The cartoon showed two weather forecasters in their lab, which was so futuristic with the kind of dials and meters and lasers and gadgets it would make NASA look like a covered-wagon repair shop after the Louisiana Purchase. One of the meteorologists said, "I predict rain." "Why?" queried his partner. "Because," came the reply, "my bunions hurt!"
Hold that concept. You'll need it later on. Normally, there's no need to make a big deal about precisely when a published column was written, but in this case it's important. It's the linchpin of the whole piece. This is being written early in the evening of Saturday, Aug. 20. At this instant in history – whether they're sincere or merely campaigning for Hillary – the major media have taken the position that Hillary Clinton has already easily won the election and Donald Trump has descended into disaster.
Anchormen and -women are asking political "strategists" and "experts" in wonderment, "Do you really think Trump has a chance to win?" and "Can you help us focus on the one episode when you realized it was too little, too late for Trump?" Those smug and self-assured soldiers of journalism have never let their previous errors about Trump affect their self-confidence. They marinate their worldview in verbiage like "Hillary has the edge in every single battleground state!" and even, "Mitt Romney lost Virginia by only 4 points, and Trump is losing there by four times that margin!"
I remember reading somewhere what a great tactic it is in dialogue and debate to pretend the outcome you prefer is already a bird-in-hand, but something tells me they've actually convinced one another this election is over and done with, and if they only had a teensy-bit more courage they'd propose we cancel the election straightaway and donate the money saved to a fund for Syrian refugees!
I have no evidence their triumphal award of the presidency to Hillary Clinton is incorrect. I have no statistics, real, invented or questionable. I've had no conversations with high-and-insiders who've leaked vital secrets to me. I have no information you don't have. But back now to that primitive prognosticator in the cartoon. My bunions don't hurt, but I have a strong feeling in my bones that Donald Trump is about to win.
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It's only my bones, mind you, but I'm the world's foremost interpreter of what my bones are telling me, and I find the messages from my bones far from boring. These good old bones are telling me that Trump's voters, including millions who've never voted before, will overwhelm any and all attempts at voter fraud.
When I was a pre-teenager and asked my father if we were going to win the war, and he assured me we would, he was lying! There was scant scenario for Allied victory over Germany and Japan in early 1942, yet win we did! These bones are reminding me that France wasn't all that cowardly and inept when it fell to the Nazis in 1940. It's just that World War I had been a war of trenches and gains of 50 yards after going "over the top." When the Second World War began we had no knowledge of Germany's blitzkrieg (lightning war) innovation in warfare.
I was not there "The Night They Invented Champagne," but I was definitely there when the first team from up north displayed the split-T formation in North Carolina college football. It was at Duke University, when Maryland came to Durham, North Carolina, in 1947. On the first play from scrimmage, Maryland quarterback Vic Turyn faked a pitch-out to halfback Lou Gambino, kept the ball and ran 79 yards. The Duke defenders weren't inept. But the Split-T formation was, to Duke, like watching a magic show!
Those of my generation call this phenomenon "A whole new brand of ball." The younger ones call it a "paradigm shift." And that's what my bones are begging me to bet on. The Japanese did not surrender because of the two atomic bombs. They were fully prepared to die for the emperor the whole time. They simply viewed those atomic bombs as "A flash from Heaven" that released them from their pledge to fight to the bitter last. Some paradigm shift!
And even though the supercilious manner in which those of us for Trump have been treated by Hillary's forces is hard to take, such treatment does serve to help us build character, and reminds us how sweet this Trump victory would be. In fact, I want to offer amnesty to even the most insolent and insulting offenders. I urge all Hillary supporters too mortified by a Trump victory to go outdoors to think upon Japan reduced to surrender in 1945, France falling to Germany in 1940 and Duke letting Vic Turyn run for 79 yards on the first play in 1947. It wasn't that it was frightening. It's that it was new!
I choose to behave like the honeysuckle that sheds sweetness upon the heel that crushes it! In that spirit, I offer you the words of Napoleon when he visited one of his prisoner-of-war camps where those his soldiers had captured were being held.
"Don't be so glum, You Fellows! Get those frowns off your faces!" shouted Napoleon.
"It's no disgrace to lose to my army!"
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