a little reminder to conservative pundits who criticize various aspects of mitt romney's debate performance ... mickey mantle ...

friends:

even mickey mantle, as great a ballplayer as he was, only batted .298 for his career.

that means that .702 of his plate appearances resulted in outs.

none of us, even the very gifted, and mickey mantle was very gifted, indeed, are immune from being fallible.

as applied to mitt romney, as a human, as a candidate, and as a debater, this means simply that he does not hit the ball every time, let along hit a home run every time.  i can tell you that the mick struck out his fair share of times, and i can tell you that he swung past many a gopher ball that he should have parked.  as a kid, and now as an adult, i am thankful for the ones he did.

so, for christ's sake, given romney a little bit of a break if he does not approach perfection on every riposte, and if he does not blast every gopher ball out of the park, if some rejoinders or rebuttals are weaker than others.

he is, after all is said and done, only human.   and, all that we can expect of him, is that he perform to an acceptable standard.  it seems to me, that fairness and a modicum of judgment would extract a concession from all observers that romney has done precisely that, and then some.

he walked into a room that was stacked against him, and into an argument "moderated" by a partisan asshole, and conducted himself very ably.  he won most of the arguments, it seems to me, on a substantive basis, while conducting himself with grace and dignity.  he did not win every point, he did not blast every idiotic thing obama said to venus.  but, he did well, and i think, by every standard of ideals and beliefs that i hold dear, he did ably.

i have stated my belief that he won the debate, and that position is strengthened by the obvious stretching of points engaged in by liberals/democrats/marxists/& communists to show that obama won.

so, quite frankly, i think some of you carp over very tedious points.

it is almost incomprehensible to me that you do, given that the desirability of electing romney over obama isn't even open to question, given what most of us believe.

so, why in the hell do you give our enemies succor, and supply them with weapons to be used against us, by your petty criticisms.  surely there is a very small unpleasant room somewhere in which you will be punished for the exercise of such ego and vanity.

you don't have to lie or avoid things.  just keep them in perspective, be supportive, and do what you can to advance our goals.   mickey mantle walked to the plate by himself in every at bat he ever played he ever had, as a kid, as a minor leaguer, and in the big leagues.

as does mitt romney when he goes to bat for us.

i am reminded of a story & statement attributed to mickey mantle, well after he retired from playing baseball.  he said, (especially apropos to the situation i am describing), that he did not know what an easy game baseball was to play, until he had spent some time in the announcer's booth.

some of you should exercise such humility, and keep such a perspective.  this seems so obvious to me, now that we are at this stage.  be a little partisan, it will be forgiven.  (james carville sure as hell is relying on this.  no pun intended.)

be olympian after the election.  right now, get down in the muck with the rest of us.  for christ's sake.

john jay @ 10.18.2012

p.s.  and, one damned thing i never saw in all the baseball games i ever watched in which mickey mantle played, was his friend whitey ford out on the other team's mound, giving the pitcher hints on how to best his friend mantle.  never.  not even once.  not even to show what a bright lad, what a great pitcher, he was at the expense of the mick.

do you understand my point?

Comments

[Bryce Martin]

"only batted .298 in his career" re Mickey Mantle is not a fair summation of Mantle's skill as a batter. Anything around .300 in baseball is considered good. But when employ the total of 1.000, then Ty Cobb's all time high of .367 would also be "only .367."

[john jay]

bryce:

it's been a while since this was posted.

so, doubly thanks for the read and the comment.

john jay