Giluiani Derangement Syndrome?
During the World Series, I linked to a video posted by a lefty blogger that complained that Fox Sports had designated George Bush throwing out the first pitch in Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium one of the top ten World Series moments. Over at Gateway Pundit, my friend Midwest Jim headlined that video Bush Derangement Syndrome hits the World Series.Rudy Giuliani has not even won the Republican nomination for President yet, and already Giuliani Derangement Syndrome is coming to the forefront.
In today's Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne, whose history of rooting for the Red Sox sounds remarkably like mine (I also became a fan in the Monbouquette, (Chuck) Schilling, Malzone, Stuart era of the early 60's), all but accuses Giuliani of showing disloyalty by rooting for the Red Sox in a Series in which his regular team - the Hated Yankees - was not involved. He also accuses Giuliani of rooting for the Red Sox to gain votes - it's been pointed out that the New England states have more electoral votes than Colorado. Here's the key passage:
Many non-sports people think team loyalties are irrational, trivial and a waste of time. Loyalty itself is an uneasy virtue for my fellow liberals, who rightly prize justice without favoritism and view tribalism (that's what sports loyalties are) with disdain.Dionne's claims to being able to read Giuliani's mind aside, during the 1986 World Series between the Red Sox and the Mets, a lot of New Yorkers I knew were rooting for the Red Sox. They were Yankee fans and hated the Mets even more than they hated the Red Sox.
In fact, loyalty is a greatly underrated virtue. That's why I honestly respected Giuliani's stubborn and unwavering faithfulness to his New York Yankees and appreciated the generous words he spoke upon Joe Torre's departure this month as the Yankees' manager.
George P. Fletcher, a Columbia University law professor, wrote a brilliant book called "Loyalty" in 1993 and once argued in a radio interview that loyalty "creates a certain stability in personal relationships, and I think that it creates, in the people who are loyal, a sense of integrity and continuity." Or, as he put it in the book, "In the way we draw the lines of our loyalties, we define ourselves as persons."
"People bring their histories to their loyalties," Fletcher argues, "which implies that the reasons for attachment to a friend, family or country" -- I'd add sports team -- "invariably transcend the particular characteristics of the object of loyalty." No kidding. I was a Red Sox fan in the days of Frank Malzone, Chuck Schilling and Bill Monbouquette, when the Washington Senators often were the only team between us and the cellar. I loved those guys.
My Red Sox loyalty is, in part, to family (my dad raised me a Red Sox fan) and to place (my native New England) and is thus very much about Fletcher's sense of "integrity and continuity."
Yes, yes, this is way too grand. But please remember that I'm trying to convince those people who see us sports loyalists as dangerous idiots. Mostly, I'll just be irrationally happy for the next several months. And Rudy, please go back to despising the Red Sox, as you're supposed to. In sports, an honest hatred is always better than a convenient dalliance.
I know it's hard for a lot of people to believe this, but baseball is a game, not life. And if Giuliani decides that from time to time he'd like to root for the Israelis of baseball, I'm cool with that. But there are a lot of good reasons for abandoning the Yankees right now. What they did to Joe Torre - a consummate professional and an Italian American like Giuliani - is one of them. So if Rudy decides to stop rooting for the Yankees altogether and root for the Red Sox or the Dodgers (whom Torre will apparently manage next year), I see no reason to blast him for that decision. Unless one is afflicted with Giuliani Derangement Syndrome.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:00 PM
1 Comments:
"I see no reason to blast him for that decision. Unless one is afflicted with Giuliani Derangement Syndrome."
Of course, you're right but you're thinking with logic and decency.
Seems to me the problem with the fascist Left appears to be far deeper. IF a Republican is elected Pres. in 2008, (*** forbid it's Hillary! Anybody but Hillary!) unless he acts like a Democrat (what the Reps call a RINO, a Republican in name only) the left will just retarget their hate. Bush Derangement Syndrome will be replaced with Giuliani Derangement Syndrome, or ______(fill in blank) Derangement Syndrome.
It's Conservatism itself the hard left neo-liberals hate. Any prominent proponent of Conservatism, be it Reagan, Dubya, Rudy, whomever, is likewise hated.
Such is the anti-democratic intolerance and bigotry that saturates their thinking. Democracy requires antagonistic parties to have some shared beliefs, some non-partisan common ground on which they can work together for the good of the Nation. The hard left that's taken over the Democratic Party, that's done it's best to undermine America in order to undermine the Bush Administration, is responsible for the ever-shrinking of that common ground in America.
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