| | Your weekly newsletter direct from the keyboard of Bill Kristol, featuring timely observations and reflections. | |
| | | The Super Bowl--OMG! OMG!, as the kids say. Wowsers, as we exclaim. I wrote last week that this has been a great year for sports, with the NBA and World Series featuring comebacks from 3 to 1 down, and an excellent college football championship game. I wondered if the Super Bowl could prove equally exciting. It did. It was the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, indeed in NFL playoff history. It was one of the greatest big game comebacks in football history—second of course to Harvard's comeback to "defeat" Yale 29-29 in THE GAME in 1968—but still pretty impressive. You don't need me to add to all the commentary on the game (and if you're an Atlanta fan or a Patriots hater, you're already eager to move on to the next item). So I'll just mention one video, where a smiling Belichick shows Scott Zolak the real key to the Pats’ trick play against the Steelers—a “flea flicker” that ended with a big pass to Chris Hogan—with Julian Edelman blocking and releasing. And if you're interested in Belichick's genius assistant, Ernie Adams (and he's an interesting character), you might want to read this or this. One last thing: Here's a great interview of Adams. But what, you ask, of our Super Bowl competition. Of over one hundred entrants, eight predicted a Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl, with five having the Patriots winning. The fabulous five will get a deluxe TWS gift marking their successful prophecy. But the big winner is longtime TWS subscriber Paul Cimino, who had the Patriots winning and the final score within two points (he predicted 32-28). Congratulations, Paul! My colleague Jim Swift will be lavishing your reward on you (though he hasn't yet told me what it will be). And Paul, please give me a heads up in the summer of 2019 about the results of the 2020 election.... * * * ADVERTISEMENT
* * * New York, New York New York's a pretty amazing place. (Now there's the kind of insight you pay good money to get in this newsletter. Oh right, you don't pay for this newsletter....) I grew up in New York. I've visited countless times over the years, for business and pleasure. But the sheer size, scope and variety of today's New York never ceases to amaze. You're staying in a nondescript Hilton on W. 26th street. (No offense to the fine people who work at that Hilton, to which I expect to return; please don't take that adjective "nondescript" the wrong way. It's a perfectly nice nondescript Hilton.) You have various reasons to walk around that not-dazzlingly-fashionable neighborhood. When you leave your hotel the first morning, you see the cute storefront of the hip Seven Grams Caffe. Being a hip person, you stop in. Excellent coffee. And you can't help but notice an informally printed sign posted by the proprietors in the entryway. What does it say? "SORRY, NO DOGS. Yes, we know...we're dog owners too. But we're held to the standard of the department of health—and that unfortunately means no dogs. Apologies to our furry friends—we love you." You gotta love the cuteness of the New York hipsters. And you gotta love New York, because the next morning, seeking a break from hipsterism, you can go to a Dunkin' Donuts less than a hundred yards away, with great coffee in its own style, though sipping it there is a less artisanal experience. Meanwhile, as a million people have noticed, the restaurant scene in New York is out of control. There are so many good ones, and they're not wildly expensive. And so you meet people--authors, influencers, people with whom it's very important to be dining, let me assure the corporate suits!—at Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke for BBQ, at Il Tinello in midtown for old school Italian, at L'Amico in Chesea for new school Italian. (Needless to say, these are relatively modest establishments in the New York pantheon—God knows where editors at the Wall Street Journal and theNew York Times are dining!) But then you've got old fashioned diners and freshly-baked bagel places as well for your day-to-day nourishment. I love D.C., but I've got to say in this respect it really can't compete. Nor can it in this: You go for a walk when you have a couple of spare hours. You're heading for the Strand used bookstore—remember what that is, a bookstore?—and on the way you accidentally pass a little storefront, Academy Records & CDs (remember what those are?). There, in some place you've never heard of, are lots of terrific used classical CDs, at very reasonably prices. Excellent. And I didn't even have time on this trip to make it down to TriBeCa to visit the Mysterious Bookshop (the subject of a recent story in the Sunday Times) and say hello to its proprietor, Otto Penzler, who by the way was mentioned in this fine piece in The Weekly Standard arguing why you should raise your kids on crime fiction. As of course you should! And an awful lot the best crime fiction is set in...New York. * * * ADVERTISEMENT * * * A must read from P.J. Okay, enough with the praise of New York. Let me restore my "I'm-in-touch-with-Middle-America-credibility" by mentioning that earlier in the week, before training down to New York, I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (I traverse the Acela end-to-end!) I was participating in a panel at Harvard on the news media and politics, and tried, as I always try (and fail) to do at Harvard, to shake the Harvardians out of their complacent progressivism. It's amazing that progressivism can today be both panicked but still fundamentally complacent. In any case, the panel is here, and my remarks start around the 14:40 mark if you're at all curious. (One piece of good news from Harvard, though: As you can read here, they're recognizing and even honoring their long association with the United States military.) A much better use of your time than listening to my slight remarks, though, would be to read P.J. O'Rourke's cover story in the new Weekly Standard, "The Revolt Against the Elites...and the Limits of Populism." The piece is so amusing and has such a light touch that one could easily miss its deep and thought-provoking reflections on America, populism and the current moment. It's worth reading it through quickly, and laughing--and then re-reading it, and pondering. And while you're reading, take a look at Fred Barnes's very good reporting on the excellent pick of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, and at editorials by Terry Eastland making the case for Gorsuch, and by me making the case that Senate Republicans need to be ready to change the filibuster rules if necessary to confirm him. President Trump deserves full credit for nominating Gorsuch. Not so much, though, for attacking a federal judge in a demagogic way, or seeming to equate Putin's government with that of the United States. But, to return to a New York theme, he's doing it his way. We'll see how it all works out....
* * * Onward.
Bill Kristol |
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