Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Special Mailbag Episode: CBS News, Political Satire, Heritage Foundation Shakeup & More

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Special Mailbag Episode: CBS News, Political Satire, Heritage Foundation Shakeup & More · The Chuck ToddCast

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1:50
Speaker 1: Hello there, Welcome to another special episode of the Chuck Podcast.
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Speaker 1: This is part two of my super Mailbag episodes that
2:00
Speaker 1: I promised for the beginning of the year. Look, we're
2:04
Speaker 1: all let's be realistic here, right.
2:06
Speaker 2: Do you want.
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Speaker 1: Two month old interviews archived and launched in the first
2:13
Speaker 1: week or do you want you know, do you want
2:17
Speaker 1: fresh content even if it's questions that are a few
2:20
Speaker 1: weeks old? And I think you want fresh content, And
2:23
Speaker 1: I think you want fresh answers and fresh thoughts rather
2:26
Speaker 1: than a stale interview.
2:28
Speaker 2: And we know booking around the.
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Speaker 1: Holidays is difficult. So yes, while I fully confess this
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Speaker 1: is supposedly, you know, an episode you put together instead
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Speaker 1: of having a guest. Yes, but I kind of sort
2:41
Speaker 1: of dig this, And the most important part that I
2:43
Speaker 1: come away with is I get a sense of helping
2:47
Speaker 1: to shape the content that I'm going to offer you
2:51
Speaker 1: for the year ahead, based really on what is most
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Speaker 1: animated in the Q and A sessions. So without further ado,
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Speaker 1: we're going to dig in. Look, mailbag one was very
3:01
Speaker 1: policy focused. A few people had questions about that, a
3:06
Speaker 1: few things about constitutional amendments, and a tiny bit on media.
3:11
Speaker 1: This one's gonna be a little heavier in media, and
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Speaker 1: I will choose to answer some of your personal questions
3:17
Speaker 1: that you ask about me. I will confess that I
3:20
Speaker 1: reveal what I think is. I'm okay with public and
3:24
Speaker 1: there's some things that I always want to.
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Speaker 2: Stay sort of keep out of the public sphere.
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Speaker 1: So with that, I'm gonna plow forward, all right, First
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Speaker 1: question of part two. In your conversation with Mike Pesca,
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Speaker 1: he said he's fine with Barry whites turning CBS into
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Speaker 1: a right leaning outlet. But doesn't that ignore two key issues.
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Speaker 1: CBS is still publicly regulated network, it should serve everyone,
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Speaker 1: and caving to Trump and brending cars and just leaning right,
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Speaker 1: it's enabling state pressure on speech?
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Speaker 2: Am I wrong? Max?
3:51
Speaker 1: W Alexander or Virginia? So I think you're both right here,
3:57
Speaker 1: and I think that that in fairness to Mike. Don't
4:00
Speaker 1: think what Mike is saying is that it's it's.
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Speaker 2: Sort of.
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Speaker 1: And I think where I agree with them, it's like, look,
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Speaker 1: every news organization has a bias, a bias, even if
4:16
Speaker 1: your bias is to try to be.
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Speaker 2: Sort of neutral or.
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Speaker 1: Sort of boring, whatever you want to call it, that
4:26
Speaker 1: it's just a form of a bias, you know. So
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Speaker 1: I think the question is whether what is it that
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Speaker 1: that that they're hoping to do with with CBS. The
4:43
Speaker 1: problem I have is, is the the stuff they're trying
4:46
Speaker 1: to do with late night comedians right to try to
4:52
Speaker 1: force late night entertainment or any entertainment through the purview
4:56
Speaker 1: of government censors, if you will, right, I think that's
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Speaker 1: that to me, and I think that's why you saw
5:01
Speaker 1: bipartisan outrage at Brendan Carr and what he attempted to
5:06
Speaker 1: do with Jimmy Kimmel and to try to bully Disney
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Speaker 1: into getting rid of Kimmel and they wouldn't do it.
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Speaker 1: Or frankly, what Trump did do to Colbert with the
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Speaker 1: Ellisons or it appeared to do this, So you know, ultimately,
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Speaker 1: I think the problem is is that it's a while
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Speaker 1: it's a publicly regulated network, it only is servicing its shareholders,
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Speaker 1: So you know, I think the problem I have is
5:43
Speaker 1: is the fuduciary responsibility that these media companies have to
5:46
Speaker 1: shareholders and why their news divisions aren't allowed to be
5:50
Speaker 1: fully independent, that they are subject to potential coercion because
5:59
Speaker 1: these companies have other business in front of the government, right,
6:02
Speaker 1: other government regulatory things. So it's it's you know, look,
6:13
Speaker 1: do I think there could be different ways to manufacture
6:18
Speaker 1: the network news? I do, so whether that is perceived
6:23
Speaker 1: as leaning right or left shouldn't be the point. I
6:26
Speaker 1: think it is more are you what are you trying
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Speaker 1: to do with your news division and who are you
6:32
Speaker 1: trying to appeal to? And are you trying to be
6:37
Speaker 1: a news division that still does news gathering or are
6:44
Speaker 1: you trying to be a news division that wants to
6:46
Speaker 1: shape the public debate. So basically, you know, I think
6:50
Speaker 1: when you look at mss NOW, Fox News Channel, and
6:54
Speaker 1: even CNN, I think that there their editorial focus is
7:02
Speaker 1: about shaping the conversation rather than informing the conversation.
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Speaker 2: I think that.
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Speaker 1: In theory, the broadcast networks were simply quote unquote news gathering, right,
7:18
Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, the biggest chunk of money
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Speaker 1: that ms NOW had to start spending new money on
7:26
Speaker 1: was news gathering because NBC did all the news gathering
7:28
Speaker 1: for MSNBC. MSNBC was just essentially, you know, uh was
7:34
Speaker 1: used was always piggybacking off of NBC's news gathering operation.
7:38
Speaker 1: And what is a news gathering operation. It's literally the
7:41
Speaker 1: wire services or the bureaus that you put together, or
7:44
Speaker 1: the or the databases that you're you know that you
7:48
Speaker 1: get your information from the reporters that you employed to
7:52
Speaker 1: go out and find stories, et cetera. And I guess
7:57
Speaker 1: that I guess I I'm so dum. I already see
8:02
Speaker 1: that I've already moved on from CBS, ABC and NBC. Like,
8:05
Speaker 1: I don't think the construction of the broadcast news networks,
8:08
Speaker 1: I think they're dead, and I just think that we
8:10
Speaker 1: are sort of living in the Bruce Willis sixth sense.
8:13
Speaker 1: You know, the only three entities that don't realize they're
8:16
Speaker 1: dead are the people that run CBS News, ABC News,
8:19
Speaker 1: and NBC News. I think the cable news channels have
8:22
Speaker 1: slightly more relevance because they actually have a following. Right
8:26
Speaker 1: the broadcast news divisions really have no following for their news.
8:29
Speaker 1: They have followings maybe for some style people like I like,
8:32
Speaker 1: you know, like I like to you know, see what
8:35
Speaker 1: David Muir is.
8:35
Speaker 2: Up to tonight, or I like.
8:38
Speaker 1: What's happening you know, the Today Show or Good Morning America,
8:43
Speaker 1: But that's almost for stylistic purposes on that front. I mean,
8:48
Speaker 1: I just think that this is not They are no
8:52
Speaker 1: longer the primary drivers of where people get their information,
8:55
Speaker 1: and if anything, it's really the affiliates of these networks
9:00
Speaker 1: were the place where people would get more of the
9:04
Speaker 1: quote information they were getting from television news than from
9:07
Speaker 1: the national side of things. But you've had sort of
9:11
Speaker 1: politicians weaponize the national side of things just based on
9:14
Speaker 1: you know, Sunday shows or or or a personality they
9:17
Speaker 1: didn't like or anything. So so that's what I guess
9:24
Speaker 1: when I'm saying, I'm both right, like I think what
9:27
Speaker 1: my kind of is more hinting at It's like, hey,
9:29
Speaker 1: you know, go for it, CBS, try try something different.
9:34
Speaker 1: But I don't think CBS, NBC, or ABC are really
9:39
Speaker 1: in the news gathering business anymore. They have a few
9:42
Speaker 1: brands that they still are using, but in many cases
9:46
Speaker 1: those brands are shape or news shapers rather than necessarily
9:51
Speaker 1: news informers. And you know, for that, I think just
9:57
Speaker 1: everybody's already I feel like the audience itself is already
10:00
Speaker 1: moved on. So in some ways, I feel like this
10:02
Speaker 1: debate is about we're debating over something that used to
10:07
Speaker 1: have viewership with doesn't anymore anyway. Not trying to be
10:11
Speaker 1: like totally just like you know, these grapes are sour type.
10:14
Speaker 1: It's not about sour grapes. I don't think there are
10:16
Speaker 1: any grapes there. Whether the sour still tastes good, that's
10:19
Speaker 1: not the point. It's just they think that the public
10:22
Speaker 1: in some ways is sort of it's they kind of
10:24
Speaker 1: know that NBC, ABC and CBS are not primary deliverers
10:29
Speaker 1: of information anymore period. There entities that host a lot
10:33
Speaker 1: of live events mostly sports, but also some big news events,
10:38
Speaker 1: State of the Union, election nights, things like that. But
10:41
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it really is seen by a vast
10:46
Speaker 1: majority of the public as a place to get news,
10:48
Speaker 1: even if we're arguing about it.
10:50
Speaker 2: Still if that makes sense.
10:53
Speaker 1: All. Our next question comes from Michael Hammond and Everett Washington.
10:56
Speaker 1: After listening to your episode about the Simpsons, I wondered
10:59
Speaker 1: how you think public figures should react to being target
11:02
Speaker 1: the target of satire. I remember at least one SNL
11:04
Speaker 1: episode where someone portrayed you. Yes, did you find it
11:08
Speaker 1: funny or frustrating? More broadly, what advice would you give
11:10
Speaker 1: a public figure politician when a comedian takes aim? Michael Hammond, Well,
11:15
Speaker 1: number one is you even if you hate it, you
11:18
Speaker 1: say you love it.
11:19
Speaker 2: You know who did a very good job of this. JD. Vance.
11:23
Speaker 2: The second the South Park debuted JD.
11:27
Speaker 1: Vance as the little person from Fantasy Island give me,
11:35
Speaker 1: give me one second there the character I think was
11:38
Speaker 1: named tattoo. If my gen X brain is working here,
11:44
Speaker 1: hey boss, right, you know, And it was the whole thing.
11:48
Speaker 1: He embraced it and said this is funny or whatever.
11:52
Speaker 2: You just right.
11:55
Speaker 1: It's when you come across defensive that you just sort
11:59
Speaker 1: of opened yourself up.
12:00
Speaker 2: Okay, you take a joke. Look, being a.
12:05
Speaker 1: Public figure is something when you're not a public figure,
12:10
Speaker 1: you think you want it, and then when you become one,
12:12
Speaker 1: in any sort of way.
12:15
Speaker 2: You find it.
12:16
Speaker 1: It can be claustrophobic because suddenly you feel like, well,
12:19
Speaker 1: I can't express my opinion anymore, or if I do,
12:22
Speaker 1: I'm speaking for too many other people, or I don't
12:24
Speaker 1: want to be a target, and all this stuff right,
12:26
Speaker 1: it is weirdly it can it can be right because
12:30
Speaker 1: the Internet is so cruel and algorithms can make And
12:33
Speaker 1: the other part is algorithms can make it feel like
12:35
Speaker 1: everybody's talking about you because all you're seeing is what
12:38
Speaker 1: is about you. So when you're a public figure, the
12:41
Speaker 1: algorithms really can screw with your with your head.
12:44
Speaker 2: And this is why.
12:47
Speaker 1: In some ways, the you know, the more public figure
12:51
Speaker 1: you are, the less you should be on social media
12:54
Speaker 1: because you're gonna, you're gonna, it is gonna play play
12:59
Speaker 1: tricks with you. The thing that always yes, I was
13:04
Speaker 1: portrayed I think twice on SNL was the mocking of
13:10
Speaker 1: my hair, which I found amusing because it was true,
13:14
Speaker 1: like you know how sometimes what the beauty of satires,
13:18
Speaker 1: satirists can figure out pretty quickly, you know, And I
13:23
Speaker 1: just look, I don't I don't have my hair's not
13:26
Speaker 1: thin enough to do the head shave. But it I'm
13:30
Speaker 1: not going to do plugs. I'm not going to do
13:33
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. Yes, I tried the coma forward look,
13:39
Speaker 1: and now I just have just gone much shorter. As
13:41
Speaker 1: you can see. It is what it is, and I'm
13:44
Speaker 1: not conceding. I'm never going the head shave. I don't
13:48
Speaker 1: think I have the head for it, and I fear
13:50
Speaker 1: I have too many chicken pox scars up there, right.
13:53
Speaker 1: That's that's that's the real fear that I have about
13:55
Speaker 1: going in. But it was I think that was the
13:58
Speaker 1: gag and it was the only I found it. I thought, Wow,
14:02
Speaker 1: they could only mock me for my hair, so I
14:04
Speaker 1: felt pretty good, right, Like they didn't have anything else
14:07
Speaker 1: that they were overly mocking me for. So that But
14:12
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do is you just embrace it
14:14
Speaker 1: and laugh and like that's funny, or I'm not you
14:19
Speaker 1: know a boy, my family's going to enjoy this, or
14:21
Speaker 1: my kids thought it was hilarious, Like that's the best
14:23
Speaker 1: way to handle it if you start to I'm an
14:27
Speaker 1: a hummada hummaa, or try to explain it, or say hey,
14:30
Speaker 1: you know what, they don't get this, they don't get Look.
14:32
Speaker 1: Do I think I've been unfairly portrayed, essentially in a
14:36
Speaker 1: very negative and character assassinated away by specific people in
14:43
Speaker 1: primetime on one cable news channel. Yes, I do do.
14:47
Speaker 1: I think it was an agenda, purposeful agenda, because I
14:51
Speaker 1: was the most credible voice too many on the right
14:55
Speaker 1: at a supposed left leaning news network. So it was
14:57
Speaker 1: in their interest to try to, uh I try to
15:01
Speaker 1: make me, try to try to try to make me
15:06
Speaker 1: someone that that was an antagonist to the right, even
15:10
Speaker 1: though there was no evidence of it, but they wanted
15:12
Speaker 1: to sort of guild my association because they didn't like
15:15
Speaker 1: it that Actually, you know, my presence at NBC meant
15:19
Speaker 1: it was not a left leaning network, if you know,
15:22
Speaker 1: most of us at NBC are just sort of very
15:25
Speaker 1: much more in the broad middle. But it was important
15:29
Speaker 1: for them to try to paint NBC as is left
15:33
Speaker 1: as MSNBC, and the presence of MSNBC, my own personal
15:37
Speaker 1: presence on the cable channel certainly made it easier to
15:41
Speaker 1: create that caricature. That was a campaign to try to
15:46
Speaker 1: delegitimize those of us uh that are that were you know,
15:50
Speaker 1: essentially uh undermining whatever propaganda they were trying to sell people,
15:56
Speaker 1: and they and they wanted to get rid of that.
15:58
Speaker 1: So uh I sort of get you know that was
16:06
Speaker 1: that was always like would get under my skin more
16:09
Speaker 1: comedic stuff?
16:10
Speaker 2: You know? That was that.
16:13
Speaker 1: That's nothing on that front. The only thing I wonder
16:16
Speaker 1: over the years is if because but I also didn't
16:19
Speaker 1: you know, others chose to get in fights with Fox,
16:22
Speaker 1: I would not because that's what they wanted, right, And
16:27
Speaker 1: so I've always believed in the ropodope. I've always borrowed
16:33
Speaker 1: the Muhammad Ali strategy. Go punch yourself out, take as
16:37
Speaker 1: many shots as you wanted me. I'm going to continue
16:39
Speaker 1: to do to practice what I you know, which is
16:43
Speaker 1: covering politics as it is not as I as.
16:46
Speaker 2: I wish or you wish it were. Ah.
16:49
Speaker 1: Right, next way, Hey, Chuck, care to comment on why
16:51
Speaker 1: there is a mass exodus of staff from Heritage Brian?
16:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I look, it is what it is. I mean,
16:58
Speaker 1: I think the Heritage Foundation. I think this is a
17:02
Speaker 1: case where there were the employees where there. Conservative intellects
17:07
Speaker 1: have been there for a long time, and you know
17:10
Speaker 1: had seen you know, Heritage it's sort of you know shift,
17:14
Speaker 1: you know, would sort of shift within the conservative movement.
17:19
Speaker 1: You know, it was sort of you know, Heritage was
17:22
Speaker 1: always was sort of felt like the heart of the
17:25
Speaker 1: Reagan era. And so that's why for those of us
17:28
Speaker 1: of a certain age, we certainly view it that way.
17:31
Speaker 1: For what was clearly financial reasons, Heritage just pivoted to
17:35
Speaker 1: becoming you know, there are sort of two mainstream conservative
17:39
Speaker 1: think tanks in DC sort of fighting for supremacy over
17:41
Speaker 1: the years, Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute AI
17:46
Speaker 1: sort of became very synonymous with the Bush administration more
17:50
Speaker 1: than in Heritage was always sort of a little bit
17:52
Speaker 1: more I think one could argue a little more synonymous
17:56
Speaker 1: of the old Reagan coalition. And then you know, maybe
18:00
Speaker 1: it was donors on the Heritage board, but Heritage really
18:03
Speaker 1: shifted to MAGA in a way. And I think it's
18:06
Speaker 1: simply because AI sort of became the home of Trump's skeptics,
18:10
Speaker 1: not necessarily never Trumpers, but Trump skeptics. My friend Danny Pletka,
18:16
Speaker 1: who's over at AI, I put her in the She's
18:18
Speaker 1: a conservative. There's a lot of policies that Trump's pushing
18:23
Speaker 1: that she can be supportive of, but there's no doubt
18:27
Speaker 1: the character and his foreign policy. You know, she's never
18:30
Speaker 1: going to be a never Trumper, but she's never I
18:32
Speaker 1: don't think going to be a Trump evangelist either. And
18:36
Speaker 1: AI has been very home to the neo cons as
18:42
Speaker 1: well as home to sort of mainstream pre Trump conservatives,
18:48
Speaker 1: and I think they have, you know, sort of.
18:53
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call them Trump supporters. I'd call him Trump.
18:55
Speaker 1: Adjacent, you know, who are sort of had more comfortable
18:58
Speaker 1: with some of his policies than others are. But you know,
19:02
Speaker 1: I think that happens sometimes right on the left of
19:05
Speaker 1: the Brookings Institute, which is more center left, and you
19:07
Speaker 1: have Center for American Progress was just more progressive left,
19:11
Speaker 1: and so I think I think Heritage ended up sort
19:15
Speaker 1: of becoming more mega, and then the more MAGA went
19:18
Speaker 1: over time, I think the more it was going to
19:19
Speaker 1: alienate the more traditional conservatives that were over there. When
19:23
Speaker 1: Heritage and AI were more like Coke versus PEPSI when
19:26
Speaker 1: it came to conservative movement, and now it's it's more
19:30
Speaker 1: like I think coke versus lemonade. Right, It's like just
19:34
Speaker 1: two distinct drinks that are different. So I suspect that
19:43
Speaker 1: Heritage does one of two things. Either in a in
19:46
Speaker 1: a post Trump environment, is re animated with by conservatives
19:54
Speaker 1: who want to bring back the brand to mean the
19:57
Speaker 1: Reagan Coalition, or it becomes anonymous. It sort of becomes
20:01
Speaker 1: the Maga think tank, though I thought the American Conservative
20:05
Speaker 1: was going to try to do that. So you know,
20:07
Speaker 1: there really is yet to be a true intellectual home
20:10
Speaker 1: completely for mega movement, and whether there is an intellectual
20:14
Speaker 1: through line of the mega movement that allows for a
20:17
Speaker 1: think tank to flourish, to me, might be a larger question.
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21:55
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Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty five day returns quints dot com
22:03
Speaker 1: slash Chuck. Next question comes from Ben from Minneapolis. Hey, Chuck,
22:10
Speaker 1: I was just listening to the podcast about predictive markets
22:13
Speaker 1: and that conversation. While I don't participate in the markets,
22:15
Speaker 1: I wonder how CNN is incorporating the data any different
22:18
Speaker 1: than any other sports coverage. The betting houses seem to
22:20
Speaker 1: have infected our sports viewing with nothing but betting. Just wondering,
22:24
Speaker 1: Ben from Minneapolis. You know this is my concern about it. Right,
22:27
Speaker 1: are we going to cover the you know, there's a
22:30
Speaker 1: you know, the president's going to appoint a new FED chair.
22:34
Speaker 1: Two of the names that you hear Kevin Hassett, Kevin Walsh.
22:37
Speaker 1: Here's what the prediction markets are claiming. What the hell
22:41
Speaker 1: does that tell us? Do you know what the prediction
22:43
Speaker 1: markets for Wosh versus Hassett are? You know how that
22:51
Speaker 1: why they move? They move based on mainstream media reporting.
22:54
Speaker 1: So that's the stuff that I'm sort of skeptical of
23:01
Speaker 1: the prediction markets being of service to the viewer. On
23:06
Speaker 1: that front, I guess I'll be curious how they try
23:13
Speaker 1: to incorporate it in their coverage of elections. You know,
23:18
Speaker 1: I could see, you know, I could see CNN rationalizing
23:22
Speaker 1: itself by saying, Okay, we're going to cover the Senate race,
23:24
Speaker 1: and so.
23:24
Speaker 2: We'll use we'll use Calshe's.
23:29
Speaker 1: You know, right now, the prediction markets indicate, you know,
23:32
Speaker 1: just thirty two percent, you know, thirty two percent think
23:39
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to win the Senate or are betting
23:41
Speaker 1: on Democrats winning control of the Senate, versus sixty eight
23:44
Speaker 1: percent that are not I don't see how that's useful
23:47
Speaker 1: to viewers, but that I assume that's the way they
23:52
Speaker 1: try to incorporate it. You know, do you incorporate it
23:57
Speaker 1: if you're doing a story about Venezuela and I noticed
24:01
Speaker 1: that there's a couple of you know, Maduro will leave,
24:04
Speaker 1: you know, we'll be out of power before Memorial Day
24:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six or will be out of power after
24:11
Speaker 1: June first of twenty twenty sixth or something like that.
24:16
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think that's relevant to the average
24:19
Speaker 1: news consumer. I don't know what how that helps you
24:22
Speaker 1: understand things, because again, these prediction markets are just are
24:27
Speaker 1: They're all based on you know, if it's based on
24:31
Speaker 1: insider information, then it's rigged, and if it's not, it's
24:34
Speaker 1: just based on publicly available information. So this is why
24:41
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm very curious how they use it.
24:46
Speaker 2: You know, I will.
24:50
Speaker 1: I you know, it's funny. It's like, I guess I'm
24:52
Speaker 1: okay with it. For making long term bets on who
24:54
Speaker 1: might be the presidential nominee for the two parties, that
24:59
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like a manipulative process. But betting on the
25:05
Speaker 1: appointment of the FED chair weirdly does to me. Or
25:07
Speaker 1: betting on when Maduro gets ousted just feels, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: if it's something people want to spend money on doing,
25:14
Speaker 1: so be it.
25:16
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
25:17
Speaker 1: It's a news story, which would which incorporating Calsh, you know,
25:22
Speaker 1: for Calci, I get what they want out of it's advertising, okay, great,
25:27
Speaker 1: And my guess is they've just you know, they've basically
25:31
Speaker 1: become a title sponsor of something.
25:35
Speaker 2: Okay. Uh.
25:37
Speaker 1: Basically, it's no different than doing an internet poll. It's like,
25:40
Speaker 1: you know, who should be Time Person of the Year. Well,
25:42
Speaker 1: we did an internet poll and this is who they said.
25:46
Speaker 2: Here are the prediction markets.
25:47
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm I'm trying to be talked into
25:53
Speaker 1: caring on this and that it will help. I just
25:57
Speaker 1: I had somebody say to me, well, the prediction markets
25:59
Speaker 1: are going to get politics better than polling. Well, and
26:01
Speaker 1: I'm like, the prediction markets are only you know, they're
26:04
Speaker 1: on all the campaign stuff. It's all influenced by polling.
26:08
Speaker 1: When a poll shows a race closer than number moves
26:12
Speaker 1: so I, you know, in the direction of the poll
26:14
Speaker 1: was showing. So I don't see how that's going to
26:17
Speaker 1: make us. You know that it's going to make it
26:21
Speaker 1: quote unquote more accurate. Maybe it'll be more accurate for
26:25
Speaker 1: people that don't follow it closely. But if you're somebody
26:28
Speaker 1: like me who does this for a living, you know,
26:32
Speaker 1: you never let a poll that showed a tide race
26:35
Speaker 1: in a red state make you think that, oh, it's
26:37
Speaker 1: truly a fifty to fifty race.
26:39
Speaker 2: No, it's still a sixty.
26:40
Speaker 1: To forty probability outcome of a red state saying red,
26:44
Speaker 1: even if a pole shows it tide.
26:47
Speaker 2: Anyway. But I digress.
26:51
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Jim in the Poconos, and he
26:56
Speaker 1: also had circle the wagons Buffalo bills. All right, he says,
27:00
Speaker 1: is how long does it take for a presidential term
27:02
Speaker 1: to become irrelevant? If ever, I think about how my
27:04
Speaker 1: great great grandparents shaped where I am today, even if
27:07
Speaker 1: I barely knew know anything about them. Does something similar
27:11
Speaker 1: happen with presidents?
27:12
Speaker 2: Well?
27:13
Speaker 1: I think they do, and it is interesting to me.
27:17
Speaker 1: Let me, I'm gonna introduce you to a different exercise,
27:19
Speaker 1: but it's a different topic, but it's a similar exercise.
27:26
Speaker 2: And I heard it was an.
27:27
Speaker 1: Interview with Chuck Klosterman maybe four years ago, five years ago.
27:33
Speaker 1: I've interviewed him on previous iterations of this podcast, and
27:37
Speaker 1: I enjoy his interviews with Simmons. Bill Simmons, and I
27:41
Speaker 1: read his You know, he's a few years younger than me,
27:44
Speaker 1: but I feel like he's he's the gen X pop
27:47
Speaker 1: culture writer, right, He's my generation's pop culture writer. And
27:55
Speaker 1: you know, he made the point of saying, you know,
27:58
Speaker 1: two hundred years from now, there's only going to be
28:02
Speaker 1: one artist that represents rock and roll.
28:05
Speaker 2: Who will that artist be?
28:09
Speaker 1: And because he was saying that, it's like, you know,
28:11
Speaker 1: over time that you know, more people fall off, and truly,
28:15
Speaker 1: you know, after one hundred years.
28:17
Speaker 2: You know, only.
28:19
Speaker 1: Only a couple of people stand the test of time
28:22
Speaker 1: after two hundred years, even fewer. Right, Like Beethoven and
28:25
Speaker 1: Mozart weren't the only composers of their era. They were
28:28
Speaker 1: the most famous composers of their era. And as we
28:31
Speaker 1: learned with Nomadeus, there were other composers out there, Sally Hary, etcetera. Right,
28:35
Speaker 1: there was a whole bunch of people writing music all
28:37
Speaker 1: the time back then, right, but only one or two,
28:41
Speaker 1: right and so and I remember going through that question,
28:44
Speaker 1: and his thesis was it would be Chuck Berry that,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, two hundred and fifty years from now, that
28:49
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry, more than the Beatles, might actually be the
28:53
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe the Beatles are in paragraph two,
28:55
Speaker 1: but that Chuck Berry, who you know, is the godfather
28:59
Speaker 1: of rock and roll, founder, whatever you want to call him.
29:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I believe he is a patient zero of
29:06
Speaker 1: rock and roll, if you want to look at it
29:09
Speaker 1: in those terms. And I guess the point is is
29:12
Speaker 1: that over time, right, we thin out, So you know,
29:18
Speaker 1: look at how few presidents And the other thing is
29:21
Speaker 1: how long were you president?
29:22
Speaker 2: Matters? Right?
29:26
Speaker 1: Calvin Coolidge, you know, he's barely I don't think anybody's
29:33
Speaker 1: going to know who Calvin Coolidge is by the year
29:37
Speaker 1: twenty one hundred, right, because by then we'll have at
29:41
Speaker 1: least nine more presidents, you know, right, at a minimum
29:49
Speaker 1: if you assume eight years seventy two, right, you know,
29:52
Speaker 1: so so nine or ten more presidents max, maybe more? Right,
29:58
Speaker 1: we could have as many as twenty more presidents. Right,
30:02
Speaker 1: So there's that. But I've thought about this. Think about
30:05
Speaker 1: Grover Cleveland. Right when he was elected, the first president
30:10
Speaker 1: elected in non consecutive terms. He wasn't the first one
30:13
Speaker 1: that tried to come back and win it. This first
30:15
Speaker 1: one that succeeded. I'm sure the Chuck Todd's of the
30:21
Speaker 1: world back then, and the Steve Krnaki's of the world
30:24
Speaker 1: back then, the Jonathan Martin's of the world back then,
30:27
Speaker 1: the Maggie Haberman's of the world back then, we all
30:30
Speaker 1: all thought, boy, this Grover Cleveland man, this is going
30:32
Speaker 1: to be a historic This is going to be an
30:33
Speaker 1: historic presidency. This presidency's going to live a long time, right,
30:37
Speaker 1: and other than the unique fact that he served non
30:40
Speaker 1: consecutive terms and sharing the name of another baseball player
30:46
Speaker 1: named Grover Cleveland, Alexander right, who was clearly named after him.
30:51
Speaker 2: But what kind of what kind of legacy is there left? Right?
30:56
Speaker 2: So it probably.
31:04
Speaker 1: Takes as long as it takes for our great grandparents
31:08
Speaker 1: to be you know, I when I was born, I
31:10
Speaker 1: had three living great grandparents. I have memories of three
31:13
Speaker 1: great grandparents. The last great grandparent in my life died
31:20
Speaker 1: when I was thirteen, and I think about this, right,
31:25
Speaker 1: you know, when they were born and the life they
31:27
Speaker 1: led and all this stuff. And you know, I'm trying
31:34
Speaker 1: to remember the last time I had I thought about
31:39
Speaker 1: either great grandmother. Right, It's been a while, and you
31:43
Speaker 1: do when you're around family, and that happens, and that's
31:46
Speaker 1: when the you know, but the minute somebody when there's
31:50
Speaker 1: no longer anybody alive who knew that person, I think
31:54
Speaker 1: that's probably when the sell by date is there, unless
31:58
Speaker 1: you've made your mark in war or something, right, And
32:02
Speaker 1: so that takes about one hundred years. So, Mike, I
32:07
Speaker 1: think that the historical shelf life for an average president
32:12
Speaker 1: is about one hundred years. And if you're if you're
32:16
Speaker 1: sort of above average, either in bad or good, your
32:19
Speaker 1: shelf life might be an additional fifty or so, or
32:22
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it keeps going if you're the first president,
32:27
Speaker 1: keeps going, if you're the president that brought the union
32:30
Speaker 1: back together. But you know, I'll give you a I'll
32:36
Speaker 1: give you just a you know, let's say world War
32:38
Speaker 1: three breaks out, and world War three is bigger and
32:42
Speaker 1: more and more consequential.
32:44
Speaker 2: Than World War Two.
32:47
Speaker 1: Remember, world War One was referred to as the Great War.
32:50
Speaker 1: We never thought there'd be a.
32:52
Speaker 2: Two, right, it got us, you know, world War two.
32:56
Speaker 1: World War one became world War one because we got
32:58
Speaker 1: world War two. So the point is is that world
33:01
Speaker 1: War one became less relevant in how we were teaching
33:05
Speaker 1: it and how we looked at it. In fact, two
33:07
Speaker 1: irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, right, we don't.
33:10
Speaker 2: You know, today's problems in the Middle East are due
33:12
Speaker 2: to the.
33:13
Speaker 1: Lack of resolution of World War One with the Ottoman Empire.
33:17
Speaker 1: But if you look at that phenomenon, right, The point
33:20
Speaker 1: being is world War two will shrink in importance and
33:24
Speaker 1: relevance if we have another global war that that reshapes
33:34
Speaker 1: the world order, right, and then suddenly, you know, there
33:37
Speaker 1: was a time one hundred years Wars was front and center, you.
33:41
Speaker 2: See, Right.
33:41
Speaker 1: The point is is that you're asking and so it's
33:44
Speaker 1: like any historical event. But I think ultimately, when there's
33:49
Speaker 1: no longer anybody alive that can tell you what happened
33:52
Speaker 1: when that president was in office is when I think
33:55
Speaker 1: they become officially in the dust bin of history, unless
34:01
Speaker 1: they were remarkable extra remarkable in some way or the other.
34:07
Speaker 1: All right, next question. Maybe you'll want to save this
34:09
Speaker 1: for your alternate history episodes at the end of the year,
34:12
Speaker 1: or I will answer it right now. But what if
34:14
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had come to office pledging only to serve
34:16
Speaker 1: one term dedicated to reforming the presidency and the Congress
34:19
Speaker 1: and improving our democracy. I'm imagining an inauguration speech focused
34:22
Speaker 1: on pledging to turn norms into laws, towarding a future
34:25
Speaker 1: president with autocratic aspirations by strengthening the power of Congress.
34:28
Speaker 1: What could this version of Joe Biden achieved? Jud b
34:30
Speaker 1: from Saint George Utah. Well, I hope you now that
34:34
Speaker 1: I'm answering this question for you. I hope you did
34:37
Speaker 1: hear my what if on on how Biden's presidency could
34:40
Speaker 1: have been different without you know, if Trump concedes normally,
34:47
Speaker 1: and how much does his presidency differed. Look, he did
34:50
Speaker 1: pursue a democracy agenda. Just he did it poorly, right,
34:56
Speaker 1: I think it was done. I think he did it,
34:58
Speaker 1: unfortunately not in a bipartisan way.
35:00
Speaker 2: I think he did it.
35:01
Speaker 1: He sort of let it get hijacked by sort of
35:03
Speaker 1: the fever dream of those on the left that wanted
35:05
Speaker 1: certain things. Well, this is the time we can get
35:09
Speaker 1: this into law, rather than actually responding to the threat
35:12
Speaker 1: that we were that we all felt in the moment. Look,
35:18
Speaker 1: do I think I know why Biden didn't pledge one
35:21
Speaker 1: term and why nobody will run pledging a single term
35:25
Speaker 1: because you become a lame duck immediately, Right, that's the
35:28
Speaker 1: fear that you don't have the influence, et cetera. Perhaps
35:33
Speaker 1: Trump's aggressive second term, where we know he can't win again.
35:38
Speaker 2: Is.
35:39
Speaker 1: Gives reminds people that you know you if you nothing
35:46
Speaker 1: prevents a president from fighting lame duck status if they
35:49
Speaker 1: choose to just insert themselves into the popular culture, embed
35:55
Speaker 1: themselves constantly into every conversation.
35:58
Speaker 2: So, whatever you think of Trump, he has cracked the code.
36:03
Speaker 1: Like now, it's not a comfortable code for our previous presidents,
36:06
Speaker 1: but he's cracked the code on how you avoid lame
36:09
Speaker 1: duck status if you're willing to engage in almost any
36:13
Speaker 1: issue at any time, in any format. He constantly is
36:18
Speaker 1: trying to keep himself relevant. So if you're going to
36:22
Speaker 1: pledge me one term, you have to have the I
36:24
Speaker 1: think you have to be willing to really be an
36:28
Speaker 1: all always on president. You know, I still think the
36:32
Speaker 1: failure of the Biden presidency was his inability to be
36:35
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. What do I mean by that? That Joe
36:38
Speaker 1: Biden I knew and I covered from And when I
36:43
Speaker 1: say I covered, I covered starting in two thousand. I
36:46
Speaker 1: certainly started covering Biden going back to ninety two, but
36:50
Speaker 1: I didn't physically, you know, I didn't start to at
36:53
Speaker 1: least know him a little bit and then over time
36:55
Speaker 1: know him more and more really until two thousand when
36:58
Speaker 1: and then when he started running for isn't it the
37:01
Speaker 1: third the second and third time.
37:03
Speaker 2: And.
37:05
Speaker 1: That Joe Biden was going to travel the country a ton.
37:08
Speaker 1: That Joe Biden would have been a very charismatic president.
37:14
Speaker 1: I think that Joe Biden would have been a very
37:15
Speaker 1: active president. We got a very inactive Joe Biden. He
37:20
Speaker 1: was not the same guy. He did not have the
37:22
Speaker 1: same energy, and it's a shame, you know, Joe Biden
37:26
Speaker 1: is you know, there's this expression nobody uses anymore. So
37:30
Speaker 1: this is going to age me affable. That's Joe Biden.
37:33
Speaker 1: He is the he's he was affable. He could get
37:37
Speaker 1: along with anybody. It was actually his great gift. He
37:42
Speaker 1: could get along with with anybody in any class. And
37:48
Speaker 1: it is what made him so popular among Amtrak employees.
37:52
Speaker 2: It's what made him sort of.
37:53
Speaker 1: You know, you know, he's the guy that just enjoys
37:56
Speaker 1: a good ice cream cone, like it, you know, and
37:59
Speaker 1: so and it was that Biden that wasn't.
38:03
Speaker 2: Able to be president twenty one.
38:06
Speaker 1: And you know, I go, look, I think the original
38:07
Speaker 1: sin was running in the first place, was running when
38:10
Speaker 1: he had all that family drama taking place, and when
38:12
Speaker 1: it turned out that you know, look, Joe Biden's presidency
38:19
Speaker 1: was kind of like the Philip Rivers experiment, right with
38:22
Speaker 1: the Colts. It looked like a presidency. It looked like
38:25
Speaker 1: a guy quarterbacking.
38:29
Speaker 2: But did Philip Rivers win a game? Right?
38:32
Speaker 1: What was the what was the River's record? It he
38:35
Speaker 1: was a functional quarterback. Biden was a functional president. But
38:39
Speaker 1: it wasn't the best version of Joe Biden. It wasn't
38:41
Speaker 1: the best version of Philip.
38:42
Speaker 2: Rivers anyway, So I go there on that front for
38:49
Speaker 2: what it's worth, but I appreciate it.
39:01
Speaker 1: Just the thought of a what if scenario? What if
39:02
Speaker 1: Russia never sold Alaska to the United States, and I
39:10
Speaker 1: think we would have forty nine states, Actually I really do.
39:16
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe Canada ends up with Alaska?
39:21
Speaker 2: Right? Have we thought about.
39:22
Speaker 1: That that that might have been more of a possibility.
39:26
Speaker 1: Do we if we couldn't get Alaska, do we go
39:30
Speaker 1: and make the attempt at Greenland?
39:34
Speaker 2: You know?
39:34
Speaker 1: One of my favorite stories in the Grant book by
39:36
Speaker 1: Ron schernow was was the was learning about America the
39:41
Speaker 1: obsession of some Republicans in Congress to to get Canada
39:45
Speaker 1: as reparations for the Brits supporting the Confederacy during the
39:49
Speaker 1: Civil War. Meaning we almost got Canada as a state, right,
39:55
Speaker 1: we almost made Cuba state.
39:57
Speaker 2: After the Spanish American War. You know, so h.
40:02
Speaker 1: I I you know, you know that's an interesting does
40:06
Speaker 1: it does? It means we would have had during the
40:09
Speaker 1: Cold War one of the largest bases would have been
40:14
Speaker 1: a Canadian a joint Canadian American base in Western Canada.
40:21
Speaker 1: It's sort of the front lines against the Soviets.
40:24
Speaker 2: Right.
40:27
Speaker 1: I guess it could have been something like that, But
40:30
Speaker 1: that's a fun that's a fun one. On that front,
40:36
Speaker 1: I wonder if it would be. Here's a question that
40:40
Speaker 1: I don't that i'd like to explore with a with
40:44
Speaker 1: a sort of historical geologist, if if something like that exists,
40:49
Speaker 1: which I'm sure it does, because there's a which would
40:52
Speaker 1: be would Alaska resources? Would the Russians have built the pipeline?
40:59
Speaker 1: Would the Russians have exploited the natural resources of Alaska
41:06
Speaker 1: more than the United States has, less than the United
41:08
Speaker 1: States has? Would it just be an even their version
41:13
Speaker 1: of would it be Siberia?
41:14
Speaker 2: Siberia? Right? Those would be sort of some of the
41:18
Speaker 2: questions I would try to tackle.
41:21
Speaker 1: But we'll put a pin in that it's possible if
41:25
Speaker 1: I can. If I can find a thirty to forty
41:29
Speaker 1: minute way to dive into that, I will, But on
41:33
Speaker 1: the surface, I don't see that doing it that way?
41:35
Speaker 2: All right?
41:36
Speaker 1: Next question, per your suggestion. I watched Death by Lightning.
41:39
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it but found it too short, So I
41:40
Speaker 1: read the book. I kept rolling my eyes and how
41:42
Speaker 1: often it mentioned national unity around Garfield. It made me
41:45
Speaker 1: sad to realize can't imagine that kind of unity today.
41:47
Speaker 1: Was the country really that united in grief and anger
41:50
Speaker 1: over his assassination or did the author take some license
41:53
Speaker 1: loving the podcast though, just a reminder there are other
41:56
Speaker 1: sports besides college football. Hint, hint, baseball, Melanie from Sparks, Nevada.
42:02
Speaker 1: I'll be doing some baseball that I promise you.
42:06
Speaker 2: It will.
42:08
Speaker 1: It will be very nats whiney. What I really fear is,
42:12
Speaker 1: I actually think I might have guests about the next
42:16
Speaker 1: lockout in baseball and how Major League Baseball is going
42:19
Speaker 1: to have.
42:19
Speaker 2: To save itself.
42:21
Speaker 1: So here's all I would tell you with the Garfield
42:26
Speaker 1: story that I think that I thought Death by Lightning
42:30
Speaker 1: did a terrible job at capturing, didn't know how to capture.
42:33
Speaker 1: And I go back to I sort of blame Netflix,
42:35
Speaker 1: not Bennioff and Weiss for this, because there is no
42:39
Speaker 1: way Benioff and Weiss said, Hey, let's do a lighter version.
42:42
Speaker 1: Let's just do four episodes on this. I'm sure they
42:44
Speaker 1: pitched eight or twelve eight, ten or twelve episodes because
42:52
Speaker 1: they left out the two most interesting aspects to this,
42:56
Speaker 1: and they just raced through the two aspects that each
43:00
Speaker 1: could have been multiple episodes, and are the two reasons
43:05
Speaker 1: why in the moment this was a big deal nationally.
43:09
Speaker 1: One is how long Garfield lived before he died. He
43:13
Speaker 1: basically lived the entire summer, and the public at first
43:17
Speaker 1: blamed Chester Arthur and Roscoe Conkling and thought Arthur was
43:21
Speaker 1: behind it because of the way Geteau, who was just
43:24
Speaker 1: a crazy man talking to anybody who would listen to him.
43:28
Speaker 1: He was available to any reporter that wanted to go
43:31
Speaker 1: interview him in jail and stuff there was he was
43:34
Speaker 1: too willing to talk. So you had, you know, in
43:38
Speaker 1: the we weren't you know, the mass media of its
43:40
Speaker 1: day was newspapers and stuff, but you had this was
43:44
Speaker 1: the first big trial of the century that everybody was following.
43:46
Speaker 1: It was a big deal in DC to be seen
43:49
Speaker 1: at the trial. I've got a ticket to the Getoau
43:52
Speaker 1: trial today because the trial began before Garfield died and
43:55
Speaker 1: then of course became a murder case after he died.
43:59
Speaker 1: So I actually think that that that was the hardest
44:04
Speaker 1: part to capture, and it was not even attempted. There
44:08
Speaker 1: were you know, they kind of show it, but there
44:11
Speaker 1: were thousands of people gathered when they knew the president
44:15
Speaker 1: was being taken to the Jersey Shore in order to
44:19
Speaker 1: try to convalesce, and in fact there were people having
44:25
Speaker 1: to fit. They took them on a railroad car and
44:27
Speaker 1: they wanted to keep it as as smooth as they
44:30
Speaker 1: could so they didn't bump them. And they literally had
44:34
Speaker 1: to build the railroad as this train car very slowly
44:38
Speaker 1: was brought to the.
44:39
Speaker 2: East to the Jersey shore.
44:42
Speaker 1: And it was just the public coming into help and
44:45
Speaker 1: so and then the Gauteau trial had people obsessing over it.
44:48
Speaker 1: So that's the two pieces of the story that Death
44:53
Speaker 1: by Lightning didn't get do a good job of capturing
44:56
Speaker 1: the country's sort of obsession. We had a present and
45:00
Speaker 1: who was in limbo for months? This wasn't like a
45:03
Speaker 1: couple of days. And then the trial, the first American
45:09
Speaker 1: trial of the century. You know, before Scopes, there was Gutteau. Okay,
45:14
Speaker 1: before oj there was Guto, before any of the right
45:17
Speaker 1: it was good too.
45:18
Speaker 2: So that would be my that would be my uh.
45:24
Speaker 1: And if you want, if I'd read a second book,
45:28
Speaker 1: you know, with every historical moment always, you know, like anything,
45:31
Speaker 1: you got to read a couple of different books. Uh,
45:34
Speaker 1: Destiny of the Republic is what death by Lightning was
45:37
Speaker 1: was was based on. There's another book which I'm told
45:40
Speaker 1: you can get for free on Amazon, which is a
45:42
Speaker 1: bummer because the author deserves deserves real royalties for this.
45:47
Speaker 1: But it's called dark Horse, Uh, and it leans more
45:50
Speaker 1: into the political process, which of course I geeked out
45:53
Speaker 1: on and enjoyed. All right, next question, uh comes from
46:00
Speaker 1: starts with the La chiesa ree, So I know what
46:01
Speaker 1: that comes from. Matt Mark from Damascus, Maryland. He's in
46:04
Speaker 1: the DMV LA Cheeserie. I had to chime in after
46:06
Speaker 1: the Lebron debate. He's a great player, but his arrogance
46:09
Speaker 1: and early finals performance always turned me off. As a
46:11
Speaker 1: longtime Penn State fan, I've got my fair share of
46:13
Speaker 1: Miami memories, some painful, but I agree college football's best
46:16
Speaker 1: sports experience hands down.
46:17
Speaker 2: Love the pod. Thanks.
46:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I'm just going to go back to, you know,
46:24
Speaker 1: my favorite counterfactual.
46:26
Speaker 2: When you have the.
46:26
Speaker 1: Debate between Lebron and Michael Jordan and maybe we'll put
46:32
Speaker 1: Wemby in that debate soon or Yokic in that debate
46:35
Speaker 1: soon and all this stuff, there's still only there's one
46:38
Speaker 1: guy that should be in the debate longer and it's
46:40
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson because you know what Magic did that Michael
46:43
Speaker 1: Jordan didn't do. He won an NCAA title and an
46:46
Speaker 1: NBA title in the same basically back to back years. Right,
46:52
Speaker 1: he ends his college career as an NCAA champion and
46:57
Speaker 1: in his rookie year, he ends his rookie year as
47:00
Speaker 1: an NBA champion. You know who didn't do that, Michael Jordan.
47:03
Speaker 1: You know who didn't do that, Lebron James. You know
47:06
Speaker 1: who didn't do that, Kareem Abdul Jabbar alth Kriem got
47:10
Speaker 1: fairly close. It was only a couple of years.
47:17
Speaker 2: Lebron James obviously, you know, didn't go to college. Right, Yes, he.
47:20
Speaker 1: Won his I think I think he won a high
47:22
Speaker 1: school state title. But anyway, I just want to put
47:28
Speaker 1: my plug in for you know, Magic Johnson basically had
47:32
Speaker 1: eleven seasons, eleven productive seasons. He won five titles in
47:38
Speaker 1: eleven seasons. Okay, five titles in eleven seasons.
47:44
Speaker 2: He loses.
47:45
Speaker 1: I think he's in the NBA finals three other times, right,
47:49
Speaker 1: I think he's five and three.
47:50
Speaker 2: I have that. Where's it four?
47:55
Speaker 1: Anyway, and his careers cut short by HIV and Karl
48:01
Speaker 1: Malone's prejudice, and if if if he basically of his career,
48:10
Speaker 1: if his career, if he goes another five, which he
48:13
Speaker 1: would have, there's at least one more Michael versus Magic
48:20
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. We only got one, right, Michael wins it
48:24
Speaker 1: and then eight and then and then it was four
48:26
Speaker 1: months later that he's diagnosed with HIV. Magic Johnson is
48:31
Speaker 1: they probably face off another time or two in the
48:34
Speaker 1: before before the first Jordan retirement. I think Magic gets one.
48:40
Speaker 1: And if he has six and Michael never gets his six,
48:45
Speaker 1: what's the goat conversation like?
48:47
Speaker 2: Anyway? Just sumthing upout.
48:48
Speaker 1: Her next question comes from Bill Singletary, Newberg, Oregon. Hey,
48:52
Speaker 1: Chuck Cocaine's I never stopped believing right on baby as
48:55
Speaker 1: we had it in twenty twenty six. What one word
48:57
Speaker 1: you'd use to describe how you feel about the year head?
48:59
Speaker 1: And who be your dream interview for the late October? Also,
49:02
Speaker 1: do you think college football would benefit from adopting a
49:04
Speaker 1: more NFL style?
49:06
Speaker 2: There?
49:06
Speaker 1: I say socialistic structure build Singletary, Well, look, and college
49:12
Speaker 1: football is going to need an anti trust exemption to
49:14
Speaker 1: do these things. I love the Nick Saban calendar idea,
49:18
Speaker 1: which is basically shift everything to the to the summer.
49:24
Speaker 1: The port the transfer portal doesn't open up until May,
49:27
Speaker 1: which is the end of the semester. Okay, so you
49:30
Speaker 1: you can at least you can at least live in
49:33
Speaker 1: the fantasy of student athlete land. And then you have
49:38
Speaker 1: spring practice after the transfer portal in late May early June,
49:43
Speaker 1: and then you know, then you prepare essentially for the season.
49:47
Speaker 1: You're essentially on the NFL schedule. Right They have the
49:51
Speaker 1: you know, they have the NFL Draft, then they have
49:54
Speaker 1: their first OTAs, which is their spring practice. Then they
49:57
Speaker 1: take a little bit of a break, and then they
49:58
Speaker 1: have then they have any camp, and then the opening
50:01
Speaker 1: of the season. It seems pretty sensible to me, and
50:06
Speaker 1: I do think they you know it, and it allows
50:09
Speaker 1: you to still to still respect the academic calendar. Right now,
50:14
Speaker 1: nothing seems to respect the academic calendar, so it makes
50:17
Speaker 1: the whole student athlete conversation sort of even more ludicrous.
50:22
Speaker 1: One word, I'd feel about twenty six, Well, I feel
50:27
Speaker 1: better about calendar year twenty six than I did at
50:30
Speaker 1: the start of calendar year twenty five and twenty five,
50:33
Speaker 1: when about kind of how I expected that it would feel.
50:37
Speaker 1: Really uncertain that it would feel like we were. It
50:42
Speaker 1: would feel like the equivalent of trying to walk on
50:44
Speaker 1: a moon walk or one of those you know, bouncy
50:47
Speaker 1: houses right where you're you never feel steady and you
50:51
Speaker 1: just have to plot along in order to survive. And
50:55
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five was unstable, all those things. I
51:03
Speaker 1: guess the one word I would use to describe how
51:05
Speaker 1: I feel about twenty six is I'm going to go
51:12
Speaker 1: ahead and say I'm going to use two words and
51:16
Speaker 1: say cautiously optimistic.
51:19
Speaker 2: I think I think more people are seeing.
51:29
Speaker 1: A larger reality than did a year ago. I think
51:34
Speaker 1: we'll have a little more people sort of wanting to
51:40
Speaker 1: who are going to question, who are correctly questioning their
51:45
Speaker 1: initial assumptions.
51:46
Speaker 2: More. I don't know.
51:47
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm I'm I'm I'm hoping people are going to
51:52
Speaker 1: behave this way. But there's something I just feel like
51:55
Speaker 1: we've crossed that I can hear it in my conversations
52:01
Speaker 1: with folks from all over the political spectrum over the
52:04
Speaker 1: last couple of months, which is we're not trusting anything right.
52:09
Speaker 1: Trust is so low with everybody and everything, but we're
52:14
Speaker 1: kind of knowing now we're being bsked, so we're looking
52:18
Speaker 1: for we're looking for more verifications. It just tells me
52:24
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like the information consumer is
52:28
Speaker 1: getting educated, and so I'm slightly more optimistic than I
52:34
Speaker 1: was a year ago, simply because I think I think
52:37
Speaker 1: the information consumer realizes they're being scammed and is actively
52:42
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to feel less scammed, and
52:46
Speaker 1: that in turn gives me some hope. Next question comes
52:50
Speaker 1: from Dan from Carlsbad, California, and he writes, as someone
52:53
Speaker 1: who follows the baseball card market, I'm very interested to
52:55
Speaker 1: see if Pat Ryan's call for the FTC to investigate
52:58
Speaker 1: trading guard grading goes anywhere. Why don't we see more
53:01
Speaker 1: investigations like this in addition to legitimate monopoly concerns. That
53:04
Speaker 1: strikes me as a politically savvy move by someone in
53:06
Speaker 1: a purplish district. Look any you know anything that sort
53:13
Speaker 1: of gets at this, I think.
53:16
Speaker 2: I think it.
53:18
Speaker 1: I definitely think that the card market needs a little
53:22
Speaker 1: bit more attention and regulation to it as it grows,
53:25
Speaker 1: and I think the more it grows, the more attention
53:28
Speaker 1: it is.
53:28
Speaker 2: Going to get from the FTC.
53:31
Speaker 1: I still think it's considered a niche or sort of
53:33
Speaker 1: a not a mainstream issue, and I'm going to be
53:39
Speaker 1: really cynical the people most impacted by it are not
53:44
Speaker 1: necessarily people that are presumed to be swing voters. So,
53:51
Speaker 1: you know, the card market is, you know, it's a hobby, right,
54:00
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a durable hobby. It's been around
54:04
Speaker 1: so long now, and it feels like it's getting a
54:06
Speaker 1: bit more financial foundation to it. But it's the consolidation
54:13
Speaker 1: that I think deserves a bit more attention. And I mean,
54:17
Speaker 1: just look at what this Ruben guy is putting together
54:20
Speaker 1: with fanatics, and I don't you know, more power to them,
54:24
Speaker 1: And I'm rooting for him to create to making make
54:28
Speaker 1: cards less dorkish, right, perceived to be the dork You
54:32
Speaker 1: know where we have to you know where you go
54:35
Speaker 1: into a card shop, and there's always been it's I
54:37
Speaker 1: always have felt like going into a baseball card shop
54:41
Speaker 1: was like watching the older guys go into the back
54:44
Speaker 1: room of video stores.
54:45
Speaker 2: Back in the day.
54:46
Speaker 1: It was like, you didn't want to tell your friends
54:48
Speaker 1: that you went hung out at a card store. You
54:50
Speaker 1: don't want to tell your friends that you looked at
54:52
Speaker 1: the adult section of the video of the video store
54:56
Speaker 1: and there's you know, maybe that's in my own head
54:59
Speaker 1: a little, but I think there's still that stigma out
55:02
Speaker 1: there on cards, though I think people like Tom Brady
55:07
Speaker 1: and their investment in are certainly making it, getting it
55:10
Speaker 1: more mainstream. But it is what Fanatics is doing right,
55:17
Speaker 1: consolidating so much of the sports experience under one umbrella card,
55:23
Speaker 1: collecting your memorabilia, your where you get the T shirts,
55:29
Speaker 1: the sweatshirts.
55:30
Speaker 2: Right, they do all that.
55:32
Speaker 1: I think they're also dabbling in sports gambling, right, that's
55:36
Speaker 1: to me what's begging for some look, and yet you
55:38
Speaker 1: have the different grading companies. But I'm I'm you know,
55:43
Speaker 1: I look at the consolidation of just to get real
55:46
Speaker 1: dorky here of SGC and Beckett under the PSA brand,
55:50
Speaker 1: saying fine, because I think the next generation of graders
55:53
Speaker 1: are going to come from the AI graders and the
55:55
Speaker 1: AI technology. And look, PSA wasn't the biggest and then
55:59
Speaker 1: it got credibility. I'm you know, you've got a few
56:02
Speaker 1: other CGC interests. Me. I really like the quality of
56:06
Speaker 1: their of their of their holders. I think they're very
56:13
Speaker 1: nice looking.
56:14
Speaker 2: Uh.
56:15
Speaker 1: And there's still something to be said about how people
56:17
Speaker 1: want to display their cards if they truly are, So
56:20
Speaker 1: I think that could matter, and I think I think
56:23
Speaker 1: the barrier to entry and the card grading will only
56:27
Speaker 1: up if.
56:27
Speaker 2: You will because of because of AI and all of that.
56:33
Speaker 1: But look, Fanatics, I think this will really get the
56:39
Speaker 1: attention of the government. If Fanatics and the company that
56:43
Speaker 1: is the parent company of PSA Collectors, if PSA makes
56:47
Speaker 1: an if that attempts at a consolidation, then I think
56:51
Speaker 1: you've got a real FDC case on your hands. Next
56:55
Speaker 1: question from Philly Mike Hey check long time email or
56:58
Speaker 1: first time listener?
56:58
Speaker 2: Bad joke? I know.
57:00
Speaker 1: Do you have a recommendation for a good book on
57:01
Speaker 1: Roy Cone. I've seen a few options, but don't know
57:04
Speaker 1: where to start. And I'm fascinated by how one person
57:06
Speaker 1: influenced so many dark chapters in American politics, from McCarthyism
57:09
Speaker 1: to Trump. Thank you if I do your insights brings
57:13
Speaker 1: sanity to an otherwise caoch political moment. So look, there
57:17
Speaker 1: are okay Roy Cone books out there, but you know,
57:21
Speaker 1: the best Roy Cone experience and the most I learned
57:26
Speaker 1: about him, So I would recomm first of all read
57:31
Speaker 1: his books first. So in the early sixties, he was
57:35
Speaker 1: sort of the first among the self help legal books
57:39
Speaker 1: you know, how to not get screwed in your divorce.
57:42
Speaker 2: Or somethuff like that.
57:43
Speaker 1: Let me get the some of the titles of his book.
57:47
Speaker 1: First of all, the Sydney's Ion book is the book
57:51
Speaker 1: It's It's, It's, It's, It's supposedly the autobiography of Roy Cone.
57:56
Speaker 1: Sidney's Ion was interviewing him towards the end end of
58:00
Speaker 1: his life when he had been diagnosed with AIDS. Was
58:04
Speaker 1: claiming it wasn't AIDS, but oh my god, that's I
58:10
Speaker 1: it's a it's entertaining as hell, and it is.
58:14
Speaker 2: I would. I think it's the best. You learn a
58:17
Speaker 2: lot about how the.
58:19
Speaker 1: Brain of Cone worked. It's the interviews take place in
58:24
Speaker 1: the early eighties. He dies, I think in eighty six.
58:27
Speaker 1: So Sydney's Ions books is an absolute must read more
58:32
Speaker 1: than any others before, you know. And there's a few
58:34
Speaker 1: look the movie Citizen Cone, and I think there's a
58:37
Speaker 1: couple of books that have gone on Citizen Cone that
58:40
Speaker 1: are that are okay. But I think the Sydney's Ion,
58:42
Speaker 1: because he was essentially going to be the ghostwriter. I
58:46
Speaker 1: think for Cone's own book. But go read some of
58:49
Speaker 1: Cohne's own books. So for instance, if you read none
58:54
Speaker 1: of them are very long. But here's here's one that
58:56
Speaker 1: sort of got a lot of traction back in the day.
59:00
Speaker 1: Was written in the early sixties, How to stand Up
59:02
Speaker 1: for your Rights and Win. That was the name of
59:04
Speaker 1: the book. What you'll hear is you'll hear Trump's voice
59:10
Speaker 1: without Trump. It's astonishing, it's really impressive. So anyway, those
59:17
Speaker 1: are the two books. The Sydney's Ion quasi autobiography, because
59:22
Speaker 1: again he gets lots of cooperation for Cone, but it
59:25
Speaker 1: goes in and out. He's pretty transparent about his how
59:30
Speaker 1: often he has him and doesn't have him in etc.
59:32
Speaker 1: And then read one of Cohne's authored books that gives
59:36
Speaker 1: you a better sense of who he is. Then try
59:37
Speaker 1: to read the various biographies that were written after he died.
59:40
Speaker 1: But the Zion book is when he's alive, that's why
59:44
Speaker 1: that's interesting.
59:45
Speaker 2: And then you've got to read one of his other books.
59:47
Speaker 2: So that's that's how I.
59:48
Speaker 1: Would recommend getting into the world of Roy Cope. I'm
59:59
Speaker 1: going to race through I got one, two, three, four,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: five more questions. I'm going to try to do these
1:00:05
Speaker 1: fasts so that i can knock them all out Okay,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: I just hear this. Next one comes from Kyle B
1:00:11
Speaker 1: I just finished the book Covert City by Vince Houghton
1:00:14
Speaker 1: and Eric Driggs, the story of Miami's.
1:00:15
Speaker 2: Role in the Cold War.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Given your connection to the city and the book's intersection
1:00:19
Speaker 1: with South for a politics, I refused to live in
1:00:21
Speaker 1: a world where this isn't an episode.
1:00:22
Speaker 2: Big fan of the showkeeper of the Great.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: War, Kyle, great idea. Guess what book I have not read.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: I've not read this book. I did not know about
1:00:30
Speaker 1: this book. I don't know why I don't know about
1:00:32
Speaker 1: this book other than I haven't been to my one
1:00:34
Speaker 1: of my favorite bookstores in Miami called Books and Books
1:00:37
Speaker 1: and Books.
1:00:40
Speaker 2: But I'm going to read it and we will turn
1:00:41
Speaker 2: this into an episode. So thank you.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: It is officially on my reading list. Covert City because
1:00:47
Speaker 1: it's true man, the Cold War, I mean, because you
1:00:50
Speaker 1: know we were an outpost. Look, I it's possible. My
1:00:55
Speaker 1: grandfather was a plus quasi. I mean, he admitted to
1:01:00
Speaker 1: me he had conversations with the CIA about Castro, but
1:01:03
Speaker 1: in his conversations he was there warning. He claims he
1:01:06
Speaker 1: warned the CIA that Castro wasn't a good guy. My
1:01:09
Speaker 1: grandfather was doing work in rural Cuba in the fifties
1:01:12
Speaker 1: and he got and he had to he had in
1:01:15
Speaker 1: his offices because he showed me this scrap book. He
1:01:19
Speaker 1: had this eight x ten glossy of a young Fidel
1:01:22
Speaker 1: and his fatigues. And I said, what do you have
1:01:23
Speaker 1: this photo? And he said, oh, if you were on
1:01:26
Speaker 1: the approved list, you this photo. This was your If
1:01:29
Speaker 1: you hung this photo up in your office, then his
1:01:32
Speaker 1: people wouldn't harass you.
1:01:34
Speaker 2: Something else anyway. So God, I got to read this book.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: I am, I am, I am Kyle, thank you for
1:01:40
Speaker 1: putting it on my radar, and I'm ashamed it was
1:01:42
Speaker 1: not just shows you it's impossible to keep up with
1:01:45
Speaker 1: everything these days, right. Next question, Christopher de Carlo, Long Island,
1:01:49
Speaker 1: New York. How does it feel to be an independent
1:01:50
Speaker 1: journalist after many years of the NBC.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: I was.
1:01:56
Speaker 1: At first unsteady, a little weird. Now it just feels like,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: did I stay at NBC too long?
1:02:05
Speaker 2: That's how I That's.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: How empowered I feel. That's how excited I am about
1:02:10
Speaker 1: the landscape coming up. Because look, ultimately, I you know,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: I'm like the old you know, an educated consumer is
1:02:19
Speaker 1: my best customer. I want to help people understand politics better.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: I want more vehicles to do this. I want people
1:02:25
Speaker 1: to feel more sure about where they're getting their information.
1:02:29
Speaker 1: And I now have an opportunity to help rebuild mainstream
1:02:31
Speaker 1: media from an independence base. I'm having a blast now.
1:02:37
Speaker 2: Look, I was nervous.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: I was nervous, but I sort of I sort of
1:02:41
Speaker 1: see where this is headed. At least in my head.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: I've got a north star and not having to worry
1:02:49
Speaker 1: about upsetting a large corporate entity.
1:02:54
Speaker 2: Is truly liberating.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: Next one, Hi, Chuck, always look forward to the podcast.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: Thoughts about Magus starting to crack bring to mind a
1:03:03
Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen lyric. There's a crack and everything. That's how
1:03:05
Speaker 1: the light gets in. More people are starting to see
1:03:08
Speaker 1: the light. Happy new Year, Bob in Kansas City, Go Jayhawks, Bob,
1:03:12
Speaker 1: I should ask you Kansas City, Kansas or Kansas City, Missouri?
1:03:16
Speaker 1: And where are you on the fight for the new
1:03:20
Speaker 1: home of of the.
1:03:22
Speaker 2: Kansas City Chiefs.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: There you go, Leonard Cohen, he is underappreciated. Uh, that's
1:03:33
Speaker 1: for sure. One of my favorite Malcolm Gladwell episodes was
1:03:37
Speaker 1: his entire episode on the Leonard Cohen Hallelujah song, and
1:03:41
Speaker 1: Jesse did an entire episode of revisionist history just on
1:03:44
Speaker 1: that that and that interpretation of that song, which is
1:03:50
Speaker 1: he is right, you know, it is one of the
1:03:52
Speaker 1: more chilling. Leonard Cohen's version of it is unb believable.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: All right, next question, Dante Salters, Oh, it signed respectively respectfully,
1:04:04
Speaker 1: which usually means there's a hidden critique. He says, I'm
1:04:09
Speaker 1: very high on Governor Brasher for twenty twenty eight and
1:04:11
Speaker 1: consider myself an early supporter of his. Unfortunately, I mistery
1:04:13
Speaker 1: interview with Bashir, what was your r I'll take away
1:04:15
Speaker 1: of the Governor as a potential twenty eight prospect. I
1:04:17
Speaker 1: see many who dismiss him, but I believe he has
1:04:19
Speaker 1: underrated and understated skills.
1:04:21
Speaker 2: Respectfully. Dante salters, Okay, I thought it was gonna be more.
1:04:24
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm sorry you missed it. It's I
1:04:28
Speaker 1: think there are remnants of it. I did it for Newsphere,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: so it's on my Newsphere feed, which you do have
1:04:34
Speaker 1: to become a member to go get so we would
1:04:37
Speaker 1: love to have you. Newsphere is basically his news for
1:04:41
Speaker 1: the super informed. And I say this with with you
1:04:44
Speaker 1: know where you know it's you're getting the good stuff.
1:04:48
Speaker 1: So I would say that that Bashir is still learning
1:04:57
Speaker 1: to be a national candidate, is the way I would
1:04:59
Speaker 1: come up.
1:05:03
Speaker 2: Is, and I think that.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: I think he is struggling to be to be seen
1:05:12
Speaker 1: as both a mainstream Democrat and as a red state
1:05:14
Speaker 1: Kentucky Democrat.
1:05:16
Speaker 2: I think.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: I I'm with you the idea of Bashir. I'm very
1:05:23
Speaker 1: bullish on the question is what is it?
1:05:26
Speaker 2: How do you?
1:05:26
Speaker 1: How does it look in practice? Can he be sort
1:05:29
Speaker 1: of Bill Clinton circa nineteen ninety one and ninety two
1:05:34
Speaker 1: and be the outsider, mainstream, center left southern Democrat type right?
1:05:40
Speaker 1: And I know Kentucky's not necessarily a southern state, but
1:05:43
Speaker 1: certainly more like a southern state today than it was
1:05:46
Speaker 1: back in the day. I will say this, I almost
1:05:51
Speaker 1: sometimes think he's too polished. I think he needs more
1:05:55
Speaker 1: of it. I wish he had his dad's drawl right,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: and he has less of a draw than Steve does.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Steve Basheer, who of course served as governor as well.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: There's a part of Andy Basheer that feels like he's
1:06:14
Speaker 1: too refined. It's sort of like Al Gore versus his father.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: If you're old enough to remember sort of Al Gore's
1:06:23
Speaker 1: father in office. I'm not old enough to remember it,
1:06:25
Speaker 1: but it was sort of a similar Al Junior was definitely,
1:06:28
Speaker 1: you know, the Harvard trained southern boy, right, but who
1:06:31
Speaker 1: grew up in Washington. And I'm not saying that, but
1:06:35
Speaker 1: you know, I think an underrated problem for Basher is
1:06:39
Speaker 1: the fact that he's a scion and the fact that
1:06:42
Speaker 1: he sort of it's not that he grew up in privilege,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: but that he sort of grew up in a political family.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether that's going to be a
1:06:52
Speaker 1: demerit come to start at twenty twenty eight. I think
1:06:57
Speaker 1: his strength is how comfortable he is with in rural America,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: and he is part of that has been with just
1:07:05
Speaker 1: the relentless amount of natural disasters that hit Kentucky during
1:07:08
Speaker 1: his governorship. He has had quite a few where he
1:07:12
Speaker 1: is he has had to be the consoling uh the
1:07:15
Speaker 1: governor of a consoler as much as he was a governor.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: And of course none of that knows party and all
1:07:22
Speaker 1: of that. That's what that's what makes that a good
1:07:24
Speaker 1: story for him. But I you know what he doesn't
1:07:29
Speaker 1: have yet. He doesn't have this signature either, issue that says, ah,
1:07:37
Speaker 1: this is Kentucky Democrat.
1:07:38
Speaker 2: That's different.
1:07:42
Speaker 1: So it's it's I see the potential, but I you know,
1:07:48
Speaker 1: is he you know, I'll be very curious to see
1:07:50
Speaker 1: how he handles positioning himself ideologically as the sort of
1:07:55
Speaker 1: chief cheerleader for Democratic governor candidates in twenty twenty six,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: he's the chairman of the DA. He'll be traveling the
1:08:01
Speaker 1: country trying to help governors. Does he make political points?
1:08:06
Speaker 1: Does he help some governors who are a little more
1:08:08
Speaker 1: center than governors who are a little more liberal. I'll
1:08:11
Speaker 1: be very curious how he handles that. How does you know?
1:08:14
Speaker 1: How does he position himself when campaigning with Tim Walls
1:08:18
Speaker 1: versus camp in Minnesota versus campaigning with Rob sand in Iowa.
1:08:23
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be all over Rob sand
1:08:24
Speaker 1: in Iowa.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: And I think he's.
1:08:28
Speaker 1: Going to be a little nervous about campaigning with Tim Walls.
1:08:31
Speaker 1: So I I think he's got I think he's got
1:08:37
Speaker 1: a lot of potential. I am skeptical the base of
1:08:43
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party will fully embrace him without him having
1:08:46
Speaker 1: to sort of move a little bit further towards the
1:08:49
Speaker 1: base that Bill Clinton had to. And I wonder if
1:08:52
Speaker 1: that takes away his best asset anyway. That's that was
1:08:57
Speaker 1: my impression.
1:08:57
Speaker 2: He's he is.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: I feel like he is trying to make the case
1:09:02
Speaker 1: that he is part of that he is can be
1:09:06
Speaker 1: leader of the party rather than a disruptor of the party.
1:09:13
Speaker 1: And I think he needs to figure out how to
1:09:16
Speaker 1: be more of a disruptor of the party that was.
1:09:20
Speaker 1: I think that's where Bill Clinton found strength as a
1:09:22
Speaker 1: as a center left candidate when he did it. All right,
1:09:26
Speaker 1: last question for this two part mail bag check. I
1:09:30
Speaker 1: don't know if you have answered this before, but growing
1:09:32
Speaker 1: up in Miami and being a lifelong Hurricanes fan, how
1:09:34
Speaker 1: did you become a Packers fan? Always Jorgiar podcast paul
1:09:36
Speaker 1: Us from Coming to La Coming to Louisiana.
1:09:39
Speaker 2: I will tell you my father grew up in water
1:09:41
Speaker 2: li Isle. What did that mean? It meant it.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: His best childhood memories were in Iowa. He wished he
1:09:51
Speaker 1: was raising me in Iowa. I used to joke he
1:09:53
Speaker 1: used to raise me Iowan. What did that mean? My
1:09:55
Speaker 1: first savings account was not at a bank in Miami.
1:09:59
Speaker 1: It was instead Sorry I was interrupted there, my dog
1:10:07
Speaker 1: is chewing and destroying a pen. As we finished She's
1:10:11
Speaker 1: very anxious for me to finish the mailbag, but she
1:10:14
Speaker 1: was cracking it. I was like, what are you what
1:10:16
Speaker 1: are you blowing up? Just waiting for ink everywhere? But
1:10:20
Speaker 1: I digress. So my father, my first savings account was
1:10:25
Speaker 1: with the Waterloo Savings and Loane. Yes, this was before
1:10:27
Speaker 1: the SNL crisis, so that.
1:10:29
Speaker 2: Was where I had. My first bank book was a Waterloom.
1:10:32
Speaker 2: You know.
1:10:33
Speaker 1: He wanted me to have ties Iowa. Well, it also
1:10:35
Speaker 1: meant he was anti Chicago and his favorite NFL team
1:10:39
Speaker 1: was always the Packers. He was not a fan of
1:10:42
Speaker 1: the owner of the Miami Dolphins band named Joe Robbie,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: and he used to complain that Joe Robbie used to
1:10:48
Speaker 1: steal money out of the University of Miami athletic department
1:10:52
Speaker 1: because the Hurricanes and the Dolphins shared a stadium back
1:10:55
Speaker 1: then to the Orange Bowl, and Robbie controlled the concessions
1:10:59
Speaker 1: and the CONCESSI money then never went to the Hurricanes,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: and I think of over time it finally did. But
1:11:06
Speaker 1: that used to like chap my and so that was
1:11:08
Speaker 1: like one of his grievances. That's how emphatic we were
1:11:13
Speaker 1: about the Hurricanes. So it was I think The other
1:11:15
Speaker 1: thing is my dad was was was was a conservative
1:11:18
Speaker 1: and Robbie was a liberal Democrat from Minnesota. So he
1:11:22
Speaker 1: never said that, but that was always there was always
1:11:24
Speaker 1: a little bit of that in the back of my
1:11:26
Speaker 1: head about this of what but he.
1:11:28
Speaker 2: But he was always angry.
1:11:29
Speaker 1: He always had an issue with Robbie and how they
1:11:32
Speaker 1: treated the Hurricanes. And he grew up in Iowa, and
1:11:35
Speaker 1: which was you know, you were Green Bay. You know
1:11:39
Speaker 1: you pulled for the Packers in football, not not anything. Whoever,
1:11:44
Speaker 1: the chief r was Chicago all things. Chicago was like
1:11:47
Speaker 1: New York to somebody in Iowa. So that's he was
1:11:54
Speaker 1: a Packer fan. So very early on I read Run
1:11:56
Speaker 1: to Daylight. I read the Jerry Kramer book Instant Replay
1:12:01
Speaker 1: early on, and guess what I did. I did the
1:12:03
Speaker 1: same propaganda to my son, and he read the whole
1:12:07
Speaker 1: Jerry Kramer.
1:12:08
Speaker 2: Uh, he read.
1:12:10
Speaker 1: I gave him the the newer Lombardi book on the
1:12:13
Speaker 1: Marinis book it didn't exist then back then, which just
1:12:16
Speaker 1: the Run to Daylight book, and uh, he's embraced it
1:12:20
Speaker 1: in some way. He's a he will tell you he
1:12:23
Speaker 1: thinks he's more of a Packer fan than I am.
1:12:26
Speaker 2: But we have, we've, we've, I have.
1:12:30
Speaker 1: He is a third generation Packer fan, and none of
1:12:34
Speaker 1: us have ever lived in the state of Wisconsin. However,
1:12:38
Speaker 1: my father's father and mother, early in their marriage for
1:12:42
Speaker 1: my dad was born, did live in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. So
1:12:45
Speaker 1: a fourth generation. Uh technically, so I can I can
1:12:49
Speaker 1: say I did have a fourth You know, my grandfather
1:12:54
Speaker 1: lived in Wisconsin for a period of time and his
1:12:56
Speaker 1: brother was a lifelong Wisconsin residence, So those are my
1:12:59
Speaker 1: Wisconsin time.
1:13:00
Speaker 2: But yes, I am. I'm an unusual Packer fan.
1:13:03
Speaker 1: But hey, in the eighties, I was the only kid
1:13:05
Speaker 1: rooting for the Packers in Miami while everybody else was
1:13:08
Speaker 1: excited about Dan Marino, which meant I threw myself into
1:13:11
Speaker 1: Hurricanes football even more so because that was the one local, local, gig,
1:13:16
Speaker 1: local team I could root for.
1:13:18
Speaker 2: And my dad was not gonna be bad about it.
1:13:20
Speaker 1: All right, What a great first nine months for the
1:13:24
Speaker 1: podcast the Questions I got. What a great uh set
1:13:31
Speaker 1: of listeners and smart in somebody's I wish I could
1:13:34
Speaker 1: just create create content this way.
1:13:36
Speaker 2: With you guys more often, and maybe we will.
1:13:38
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll make the mailbag thing a little bit more regular,
1:13:42
Speaker 1: where we you know, maybe once every.
1:13:43
Speaker 2: Couple of months.
1:13:44
Speaker 1: I clean it out right, I empty the mailbag, uh,
1:13:48
Speaker 1: and do that so that we don't we don't let
1:13:51
Speaker 1: these these great treasure of ideas slip through.
1:13:56
Speaker 2: So with that, thanks for listening until we upload a game. Hey,