun me in any political argument about current events.

“Now, hold on, friend,” I said. “Are you telling me this isn’t the greatest country in the world? Are you saying we can’t, when challenged, roll up our sleeves and solve any problem?

“Because I refuse to believe that. We are the most exuberant and energetic people the world has ever known. We have for more than 200 years been an enormous force for good and liberty.

“Solving an economic problem is nothing. Remember just 25 years ago when Reagan exploded the deficits there were stories that your generation was ruining the future for my generation? Well, that never happened. Bill Clinton balanced the budget, vanquished nutty Ross Perot in the process and wound up leaving George W. Bush an enormous surplus.

“This is the county that produced Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and Bugs Bunny. We are capable of greatness when summoned. So I’ll not stand here and allow you or anyone else to bad mouth the United States of America.”

It was roughly the same speech Otter gave to Dean Vernon Wormer in “Animal House” when the Omegas were trying to have the Deltas thrown off campus.

We are in the midst of historic times. I believe there is innovation about to be unleashed that will render many of the old arguments obsolete. Our brightest minds have at their finger tips problem solving computers that would make Albert Einstein snap his stubby little pencils in envy.

Prepare to be amazed by some of the startling improvements that are going to appear out of thin air.

Not to mention old tires.

Inaugural oath goof and right wing crazies

I’m going to spend the day listening to far right radio to hear if any hosts or callers think the Obama/Roberts inaugural oath goof is a potentially disqualifying technicality.

Some casual news readers may not know it, but there was a flurry of bona fide lawsuits, a couple of which actually wound their way to the Supreme Court, that still disputed Obama’s citizenship. They said his election should be nullified because they incorrectly believe he doesn’t have an authentic Hawaiian birth certificate.

Many commentators shook their heads in collective amazement. How desperate can these people be, they wondered.

Of course, it didn’t surprise me at all.

I’ve been a front line soldier against the lunatic right since shortly after Linda Tripp started shopping for electronic spy gear in preparation for girly chats with Monica Lewinsky.

Then came Ken Starr and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I’d been a comparative moderate before that, but the foaming-mouthed hatred of Clinton turned me into a knee-jerk liberal whose knee jerks most liberally anytime it’s near a conservative’s crotch.

That’s why it’s not going to be easy for me to, as our new president so graciously requests, put down my rhetorical weapons and come in out of the jungle. Some of us -- right and left -- are so used to partisan combat that we’ll probably bivouac deep in the woods the way some never-say-die Japanese soldiers did decades after World War II ended and Sony and Toyota began was winning victories the Nippon Army never could.

Really, I’m eager to try. I’d much rather argue about sports or movies than the bitter tribal feuds that stem from political passions. And with Obama’s approval ratings in the high 70s, it’ll be easy to dismiss any haters as irredeemable crazies or mere lunk-headed racists.

Their reaction in the days to come will be revealing.

Truly, the inauguration slip was a fascinating gaffe between two super intelligent and poised men. It shows even polished public speakers can crumble when the pressure's on.

I believe Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, is an outstanding Supreme Court justice. He meets the one litmus test Bush skipped when he tabbed starry-eyed flunkey Harriet Miers.

The man is smart. That’s all I want from my top judges, no matter their party backgrounds. I disagree with most everything Antonin Scalia writes, but it’s always reasoned.

That’s why I’m eager to read more about how Roberts goofed administering the oath to Obama. It was the first time Roberts ever conducted the ceremony and the first time any Supreme Court justice administered the 35-word oath to a senator who’d voted against his confirmation.

To me, the most amazing aspect was, with all he has to think about, Obama precisely knew the oath and knew to pause and prompt Roberts that he was stumbling.

Had it been most anyone else in the world it, we would have simply aped whatever Roberts was saying, and it would have turned into the scene from “Animal House” when Delta pledge master Hoover, playing the Roberts part, awkwardly says, “I, state your name . . .”

And the dimwit pledges numbly reply, “I, state your name . . .”

It didn’t matter. They all became Delta pledges. Beneath the slapstick humor, the movie is at its heart a morality tale about how the carefree Deltas triumph over the uptight, holier-than-thou Alphas who think they are so superior they can dictate how the rest of the world should behave.

For those who’ve never seen the movie the whole way through, the dippy Deltas go on to fulfilling and mostly distinguished careers. Heck, one of them even becomes a U.S. Senator.

As for the hated Alphas, well, they’re probably spending today dialing into right wing talk shows to nitpick about constitutional minutia.