Mr. Love’s Next Step

In early December, in the flush of the Packers’ victory over the World Champion Kansas City Chiefs, I conceded that despite my years-long skepticism about Green Bay Quarterback Jordan Love’s potential to be a worthy successor to Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, “maybe – just maybe” — the Green and Gold had something in Mr. Love.

We are a long way from hailing Mr. Love as the Third Coming. At the same time, he has unquestionably performed beyond at least my most optimistic expectations. Operating an offense with accomplished but gimpy running backs and a receiver corps that has literally watched less NFL action than you have, he has Green Bay within one game of the NFL playoffs, he’s 10^th in NFL Total Quarterback Rating, and is one of only three QBs with 30 touchdown passes. It could be argued that if the Packers’ defense had consistently played this season up to the standard one would expect from a unit brimming with high draft picks, Green Bay would already have clinched a playoff spot. The season started with the Packer Faithful wondering whether the team would be in the market for a starting quarterback this offseason; it’s ending with the impression that Mr. Love has earned a hefty contract extension.

And yet. Although Green Bay and the Minnesota Vikings entered last Sunday’s game with identical records, I would suggest that the Pack’s dominant effort against the Vikings needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Mr. Love’s bravura performance was against a Viking secondary whose members didn’t look like they’d ever been introduced to one another. Green Bay’s defense held down a Minnesota offense playing backup quarterbacks and without one of its two best receivers.

I would submit that this weekend will be the season’s ultimate test for this year’s Packers. If the Packers win, they make the playoffs. If they don’t, they probably don’t. Although besieged Packer Defensive Coordinator Joe Barry is probably going to lose his job in any event, any shred of a chance he has to retain it will in all likelihood depend upon how the defense performs. The Packers get home field advantage against a Chicago Bear team out of playoff contention.

That said, while the Bears have performed below pre-season expectations overall, they, like Green Bay, have played very well in the team’s last few games under Quarterback Justin Fields. Chicago seems to me to have a subplot every bit as intriguing as the Packers’ playoff quest. The Bears have the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NFL draft. The team’s front office is reportedly (and if so, understandably) weighing whether Mr. Fields – himself their first round pick in 2021, who has been sometimes injured and mixed brilliance with inconsistency – is their long-term quarterback, or if they should draft the best quarterback prospect available next spring. This weekend, Mr. Fields may well be playing for his job, at least in Chicago. In his college career at Georgia and Ohio State, he played in a lot of high-pressure games. His teammates are apparently behind him, and if they are, they will play hard for him. They undoubtedly also remain stung by their unexpected opening week loss to Green Bay, which began the team’s disappointing 2023 downward spiral.

[I have no idea what Mr. Barry will do to defend against Mr. Fields; I’d be tempted to have Packer Inside Linebacker Quay Walker “shadow” Mr. Fields (who is as explosive a runner as he is a passer), and make it explicitly clear to Cornerback Jaire Alexander that Mr. Alexander’s performance this season hasn’t always measured up to his reputation or salary.]

Last year, in Mr. Rodgers’ last game at the helm, to make the playoffs the Packers only needed to win a game at home against another NFC North rival, a Detroit Lions team that was hungry but already out of playoff contention. Detroit won. The Packers were eliminated. Mr. Rodgers departed.

Here we are again.

I expect Sunday’s game to have playoff intensity. Not only is it the Packers and the Bears; it will be one of the few between Green Bay and Chicago since Mr. Favre took the field in 1992 that has clear major ramifications for both teams. This season, Mr. Love has indisputably successfully shouldered the pressure of the comparison to his storied predecessors – neither of whom made the playoffs in their respective first years as starters — but has seemed at least to me to be a little shaky in games carrying obvious ramifications. It doesn’t matter what happens after Sunday; if Green Bay does make the playoffs, it will in all probability be easily dispatched by whatever higher playoff seed it draws. Given Green Bay’s uncertain defense, for me the key factor this week will be how Mr. Love plays – i.e., no matter the outcome, did Mr. Love play well enough to win?

Some memories get rosier over time. Mr. Favre was not BRETT FAVRE in his first year; despite his legendary arm strength, Mr. Favre occasionally underthrew open receivers. Mr. Rodgers was not AARON RODGERS in his first year; despite his renowned accuracy, he occasionally missed open receivers. I would nonetheless submit that Sunday evening, Packer fans will have a clearer idea whether Mr. Love has the makings of a worthy successor to Messrs. Favre and Rodgers.

In other words, in a nutshell: Can he be … the Guy?

To the Decisive Year Ahead

“You must not weaken in any way in your alert and vigilant frame of mind. Though holiday rejoicing is necessary to the human spirit, yet it must add to the strength and resilience with which every man and woman turns again to the work they have to do, and also to the outlook and watch they have to keep on public affairs. …

[W]e have yet to make sure … that the words, ‘freedom,’ [and] ‘democracy’ … are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them. There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take [their] place ….”

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, May 13, 1945

Before our last 4^th of July holiday, I quoted these remarks by Mr. Churchill in these pages – which he delivered to the British people on a date after the fall of Nazi Germany but before the defeat of Imperial Japan, and as the indications of Soviet Russia’s designs for eastward European territorial domination were first appearing – and there’s at least an even chance I’ll cite them at least once more before another of our 2024 national holidays. There has not been a time in over 75 years in which they have been as relevant as they are today, as former President Donald Trump, unabashedly using rhetoric that is often a direct lift from Adolf Hitler, seems poised to win the presidential nomination of a major American political party whose adherents now consist of the fascist, the poisonously tribal, the cowardly, or the blind.

For most of my lifetime, presidential elections have been won by the candidate that was most effective at obtaining the votes of those in the political middle of our electorate. More recently, given a closely-divided, hyper-polarized polity in which virtually all of our citizens have hardened leanings either right or left, winning has involved turnout – i.e., which side is better able to squeeze more votes out of its supporters.

This year, if democracy is to be preserved – assuming that Mr. Trump does win the Republican nomination – the supporters of the Democrat opposing him – overwhelmingly likely to be President Joe Biden – will need to be good at both. Democrats will need to persuade enough of the disaffected and disappointed – particularly among minorities and the young – that it does matter for their futures to go to the polls to vote against Mr. Trump. At the same time, Democrats will need to convince enough older voters who would in normal times lean toward a traditional Republican candidate that what matters in 2024 is preserving democracy — that there will always be another election in 2028 if Mr. Biden is reelected, no matter what he does.

It must be faced: Mr. Trump’s cultish supporters will not leave him, and will show up on Election Day. Mr. Biden’s seemingly increasing physical infirmity and what certainly appears to be a mishandled situation at our southern border clearly hurt his prospects. The animating issue of abortion, together with what increasingly appears will be a soft economic landing and Mr. Trump’s chilling fascist rhetoric, are obviously powerful political assets to help Democrats persuade the open-minded. Foreign policy (our apparently waning willingness to continue to support Ukraine, and our clearly dwindling patience with Israel’s manifestly indiscriminate destruction of Gaza) and the outcomes of Mr. Trump’s criminal and civil court proceedings are political wildcards.

It’s going to be that close.

So as we celebrate the dawn of another year that has been given us, and amid whatever other New Year’s resolutions you may be contemplating, let me offer this: consider how you might, as Mr. Churchill suggested over 75 years ago, apply your strength and resilience in the coming year to the work we have to do to preserve our democratic way of life. Don’t let exhaustion win.

Thank you for the honor of allowing me to share these posts with you again in 2023.

May you, your family and friends have a Happy and Healthy New Year.

A Letter to the Editor

[Today, I emailed the following letter to the Wall Street Journal. I have no expectation it will be published; my letters to the Journal never are. 😉 ]

In your editorial, “The Supreme Court Spurns Jack Smith,” and Peggy Noonan’s column, “National Unity and the Colorado Supreme Court,” both published shortly before Christmas, the Editorial Board and Ms. Noonan set forth an approving perspective of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices which I do not share.

In your editorial, you applaud the Court’s recent refusal to provide an expedited ruling sought by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Mr. Trump’s claimed immunity defense, declaring, “[Mr. Smith’s] plea was purely political so he could meet his opening trial date … and get a conviction of Mr. Trump before Election Day in 2024.” To the contrary, I find the Court’s declination to be a despicable dereliction of its duty. The charges against Mr. Trump are credible and of the utmost import. (In her piece, Ms. Noonan observed, “I believe that in the court cases [Mr. Trump] faces he will be found guilty of many charges.” One can infer from the Editorial Board’s criticism of Mr. Smith that it expects that if Mr. Smith does get Mr. Trump to trial, Mr. Trump will be found guilty. It is seemingly fair to assume that if Mr. Trump was himself confident that he would be found innocent, he would be seeking the earliest possible trial date.) It is not “political,” in the partisan sense, for the Special Counsel to seek the earliest possible trial date to enable our citizenry to learn whether a leading candidate for the presidency is guilty of crimes against the country he wishes to lead and the Constitution he had sworn to uphold. Does anyone doubt that the Supreme Court won’t ultimately have to rule on Mr. Trump’s immunity claim – while its unwillingness to proceed at this juncture might well delay the trial to the point that Mr. Trump’s Republican presidential nomination is a fait accompli notwithstanding any guilty verdict?

The Editorial Board’s editorial’s sub-head declared that the Supreme Court Justices “wisely” refused to grant Mr. Smith’s motion for an expedited hearing. In her column, Mr. Noonan stated, “… I respect [the Supreme Court Justices], not only as an institution but individually, as serious human beings.” I would submit that by denying Mr. Smith’s motion, at least six Justices have shown themselves to be neither wise nor serious, but merely political partisans, hiding behind their robes.

[Final note: despite my disdain for the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant Mr. Smith’s motion of an expedited hearing on the presidential immunity issue, I actually agree with the main point Ms. Noonan was making in her column: that the Colorado Supreme Court’s recent holding, barring former President Donald Trump from being on the Colorado presidential ballot under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, should not stand. No matter how strong the legal reasoning might be, the former president hasn’t yet been convicted of anything; removing him from the ballot by judicial fiat smacks of political persecution and invites civil unrest.]

What Makes … a Christian?

[A preliminary note: my comments below will undoubtedly reflect my Roman Catholic training, and may not relate exactly to all Christian faiths.]

As Christmas is upon us, I’ve reflected upon what I think makes … a Christian. Traditional Christian theology holds that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man, conceived in the womb of a virgin without sin, who came into the world to teach us an affirmative life of love (as a complement rather than as a contradiction to Judaic law, which I understand tends to focus on prohibitions), and willingly died as a sacrifice to God the Father as expiation for the sins of humankind. His themes as recorded in the Gospels – what Christians call, “the Good News” — are compelling but relatively few. What theologians have erected upon them over the last two millennia can be likened to an exponentially mushrooming coral reef.

I’m pretty confident that the hierarchy of my Roman Catholic Church would take significant issue with some of what follows; they might well consider me a fallen-away Catholic, perhaps even a fallen-away Christian. That’s as may be. One tenet that I am confident that religious scholars of most if not all faiths agree upon: each of us is responsible for his/her own soul. I personally would add another tenet, with which many of these worthies might not agree: That those of us who claim to believe in Him can, at best, only do what we have faith He wants. During the last 60 years – let alone the last 2000 years — there have been Popes who have had such different theological emphases that such differences have seemed to come precariously close to differences in kind. I don’t see how those of us with no claim to infallibility can expect to have any greater degree of enlightenment or unanimity.

The strictest view of Christianity is that followed by those who rigidly adhere to all of the dictates of the hierarchy of their given Christian Church. (Some – including Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson – maintain that they are following the Bible’s precepts. I respectfully disagree. The Bible can be cited for just about anything anybody wants. It’s a Church’s elders who decide which of the Bible’s passages will be emphasized, which ignored.) From the Roman Catholic perspective, strict Catholics would be those whose beliefs include, as the Church hierarchy declares: that the physical expression of homosexual love is a sin (Pope Francis’ authorization this week for priests to bless same-sex couples is certainly a softening but seemingly not a reversal of the Church’s traditional position); that Mary, the Mother of Jesus – for whom I have the deepest reverence — was not only a virgin when the Lord was conceived in her womb, but was ever-virgin (i.e., never engaged in sexual relations despite the fact that she was a married woman); that women are inherently unqualified to be priests; and that it is a sin to fail to attend Mass on the Church’s designated Holy Days of Obligation (unless the Holy Day falls on a Monday; apparently, Mondays are less Holy than other days).

Abiding by a set of such rules is the correct approach for some. Everyone finds spiritual solace in his or her own way. Not all can be as unquestioning of church elders’ pronouncements.

A second, less formalistic view holds that Jesus is the Son of God, but that the Lord’s fundamental message focused little on legalisms and mostly on love. Jesus did seemingly pay lesser heed to ritualistic observance of religious rules: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings.” (Matthews 23: 13); “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not [despite Judaic law] immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 14: 5). This at first does appear to provide a theological safety net for those reluctant to abide by rigid dictates; that said, the core of the Lord’s teaching, while simple, is in fact exceedingly challenging in our competitive, materialistic (capitalistic? 😉 ) culture: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 37 – 39); “[L]ove your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6: 27-31); “[I]t is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19: 24). Finally, when one analyzes it perhaps the most perilous line in all of Scripture, recited by rote by millions of Christians every day: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us [Emphasis added].”

If you’re shifting a bit in your chair as you’re reminded of these, you’re not alone. These teachings are something to strive for – while setting an unnerving standard.

Finally: Does one have to believe that Jesus was God in order to be considered a Christian? I suspect that the hierarchy of every Christian denomination would answer resoundingly in the affirmative, many presumably quoting John 14: 6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ [Emphasis Added].” Put aside the fact that biblical scholars agree that John was the last Gospel written, and that John reports Jesus as affirmatively declaring his divinity in a manner that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, written closer in time to Jesus’ life, fail to record. (I think biblical scholars also agree that none of the Gospels were written by the men to whom they are respectively attributed.) Even so: Is the way to salvation only through Him, or can it be through living His message (whether or not one is even aware that it was His message)? Have the deceased human beings who have lived existences of caring and giving — among them, Jews, Muslims, those subscribing to Eastern faiths, indigenous peoples around the world, and those who follow no specific faith – been condemned because they have/had either never heard of Jesus or do/did not accept his divinity?

I reject the notion that a loving God could be so harsh to so many of the creatures He has brought forth.

At the same time, we are all in need forgiveness. Our faith lies in the confidence that the Almighty will look past our transgressions if we try hard enough.

“But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ … [T]hey went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus … said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She replied, “No one, sir.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on sin no more.’” (John 8: 7 – 11).

Not sinning in the future is probably not a realistic expectation for most of us; trying to live a more giving life perhaps is. So to all Christians – which I would submit includes all of those of any or no faith who are trying to live in accordance with the principles the Lord set forth:

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.

Ukraine at the Precipice

As all who care are aware, a package to respectively provide billions in aid to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia, to Israel in its struggle against Hamas, and to Taiwan to help shore up its defenses against China is being tied up in a U.S. Senate squabble in which Republicans are insisting upon changes to American border security policy that are apparently an anathema to Democrats. Last week, several outlets reported that a number of Senate Republicans “stormed out” of a meeting with Senate Democrats because they did not consider Democrats to be taking their border security demands seriously.

Although some – including me — might initially dismiss the Republicans’ opposition as pandering to their base, I took particular note that U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney – who is not running for re-election, has unassailable credentials as an opponent of Russian aggression, and is almost certainly not beloved by his caucus colleagues after his votes to convict former President Trump in both his impeachment trials and given the revelations in Mr. Romney’s book, Romney: A Reckoning – was among the most incensed by what he viewed as Democrats’ intransigence on border issues. On December 5, he tweeted: “Dems want $106B—GOP wants a closed border. That’s the trade. But clueless Dems want to negotiate the border bill. Not going to happen. Is an open border more important to Dems than Ukraine and Israel?”.

I didn’t see it, but The Hill reported Sunday that on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Mr. Romney stated in part:

“It’s not just Republicans that are holding a hard line. It’s Democrats who are holding a hard line. Either side can move and can get this done. … We have gone from one to 2000 [illegal] encounters at the border a day under … Bush, Obama and Trump [to] … 10 to 12,000 a day. As Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said, we’re basically seeing Pittsburgh show up [at] the border every month.”

Mr. Romney is an estimable man. Given his views, I’m willing to assume that Senate Democrats are being too rigid.

Let’s put Taiwan and Israel aside for purposes of this note; at this moment, it appears unlikely that China’s President Xi Jinping is going to risk further hardening American attitude against China by ordering a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and, as I have previously observed here, it’s pretty clear that Israel has shown little need for our military aid to either defeat Hamas or to lay complete waste to the Gaza Strip.

On the other hand, there appears to be consensus that Ukraine is about out of money, and without our military and economic aid, Ukraine will fall under Russian domination within the foreseeable future. I have found the way that at least the electronic news outlets we follow have focused so heavily on the Israel-Hamas conflict since the Hamas attack of October 7, with scant attendant coverage of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, to be extremely distressing; such emphasis endangers western democracy by causing us to take our eye off the ball — Ukraine. Business Insider has reported that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia hoped lawmakers would continue to delay the Ukraine aid; The New Republic has reported that a Russian state television commentator has declared, “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”

After all their sacrifices, all of the innocent deaths, all of the displacement, and all of the destruction of their homes and their institutions, and the attempted eradication of their nation and their culture by Vladimir Putin, and notwithstanding their Herculean defense of their homeland, without our continued assistance Ukrainians will lose. Ukraine will disappear – perhaps even in name. And we diddle and bicker.

I don’t know what the Republicans are demanding in the way of different or enhanced border security measures. Even so, I will submit that if President Biden and Congressional Democrats can get Republicans’ agreement to authorize what the Administration deems to be sufficient aid to get Ukraine through to March, 2025, they should agree to all Republican border demands that don’t include shooting illegal immigrants or separating immigrant children from parents (there may be some other similarly egregious exception I’m overlooking, but you get the idea). If advising Mr. Biden, I would recommend that he call his old Senate colleague, Senate Minority Leader U.S. KY Sen. Mitch McConnell – who is currently among those holding up Ukraine aid to obtain additional border security, but does support aid for Ukraine — find out from Mr. McConnell exactly what border measures Senate Republicans are demanding in return for supporting Ukraine aid, and then – assuming that there are no Republican conditions as malign as those I listed above — call Senate Majority Leader U.S. NY Sen. Chuck Schumer and strongly advise Mr. Schumer to … Do. The. Deal.

My rationale is pretty basic: what happens now on the border doesn’t, from a practical standpoint, matter that much. If Mr. Biden wins in November, 2024, Democrats are likely to control both chambers of Congress; they can then attempt to undo whatever measures are enacted now that they consider too onerous. If Donald Trump wins the presidency next November, whatever strictures are put into effect now will be but a prelude to what Mr. Trump (with, if he is elected, will likely be a Republican-controlled Congress) will do anyway in 2025.

Although this is of wildly lesser import, I would agree with those who have opined that signing a law with stringent border measures may actually help Mr. Biden politically. By all accounts, those living near our southern border have reasonable concerns about what appears to be our mishandling of border security (no matter whose fault it actually is, the political reality is that the buck stops at the White House), and even many living in the snowy Midwest find the border an emotive issue. [I was surprised to find how border security resonated with central Wisconsinites at a Republican Town Hall Meeting we attended a couple of years ago. Although one could argue that the mid-state Wisconsin resident is only marginally more likely to be harmed by an illegal immigrant than s/he is to be strangled by a Burmese python (which are now reported to be migrating north in Florida, having wiped out the available prey in the Everglades), it doesn’t matter. Citizens vote on their perceptions.] If Mr. Biden supports stiffer border controls, he will — unlike the many Republicans who are now hypocritically touting the benefits of the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Law for their districts, despite that fact that they voted against it – be able to correctly declare that he took serious steps to secure our border. The Wall Street Journal noted recently that if he does make major immigration concessions to Republicans, the President risks losing support amongst some segments of Democratic voters; I would counter that if/when these disgruntled Democrats recognize that the alternative to a Biden vote is a Trump Restoration, they’ll come around.

I am sickened by the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has to come to Washington this week to plead – to beg – for assistance that we have the wherewithal to provide which will continue to defend his nation while at the same time safeguarding ours. The Ukrainians can’t afford to wait 13 months until (under the happiest scenario) Mr. Biden has won reelection and Democrats have regained control of Congress. By then, Russia will have conquered Ukraine and the NATO alliance will, for all intents and purposes, be in shreds. Mr. Biden’s party controls the Senate, albeit narrowly. He needs to do virtually anything within his power to secure aid for the Ukrainians now.

I recognize that this post approaches rant (or perhaps merely exhibits desperation). Is the Congressional compromise I urge here ugly? Without doubt. Essentially acquiescing to blackmail? Unquestionably. Domestic Realpolitik? Certainly. Necessary to help sustain global democracy? Seemingly, Yes.

The Ironies of Kevin McCarthy

As all who care are aware, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican U.S. CA Rep. Kevin McCarthy, announced Wednesday that he is leaving his seat in the House as of the end of 2023. Although he never seemed to me to present, through his own affirmative behavior, as much danger to democracy as former President Donald Trump and other MAGAS, his acquiescence to their actions unquestionably facilitated their cause. I would submit that his legacy can most fairly be characterized as that of an unprincipled, gutless lickspittle.

It is Mr. McCarthy’s personal irony – not dissimilar to the irony that U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is likely to never again be Senate Majority Leader because he succeeded so well in orchestrating the elevation of U.S. Supreme Court Justices willing to strike down Roe v. Wade – that in his maneuvering and concessions to gain the necessary votes to become House Speaker at the beginning of this year, he laid the groundwork for his own truly ignominious ouster. If I could ask Mr. McCarthy one question today, it would be this: Given the bootlicking gyrations you had to go through to get the Speakership, and the humiliation you suffered at the hands of MAGA nihilists in being ejected from it – was it worth it?

Unfortunately, a corresponding irony has rebounded upon House Democrats and their leader, U.S. NY Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. They so detested Mr. McCarthy for his duplicity that when he faced the challenge to his Speakership from a pivotal – yet actually quite small – faction within his caucus, they refused to prop him up, although it seemed very possible that if they did so, they could thereafter exploit his ambition and weakness to further some of their agenda. They chose to gamble that they’d get a new Republican Speaker who, from their perspective, would either be better or no worse.

As flawed as Mr. McCarthy is, that has so far looked like a bad bet, for the country and for the world.

On we march.

On Jordan Love

On Sunday afternoon, on a string maintained by avid family Packer backers, I indicated, “Don’t expect them [the Packers] to win tonight but if the kid [Packer Quarterback Jordan Love] plays well against the World Champions [the Kansas City Chiefs], maybe – just maybe – we’ve got something.”

Mr. Love completed 25-of-36 passes for 267 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. As all who care are aware, the Packers (arguably aided by two late-game pass interference infractions that weren’t called 😉 ) defeated the Chiefs 27 – 19 on Sunday night. If the season ended now, Green Bay would qualify for the NFC playoffs under the NFL’s process for determining playoff priority.

As anybody reading any of the Packer-related notes which I have posted in recent years is well aware, I have had deep doubts about Mr. Love’s ability to worthily succeed his storied Packer Quarterback predecessors, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. My concerns were based less upon his uncertain play in his infrequent appearances during Mr. Rodgers’ last Green Bay seasons than upon the team’s marked reluctance to move on from Mr. Rodgers – an approach in stark contrast to the haste with which the team dispensed with Mr. Favre in favor of Mr. Rodgers a football generation ago – despite Mr. Rodgers’ $50 million 2022 salary and his tendency to be what my mother would have called, “obstreperous.” Green Bay’s apparent hesitation to transition to Mr. Love appeared to me to be a clear indication that the team — despite Packer General Manager Brian Gutekunst’s decision to move up in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft to select him – didn’t consider him, after years of review, to be able to perform at anywhere near the level of excellence maintained by Messrs. Favre and Rodgers dating back to 1992.

After a promising start that included leading an 18-point fourth quarter comeback to beat the New Orleans Saints 18 – 17 in Week 3, Mr. Love experienced mid-season doldrums – the team lost four in row to fall to 2 – 5 — that reinforced the doubts of his skeptics – including me 😉 . Since that time, Mr. Love has – to use another phrase of my mother’s – “come on like gangbusters”; in his last three games, Mr. Love has thrown eight touchdown passes with no interceptions (although a couple of his biggest throws against Kansas City were more reminiscent of Mr. Favre than Mr. Rodgers – which is to say that although they were successful, they were a bit dicey). He has led the Green and Gold to impressive victories over a hungry Detroit Lions team on the road on Thanksgiving and now over the World Champion Chiefs (who seemed at least to me to believe, coming into Sunday night’s game, that they were going to win pretty easily). I understand that before the Kansas City game, Mr. Love’s quarterbacking statistics were largely indistinguishable from those posted by Mr. Rodgers at the same point in his first season as the Green Bay starter.

Based upon what we’ve seen thus far, am I hailing Mr. Love as The Third Coming? Certainly not. We’ll see how he performs for the rest of the year. Nobody was really expecting much after the Packers’ mid-season nosedive; now, although none of Green Bay’s last four opponents has a better record than the Packers, the expectations and the pressure – the hope to make the playoffs – will be there. Young quarterbacks frequently regress in their early years of development (although I don’t recall either Mr. Favre or Mr. Rodgers doing so to any notable degree). Even if Green Bay does somehow make the playoffs, I would expect that it will be easily dispatched by any of the NFC teams likely to be its first round opponent. That said, it’s fun to have a young team that shows promise to root for, to provide a distraction from the issues and cares generally addressed in these pages.

This note is primarily for the benefit of those of our younger Packer fan family members, who all along have been much more bullish about Mr. Love’s prospects than I, and have joshed me about my misgivings. To them, I acknowledge that maybe – just maybe – we’ve got something 🙂 .

On Henry Kissinger

As all who care are aware, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger passed away on November 29 at the age of 100. Mr. Kissinger was appointed National Security Advisor by former President Richard Nixon in 1969, and Mr. Nixon named him U.S. Secretary of State in 1973. To list Sec. Kissinger’s accomplishments here would be a waste of your time; in the coming days there will be a legion of sources that will describe these for those who wish a review. I consider Mr. Kissinger to be the second finest American foreign policy mind of the last half century – behind only Mr. Nixon himself. Mr. Kissinger was a practitioner of Realpolitik – pragmatically seeing the world as it is, and advocating for those policies designed to preserve or improve America’s position in ever-shifting global landscape. (Perhaps I feel the way I do about Mr. Kissinger’s approach because his philosophy toward foreign policy was essentially the same as I would submit must be maintained by an able transaction lawyer – you don’t expect the perfect outcome; you manage within the variables you have to achieve the best outcome you can under the existing circumstances.) He believed in maintaining stability – a structured world order. Many accurately criticize him for heavily prioritizing, in deed if not in word, positions that he perceived as maintaining American strategic interests while placing significantly lesser emphasis on (if not ignoring) human rights transgressions by our less-savory allies as well as our adversaries. I would counter that when you are the world’s preeminent super power, stability is your friend, instability your enemy. Executing upon such a philosophy is not the most humanitarian, but is arguably the only approach that enables America – which has been and as of today remains, whatever our shortcomings, the foremost democracy and bulwark of freedom in the history of the world — to maintain its standing in a world run by ambitious, flawed and frequently malign humans.

Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger got the primary strategic foreign policy challenge of their age – which I consider to be China, not Vietnam – right. Despite the depth of Cold War rhetoric and atmosphere, they recognized that China’s Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai had come to fear the power of the U.S.S.R. on China’s border more than they feared America – and that America could leverage this Chinese concern to tilt the balance of world power further toward the U.S. and away from the U.S.S.R. I would submit that former President Ronald Reagan’s later direct and more bellicose approach toward the U.S.S.R., ultimately resulting in its dismantling, would not have succeeded but for the groundwork laid by Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger. I agree with the assertion that it was Mr. Kissinger’s worldwide prestige that kept American foreign policy on an even keel as the nation went through the trauma of Watergate. At the same time, Messrs. Nixon’s and Kissinger’s handling of the Vietnam conflict obviously remains controversial; I have heard commentators opine that they “widened the war” by bombing and ultimately invading North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. It is undisputed that the American bombing left devastation; untold numbers of undetonated bombs embedded in Cambodian soil continue to maim Cambodians. (This was brought home to us over a decade ago when we visited our son, a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Cambodia.) It is also undisputed that American troop levels in Vietnam sharply declined during every year of the Nixon presidency.

As anyone who ever heard Mr. Kissinger speak – which includes almost all of us who have lived in the western world for the last 50 years — is well aware: this brilliant strategist was a German immigrant, whose Jewish family only came to this country in order to escape Nazi persecution. His passing again causes one to reflect upon the intellectual capital that this country, our children and grandchildren may sorely lose out on in the future because the xenophobia now infecting so many of our citizens is resulting in the exclusion of immigrants fleeing persecution in their native lands who would, if allowed, enthusiastically enrich our nation.

About a year ago, I entered a note in these pages, entitled, “Our Most Influential American Non-Presidents Since World War II,” describing the contributions of 15 Americans from Muhammad Ali to Mark Zuckerberg (not all the characterizations were positive 😉 ). I remember considering but ultimately excluding Mr. Kissinger from the list because I didn’t want the group to be too heavily weighted toward my interest in public policy and politics. I ended the piece with the query, “Who did I miss?”

Now, I answer my own question: I missed Henry Kissinger.

May this great – certainly not perfect, but unquestionably great — American rest in peace.

A Gentleman in Moscow

I don’t read much fiction, and when I do, it’s most often a return to the stories of my youth – the Bond adventures, the mysteries of Agatha Christie and Rex Stout. Even so, a while ago a friend gave me A Gentleman in Moscow, a novel by Amor Towles, the account of the life of the Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a member of the Russian aristocracy who by happenstance is sentenced to house arrest for life in the most prestigious hotel in Moscow (rather than being shot like the majority of his station) when the Bolsheviks take over Russia. The Count is one of the most charming fictional characters I’ve ever encountered, a gentleman of taste, tact, and refinement. If you have the life space, I heartily recommend the book.

This summer, I posted a note, “Honorifics and Beyond,” in which I lamented the Wall Street Journal’s then-recent decision to dispense with honorifics – courtesy titles such as “Mr.” and “Ms.” – in its news pages. I indicated then and believe now that the Journal’s decision was simply a bow to a cruder culture.

Perhaps our friend provided me the book in part because the Count had sentiments similar to mine as he faced a transition early in his house arrest:

“‘It has been brought to my attention,’ the [hotel] manager continued, if somewhat haltingly, ‘that various members of the staff when speaking to you … have continued to make use of certain … honorifics.’

‘Honorifics?’

‘Yes. More precisely, I gather they have been addressing you as Your Excellency …’

The Count considered the manager’s assertion for a moment.

‘Well, yes. I suppose that some of your staff address me in that fashion.’

The manager nodded his head then smiled a little sadly.

‘I’m sure you can see the position that this puts me in.’

In point of fact, the Count could not see the position that this put the manager in. But given the Count’s unmitigated feelings of sympathy, he decidedly did not want to put him in any position. So, he listened attentively as [the manager] went on:

…

‘Naturally, I have little choice but to insist that my staff refrain from using such terms when addressing you. After all, I think we can agree without exaggeration or fear of contradiction that the times have changed.’

In concluding thus, the manager looked to the Count so hopefully that the Count took immediate pains to reassure him.

‘It is the business of the times to change. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them.’

The manager looked to the Count with an expression of profound gratitude – that someone should understand what he had said so perfectly no further explication was required.

…

Your Excellency, the Count [later] reflected philosophically. Your Eminence, Your Holiness, Your Highness. Once upon a time, the use of such terms was a reliable indication that one was in a civilized country …

Here, the Count gave an indefinite twirl of the hand.

‘Well. It is probably for the best,’ he said.

…

For the times do, in fact, change. They change relentlessly. Inevitably. Inventively. … [Emphasis in Original].”

The fictional Count was largely correct; it is the business of gentlemen (and ladies 🙂 ) to change with the times, and the times do change relentlessly, inevitably, and inventively. I obviously concur with his reflection that the use of honorifics provides a reassuring indicator that one is in a civilized country. But I would respectfully question his conclusion that change – at least in all instances – is probably for the best.

Thus endeth this pontification 😉 . May you be able to embrace the Holiday Season upon us.

May Each of Us Be the One

“And it came to pass as he was going to Jerusalem, that he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. And as he was entering a certain village, there met him ten lepers who stood afar off and lifted up their voice, crying, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us.’ And when he saw them he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And it came to pass as they were on their way, that they were made clean. But one of them, seeing that he was made clean, returned, with a loud voice glorifying God, and he fell on his face at [Jesus’] feet, giving thanks; and he was a Samaritan.

But Jesus answered and said, ‘Were not the ten made clean? But where are the nine? Has no one been found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And he said to him, ‘Arise, go thy way, for thy faith has saved thee.’”

The Gospel of Luke, 17: 11 – 16

As we approach this national day of Thanksgiving, we are in turmoil within our borders and across the world. One cannot dispute that many within our human race – victims of war, persecution, hate, natural disaster, accident, famine, poverty, homelessness, disease, loneliness – might see little to feel thankful for. At the same time, I would respectfully submit that most of those who read these pages have much for which to give thanks. It is, regrettably, human nature to focus on the difficult, to take the good for granted — to be among the nine. Something happened recently that underscored for me that one should never lose sight of how precious and yet fleeting the gift of life can be, that one should never take his/her blessings for granted. On our national day of Thanksgiving, may each of us … be the one. May we pause to be thankful for all of our gifts, and hug all of the loved ones whose company we are blessed to share this Holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving.