- MUST READS
- PRODUCTS
- RESOURCES
- MULTIMEDIA
- ENFACTLOPEDIA
- FSM AUTHORS
- ABOUT US
- CONTACT US
- FSM BLOG
- DONATE
- PRESS COVERAGE
SEARCH FSM
- IN THIS SECTION
July 27, 2009
Quoting Casey Stengel – ‘You Could Look It Up’
How many of you remember Casey Stengel? If you do, raise your hand. For those who don’t know the name, Stengel was the legendary manager of the legendary Yankees for many seasons. When they cut him loose, he became the legendary manager of the Mets, who were legendary for losing, not winning, games. But Casey’s immortal contribution to American civilization was scrambling the English language beyond both comprehension and belief, while at the core having an excellent base of knowledge and statistics. His mantra was, “And you could look it up,” and when you did, Casey was right.
I was going to write about Harvard Professor Gates and his “racist” encounter with the police. Mark Steyn had an excellent column on the subject. So did a gentleman who signed his work only as “Anonymous Negro.” Here’s what I add: About the time that I was 11 or 12, I did some things that I knew I shouldn’t, and had some encounters with the police in Baltimore.
Mind you, it wasn’t anything that would have earned me time in stir, had I been an adult. But it would have gotten me in a world of trouble with my parents, had I been found out by the police (or anyone else) and the story gotten back to my parents. Anyway, what I learned then was to say “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” to policemen who were asking questions, to answer other questions with brief but accurate sentences, and otherwise to sit down and shut up until I knew which was the wind was blowing.
If I, a white kid, could learn that by age 12, there is absolutely no way that the “distinguished” Professor Gates shouldn’t have learned the same lesson by the age of 55, or whatever. If Gates said to the police just half of what has been reported (especially the “yo mama” remark), then the stupid one in this transaction was Gates. Well, Gates plus the President, because he admitted that he “didn’t know all the facts” but the police were “stupid” anyway.
Friday, Obama was backtracking from his original remarks. You know, he is a lot like Tom Lehrer, who said in his introduction on one of his albums, “if anyone objects to anything I’ve said, I will not only take it back, I will sign an affidavit that I didn’t say it. Then I’ll burn that affidavit, and eat the ashes.”
As for the truth of what happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Stengel would have said, “You could look it up.”
On the subject of health care “reform,” Obama guaranteed, in his latest press conference with a steady decline in people willing to listen, that his plan would “insure all 47 million uninsured Americans.” He also said, “Costs will go down, not up.” For starters, 17 of that 47 million are not Americans, they are Mexicans.
The 47 million lie has been repeated so often by so many sources, and traced to its source and debunked so often, that anyone who continues to use that figure must be either a bald-faced liar or a dummy unfit for any position of importance. I am not picking just on Obama, here. I am ashamed to be a member of any organization which repeats that lie in national advertising. I’m talking about AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired People.
As for the 17 million, “You could look it up.”
As for Al Gore, global warming, etc., the Earth has been cooling, not warming, for seven years and counting now. That’s why global warming has been replaced by “climate change.” But of course there is climate change. Temperature goes up, and it goes down, within known cycles which have lasted for tens of thousands of years.
As for normal global warming AND cooling, “You could look it up.”
And finally, I had terrific news this week which I cannot mention until next week. So, be on the lookout. As Casey Stengel said, “I'd always heard it couldn't be done, but sometimes it don't always work."
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor John Armor practiced law in the Supreme Court for 33 years. He now lives on the Eastern Continental Divide in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. Contact him at John_Armor@aya.yale.edu.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (0)
| Print This E-mail This |
|
