Today in 1963, ABC-TV’s “American Bandstand” moved from every weekday afternoon in Philadelphia to Saturdays in California:
The number one album today in 1968 was the Doors’ “Waiting for the Sun,” their only number one album:
“Did Democrats cry wolf so many times before [Donald] Trump that no one hears or heeds them now?” asks the New York Times’s Frank Bruni. One such Democrat, the fittingly named Howard Wolfson, answers in the affirmative.
Wolfson worked for John Kerry’s campaign in 2004 and was communications director for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign. In referring to Republican nominees in those years and 2012, Wolfson tells Bruni, “I’m quite confident I employed language that, in retrospect, was hyperbolic and inaccurate, language that cheapened my ability—our ability—to talk about this moment with accuracy and credibility.”
In contrast with George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, according to Wolfson, Trump is “an actual, honest-to-God menace”:
“It’s only when you find yourself describing someone who really is the definition of an extremist—who really is, essentially, in my opinion, a fascist—that you recognize that the language that you’ve used in the past to describe other people was hyperbolic and inappropriate and cheap,” Wolfson said.
He certainly has a point about credibility—as we noted way back in February, in a column titled “The Boy Who Cried Trump.” What about accuracy? That’s debatable, to say the least. Wolfson acknowledges that his description of Trump as “essentially . . . a fascist” is just his opinion.
Wolfson is unequivocal in describing Trump as an “extremist,” but is that description really apt? In August 2015, the Times published a piece by Josh Barro titled “Donald Trump, Moderate Republican.” In a November Slate piece, Jamelle Bouie echoed the claim: “Donald Trump Is Actually a Moderate Republican.”
Six days later, another Bouie piece appeared, titled “Donald Trump Is a Fascist.” In July, Barro tweeted: “The Republicans lining up with Trump now would’ve gone with Hitler in the 1930s, seeing his rise as an opportunity.”So Trump is a moderate Republican fascist? Well, why not? So was Mitt Romney. In a hilarious piece for the Daily Beast last month, Karol Markowicz rehearsed some of the rhetoric of former Enron adviser Paul Krugman:
In 2012, Krugman called Mitt Romney a “charlatan,” pathologically dishonest, and untrustworthy. He said Romney doesn’t even pretend to care about poor people and wants people to die so that the rich could get richer. Romney is “completely amoral,” “a dangerous fool,” “ignorant as well as uncaring.”
In March, Krugman had a column called “Clash of Republican Con Artists.” In it, he called Trump’s foreign policy more reasonable than that of Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz and said he’s just as terrified of either of those men in the White House as he is of Trump. He wrote: “In fact, you have to wonder why, exactly, the Republican establishment is really so horrified by Mr. Trump. Yes, he’s a con man, but they all are. So why is this con job different from any other?”
Yet a few weeks ago Krugman wondered how Republicans could rally around Trump “just as if he were a normal candidate.” It was exactly Krugman who normalized him! What makes Donald Trump normal to so many is that they’ve heard all the hysteria from people like Krugman before.Markowicz is a Nevertrump Republican; she agrees with Wolfson that Trump is an honest-to-God menace, though unlike him she always recognized earlier GOP nominees weren’t. “Perhaps if the Trump campaign has taught the media anything,” she concludes, “it’s to ratchet down the rhetoric so that words mean something again.”
Bruni ends on a similar note:
“We should take stock of this moment,” [Wolfson] said, “and recognize that our language really needs to be more accountable and more appropriate to the circumstances.” I hope we do.
The problem is that at this moment, “ratcheting down the rhetoric” is actually a way of ratcheting it up. Wolfson’s acknowledgment that his own past characterizations of GOP nominees were false is meant to create a dramatic contrast and thereby lend credibility to his current denunciations of Trump.
But if you are inclined to think (as we are) that it is overwrought to describe Trump as an extremist or fascist, why should it? Wolfson has said similar things about past GOP nominees, and apparently he was sincere about them, realizing only “in retrospect” that they were inaccurate. Why should we think his judgment is reliable now?
Bruni half-acknowledges the point:
What stands out in this presidential campaign aren’t [sic] the alarms that Democrats are sounding about the Republican nominee but the ones that an unusual number of Republican defectors are. That’s what’s unfamiliar. And that’s what’s wounding Trump.
He cites as examples pieces from July by National Review’s Jonah Goldberg and March from Commentary’s Noah Rothman. He doesn’t mention Markowicz’s much-discussed piece; we suppose it would be awkward to do so given her evisceration of his colleague Krugman.
It’s true enough that the Trump nomination has occasioned an unusual amount of Republican disunity and conservative opposition. But Nevertrump conservatives are all over the map as to their rationales for opposing the candidate. Some would agree with Wolfson’s characterization of him as an extremist, but others make the opposite argument. Last week a Nevertrump friend of ours told us she would vote for neither Trump nor Mrs. Clinton because both are “New York liberals.” Still others object to Trump for nonideological reasons of character, personality, temperament, style or experience.
And those conservatives whose objections to Trump are ideological often end up sounding suspiciously like liberals, as Jonah Goldberg found on Wednesday night. In response to Trump’s immigration speech, Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s token conservative blogress, tweeted: “David Duke and NRO [National Review Online, former name of NR’s website] pleased. One of these should know better.”
Goldberg—whose magazine published an issue before the primaries almost entirely devoted to the case against Trump—replied: “Push away the keyboard, Jennifer. Shameful and dumb.” Rubin rejected that wise counsel. The guilt-by-association-with-David-Duke move is an old and tired liberal smear, and it gains no added vitality from being employed by a putative conservative.
On the other hand, after the Republican nominee’s visit to Mexico earlier Wednesday, Howard Wolfson tweeted: “If you believe Trump needed to pivot, moderate and look more Presidential, that event was a home run.” So let’s give Wolfson credit for giving Trump credit where it was due.
Nick Gillespie comments on whatever Donald Trump’s immigration beliefs were last week (which are not necessarily what they will be at any one point this week):
Like war, a political campaign is a series of brief, clarifying moments larded up with endless stretches of boredom and waiting. There was a lightning strike last night on MSNBC, when the founder of the group Latinos For Trump defended the Republican presidential nominee’s anti-immigration policies and anti-Mexican animus last night on MSNBC.
“My culture is a very dominant culture,” said Marco Guiterrez. “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” …
To the extent that Guiterrez is speaking for Donald Trump, he shares his boss-man’s near-complete lack of understanding about food, America, and entrepreneurship. And, we might add, the overwhelmingly positive feelings that most Americans have toward immigrants. Indeed, one of the great mysteries of this election cycle is how illegal immigration, especially from Mexico, ever was mistaken for a pressing concern. As it happens, over three-quarters of Americans believe current illegals should be given a path to full citizenship (63 percent) or to legal status (15 percent), while only 18 percent think they should be identified and deported. FFS, 52 percent of REPUBLICANS believe illegal immigrants should be given a path to citizenship after meeting certain requirements. Except for the Obama administration, which has deported a record number of immigrants, Hillary Clinton, who was “missing in action on immigration,” and a small group of conservatives—including the nativists at National Review, who attacked Donald Trump for being soft on legal and illegal immigration—immigration isn’t a problem.
What Trump and Guiterrez don’t seem to appreciate is that people like immigration because it brings new possibilities into the country. Latino or Mexican culture isn’t any more “dominant” than past immigrant cultures. The clearest markers of a culture are language and food. It turns out that Spanish-speaking immigrant households are learning English in precisely the same generational pattern that held for Jews, Italians, Poles, and previous newcomers. Eighty percent of third-generation folks from Spanish speaking households speak English as their dominant language while 0 percent speak Spanish, says Pew Research. As for food, today’s Mexican food is as American as apple pie, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, sushi, and chop suey. As Gustavo Arrellano argued in a June 2012 Reason magazine cover story, it might even be more American.
Precisely who, other than direct competitors with bricks-and-mortar restaurants, doesn’t like food trucks? That’s not simply because, as we’ve documented endlessly here at Reason over the years, they are bringing tasty and delightful food to underserved areas from Los Angeles to downtown Washington, D.C. It’s because the food-truck revolution, every bit as much as Uber or Airbnb or Tesla or any other hipper and more cutting-edge business, exemplifies something primal in America’s cultural DNA. They are small businesses first and foremost, typically run on shoestring budgets, sweat equity, and family-based micro-loans. They experiment and mongrelize and are desperate to please customers. They are mobile and fast-changing, they take risks and they live with booms or busts. Forget the Okies driving pickup trucks across the barren plains in the Dust Bowl era or even the garlic-and-bagel eaters disembarking at Ellis Island in the late 19th- and early-20th centuries. These days, if you want to see not just the American Dream made flesh, but the American future incarnated, head down to wherever food trucks congregate and take a bite of the best this goddamn country has to offer. Typically on some sort of once-weird bread or pasta or pastry—pizza dough, pita, tortilla, bao, whatever—and crammed with odd-ball meats, vegetables, and sauces.
As someone who is the grandchild of immigrants from old Europe who has lived all over the country (New York City, New Jersey, Philly, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Texas, small-town Ohio, D.C.), I can tell nativists that however much you fear immigrants, you don’t want to live in a part of the country where they are few and far between. They take less welfare, they cause less crime, they start more businesses, they breathe new life into a tired body politic, and more. You will lose more than elections, amigos. You will lose out on being able to enjoy a vibrant America that will be different from the one you grew up in, yes, but also better and more future-oriented.
The number one single in the U.K. todayyyyyyy in 19677777777 …
One yearrrrrr laterrrrrr, the Beatles recorded Eric Clapton’s guitar part for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” making him the first non-Beatle on a Beatle record:
The number one song in the U.S. today in 1975:
Facebook Friend Ron Fournier is one of the few political journalists who have aggressively covered the Clintons.
Fournier is going to the dark side — the title of “publisher” — but he has a few things to say to us ink-stained wretches on Labor Day (when, yes, I am working), beginning with a story about a short diversion into a website:
In a meeting just before the site launched, my business partners—six of the smartest, most successful political consultants in Washington—debated which reporter would be given an interview announcing our venture.
I mentioned a particular journalist known to be an easy mark inside the White Houses of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Afraid of confrontation, eager to please, and lazy, this reporter printed whatever minor bits of news and color aides fed him, without skepticism or criticism. I didn’t respect the guy. Nor did most other reporters forced to compete against a patsy who benefited from a policy of mutual-assured promotion.“He’ll gobble up what we feed him,” I told my partners. One groaned. Another winced and said, “Yes, but nobody will buy it. Nobody respects him. They’ll know it’s just a press release.”Until that moment, I assumed the people we covered in politics valued pushover journalists. I thought this particular reporter got ahead by going along. That might be true on the small stories, but not for the stuff that matters.One of my partners asked about a Washington Post political correspondent known for his tough, insightful coverage. “You think Dan Balz would buy this?” “I don’t know,” said another. “But if Balz loves Hotsoup, we’re golden. If he hates it, we’re toast.”
Balz never did write about the project, and we were toast. But I left the meeting knowing that if I ever returned to journalism, I didn’t want to be taken for granted liked the first reporter. I wanted to inspire in my sources what Balz had earned from my partners—respect and fear.
Now that I’m leaving political journalism again, I’d like to share a few other things I’ve learned since joining the profession 30 years ago in Arkansas, where I covered Bill Clinton.
Don’t lose sight of your mission. A reporter’s job is to get as close to the truth as possible, overriding personal biases and sifting through a rising churn of spin and lies to explain what happened and why it matters. At its highest levels, journalisminforms (via scoops and insights that would otherwise be unknown), provokes (via new thoughts and action), and holds powerful people accountable (with no fear or favor).
You’re not working for your editors, other reporters on your beat, or your sources. You’re working for the public, your audience, which is why you don’t slip acronyms, anonymous quotes, and other insidery detail into your stories just to impress folks on your beat. Also, remember for whom you work when you’re rewriting a press release or broadcasting a spoon-fed story for the wrong reasons—“because I’ve got to keep them happy” or “I’ve got to show them I’m relevant, that I’m the reporter they come to.” That’s how you become a patsy. It’s not how you develop sources.
You develop sources by building relationships. Draw up a list of the people on your beat who know things your audience needs to know. Call or email every one of them and ask them out for coffee or lunch. Keep lists. Keep calling. When you’re meeting a potential source for the first time, keep the conversation informal. Get to know him or her. Where’s she from? How does she get along with her family? What are her hobbies? Write a thank-you note after that first meeting, and follow up for a second and a third and a fourth. Don’t consummate the relationship until you’ve built one; it might take weeks, months, or even years to accumulate enough trust for a source to give you information that is valuable for your audience to know and dangerous for your source to convey. (I conducted workshops at The Associated Press that compared source development to the rituals of dating.) Don’t hesitate to hurt a source. One of the reasons to build relationships with people you cover is so that they understand your mission, which means they shouldn’t expect favors when they find your job in conflict with theirs. Fairness and honesty are central to any relationship, and nobody likes surprises, which is why I tell sources, “I’ll never stab you in the back. I’ll always stab you in the chest.” In other words, you’ll know when I’m writing about you or your boss, you’ll know exactly how negative the story will be, and you’ll get a chance to argue your case—but you’ll still get the sharp end of the knife. A reporter’s job isn’t to make friends. It’s to build relationships that inform and provoke readers, and to hold powerful people accountable. Remember the Balz lesson: Your sources are more likely to respect you if they’re a little afraid of you.Don’t cede power to the powerful. I’ve written repeatedly (here, here, and here) about how the media needs to confront a dangerous shift of power away from journalists and toward the people they cover. The short version: Stop ceding control and start doing things that bring powerful people to heel. You don’t like background briefings? Stand up at them and say, “I am filing this briefing to Twitter and quoting you by name.” You want Donald Trump to release his tax records? Impose an embargo on his free airtime until he does so. Campaign officials are bullying one of your reporters over a tough story she did? Get her help: Assign four more reporters to the story and tell them to dig deeper, because apparently she’s on to something. Political operatives are adapting, finding new and ruthless ways to mislead the public. Journalists must adapt, too.You control the ground rules. An addendum to the rule above, all news and information is on the record and suitable for publication or broadcast, subject to the sole discretion of journalists. On your beat, any exceptions to that rule must be approved in advance by you. A company email marked “off the record” or “on background” and sent to you unsolicited is an email you can publish—on the record. An advanced text of a speech marked “embargoed” and sent to you unsolicited is a speech you can publish—immediately. A government official who tells you something in an interview and then says, “That’s off the record” gets a polite but curt reply, “It’s on the record, sir. I’m a reporter, not a priest.” You may want to talk on background. Before granting somebody anonymity, ask yourself, “Am I doing this in service of my audience or my ego?” The standard rule for using anonymous sources, published in Associated Press style books used in almost every newsroom, is: “Whenever possible, we pursue information on the record. When the source insists on background or off-the-record ground rules, we must adhere to a strict set of guidelines.” First, the material is information “and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the news report.” Second, the information is not available on the record. Third, the source is reliable. Many times, the only way to reveal secrets and ugly truths is to disguise the identities of people who expose them. Write with authority. Don’t use crutches like “critics say” when the truth can stand on its own. If the president has said something that is factually wrong, just write or say, “The president is wrong.” If you can show the deception is intentional, tell your audience, “The president lied.” Don’t strain for balance or equivalence in a story where there is none. The truth is rarely black and white or evenly balanced between poles. When you’re writing and editing a story, focus on your first paragraph—the lede that tightly explains what happened. But spend the most time on your “nut paragraph,” that chunk of context explaining why the news is important to your audience or what it might say about future behavior. If you’re writing an opinion piece, that “nut paragraph” may actually be your lede.Politics isn’t just about winning. I loathe political journalism that reduces every development or controversy into a single lazy question: “What does this say about how Candidate X will fare on Election Day?” The better question is often ignored:“What does this say about how Candidate X would govern?” This horserace bias helped fuel Donald Trump’s rise, as each outrageous utterance seemed to be forgotten, if not excused, when polls showed that the callousness was not hurting his poll numbers. In most campaign coverage, “Will he win?” trumped “Should he win?” It wasn’t until Trump’s approval numbers started tanking in general election polling that his suitability for the office became a mainstream issue. Politics isn’t just a science. For as much as reporters should use data and study political science, they shouldn’t ignore the sociology of the beat. We don’t cover mere numbers or studies or even candidates; we cover people—people who want to lead a nation of people buffeted by a confluence of economic, technological, and demographic change unlike anything the United States has experienced since the late 1800s and early 1900s. Understand that history. Get outside of Washington and ask people how their lives and politics are changing. This is how I wrapped my head around why good people support a bad candidate like Trump, people who I started calling “Crazy Buts.”Don’t follow the herd. Journalists in Washington tend to chase the same stories based on the same assumptions to reach the same conclusions. Resist the temptation because it’s boring and bad for your career. The way to advance in journalism is to be distinctive, which means telling stories that nobody else is telling, which starts by asking questions nobody else is asking, which can only be done if you ignore the convention wisdom and group think, which takes guts. Take a chance. Take control.Eventually, the dynamic shifts. You start breaking stories and stabbing people in the chest, and now the powerful people need you more than you need them. You stop begging for information, because now they beg you. “What are you working on?” ask government and campaign officials, the same people who used to ignore your emails and calls—and that’s when you know you’ve got ‘em. They trust you. They respect you. They may or may not like you, but what really matters is this: They’re a little afraid of you.
Who better to comment on Labor Day (which as always is a work day, as are all of the Monday “holidays”) than Mike Rowe, in this case about voting in November:
I also share your concern for our country, and agree wholeheartedly that every vote counts. However, I’m afraid I can’t encourage millions of people whom I’ve never met to just run out and cast a ballot, simply because they have the right to vote. That would be like encouraging everyone to buy an AR-15, simply because they have the right to bear arms. I would need to know a few things about them before offering that kind of encouragement. For instance, do they know how to care for a weapon? Can they afford the cost of the weapon? Do they have a history of violence? Are they mentally stable? In short, are they responsible citizens?
Casting a ballot is not so different. It’s an important right that we all share, and one that impacts our society in dramatic fashion. But it’s one thing to respect and acknowledge our collective rights, and quite another thing to affirmatively encourage people I’ve never met to exercise them. And yet, my friends in Hollywood do that very thing, and they’re at it again.
Every four years, celebrities and movie stars look earnestly into the camera and tell the country to “get out and vote.” They tell us it’s our “most important civic duty,” and they speak as if the very act of casting a ballot is more important than the outcome of the election. This strikes me as somewhat hysterical. Does anyone actually believe that Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen DeGeneres, and Ed Norton would encourage the “masses” to vote, if they believed the “masses” would elect Donald Trump?
Regardless of their political agenda, my celebrity pals are fundamentally mistaken about our “civic duty” to vote. There is simply no such thing. Voting is a right, not a duty, and not a moral obligation. Like all rights, the right to vote comes with some responsibilities, but lets face it – the bar is not set very high. If you believe aliens from another planet walk among us, you are welcome at the polls. If you believe the world is flat, and the moon landing was completely staged, you are invited to cast a ballot. Astrologists, racists, ghost-hunters, sexists, and people who rely upon a Magic 8 Ball to determine their daily wardrobe are all allowed to participate. In fact, and to your point, they’re encouraged.
The undeniable reality is this: our right to vote does not require any understanding of current events, or any awareness of how our government works. So, when a celebrity reminds the country that “everybody’s vote counts,” they are absolutely correct. But when they tell us that “everybody in the country should get out there and vote,” regardless of what they think or believe, I gotta wonder what they’re smoking.
Look at our current candidates. No one appears to like either one of them. Their approval ratings are at record lows. It’s not about who you like more, it’s about who you hate less. Sure, we can blame the media, the system, and the candidates themselves, but let’s be honest – Donald and Hillary are there because we put them there. The electorate has tolerated the intolerable. We’ve treated this entire process like the final episode of American Idol. What did we expect?
So no, Jeremy – I can’t personally encourage everyone in the country to run out and vote. I wouldn’t do it, even if I thought it would benefit my personal choice. Because the truth is, the country doesn’t need voters who have to be cajoled, enticed, or persuaded to cast a ballot. We need voters who wish to participate in the process. So if you really want me to say something political, how about this – read more.
Spend a few hours every week studying American history, human nature, and economic theory. Start with Economics in One Lesson. Then try Keynes. Then Hayek. Then Marx. Then Hegel. Develop a worldview that you can articulate as well as defend. Test your theory with people who disagree with you. Debate. Argue. Adjust your philosophy as necessary. Then, when the next election comes around, cast a vote for the candidate whose worldview seems most in line with your own.
Or, don’t. None of the freedoms spelled out in our Constitution were put there so people could cast uninformed ballots out of some misplaced sense of civic duty brought on by a celebrity guilt-trip. The right to assemble, to protest, to speak freely – these rights were included to help assure that the best ideas and the best candidates would emerge from the most transparent process possible.
Remember – there’s nothing virtuous or patriotic about voting just for the sake of voting, and the next time someone tells you otherwise, do me a favor – ask them who they’re voting for. Then tell them you’re voting for their opponent. Then, see if they’ll give you a ride to the polls.
In the meantime, dig into Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. It sounds like a snooze but it really is a page turner, and you can download it for free.
The number one song in Britain today in 1954 was the singer’s only number one hit, making her Britain’s first American one-hit wonder:
The number one song in the U.S. today in 1964:
Today in 1967, the Beatles probably felt like they were the walrus (goo goo ga joob) after needing 16 takes to get this right:
The 1981 Wisconsin Badger football team welcomed number-one-ranked Michigan to Camp Randall Stadium to open their seasons. The Wolverines, which were favored by 40 points before the game, left Madison minus their ranking after the Badgers’ 21-14 win.
In the 35 years since, and perhaps in all the years before 1981, the Badgers have not had as big a season-opening win that I can recall as Saturday’s 16-14 win over fifth-ranked LSU at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
Not surprisingly LSU fans fail to see the accomplishment. Even though coach Les Miles won a national championship with former Packer quarterback Matt Flynn, Miles has been on the hot seat in Baton Rouge, and having your nonconference win streak end at 52 to an unranked team isn’t making things any cooler.
The Baton Rouge Advocate’s Scott Rabalais:
Days before the Wisconsin game, Les Miles was asked whether he would forbid his players from doing the Lambeau Leap.
Like LSU, us media types missed the mark. We should have asked if he was worried about the Lambeau flop.
On as pretty of a college football afternoon as you could ask for in early September, LSU beamed an ugly picture from Titletown to the rest of the USA.
It was, for a team purported to be a national championship contender, an embarrassing performance from the start by an offense that failed to mount any sustained scoring drives to a contemptible clothesline hit by guard Josh Boutte after a dreadfully thrown interception by Brandon Harris in the final minute.
In the end, the unranked Badgers did the Lambeau leaping after the final horn in deserved celebration of their 16-14 upset. Even though in the end LSU was within yards of being in range for a winning field-goal try, except for that boom-boom sequence in the third quarter when the Tigers took the lead, they were dominated throughout. Wisconsin took the fight to LSU all game long and should have won.
“We knew what was at stake,” said cornerback Tre’Davious White, whose 21-yard interception return for a touchdown in the third triggered LSU’s brief burst of impressive football. “Our goal is to win it all and go undefeated. It’s a hurtful feeling.”
LSU proved two things Saturday. One, it was comically over-ranked being No. 5 in the preseason Associated Press poll. Two, if Les Miles isn’t back in the sizzling skillet he occupied in November, he’s right next to the stove, being dusted in flour and seasoned, ready to be tossed in the oil.
“Tremendously so,” Miles said when asked how disappointed he was to lose for the first time in 43 nonconference regular-season games at LSU. “These guys had a brutal camp. They busted their tails, and we were right in position to win it.”
If you’re a longtime LSU fan, you must feel the disturbing tug of déjà vu. It’s arguably the most disappointing season opener since the 1989 Tigers, a supposed national championship contender that year, too, gave up an opening kickoff touchdown at Texas A&M and lost 28-16 en route to a 4-7 season.
This season doesn’t have to turn out to be that. Leonard Fournette is still one of the nation’s best players, though it’s worth wondering after he came out on LSU’s final drive Saturday if the ankle injury that sidelined him during preseason camp has been aggravated to a dangerous level. History points to LSU teams that have bounced back from season-opening losses to Southeastern Conference titles, 1961 and 1970 being prime examples.
Those years are also worth mentioning because it continues to look like LSU’s passing offense is stuck in those ancient times. The Tigers ranked 105th in the FBS last year in passing yards per game. In a broad sense, this means virtually everyone in America except the service academies and LSU can effectively throw the ball.
This is how a fan base — one whose legions left behind floods and traveled cross-country by the thousands to watch their Tigers play Saturday — can be so fed up with a coach who has won a national championship and 77 percent of his games. For all the talk in the offseason that LSU was going to modernize its offense, it still for the most part looked like the same team that tries to overpower opposing defense with the run and passes the ball only as a matter of necessity, not of choice.
Brandon Harris’ ability to be that passer continues to be suspect as well. He made a few nice plays, but with Fournette on the sideline after a 15-yard run to the Wisconsin 30 (a 5-yard penalty moved the ball back to the 35), Harris wheeled away from pressure and threw a wild where-was-the-receiver pass that was picked off by strong safety D’Cota Dixon.
Adding insult to injury was Boutte’s cheap clotheslining penalty as he clubbed Dixon to the turf after he jumped to his feet in celebration. Miles suggested Boutte may not have known that the play was dead, but it’s a flimsy excuse at best. A senior should have better control of his emotions.
Boutte, who was ejected and may serve a Southeastern Conference-mandated suspension, deserves to sit out more than next Saturday’s Jacksonville State game. Hopefully Miles will come to the same conclusion after he reviews a vicious hit that should in no way reflect the values of LSU’s football program.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune and States-Item’s Ron Higgins:
It was one of the most embarrassing, disappointing and inexplicable LSU football losses in the program’s 123-year history.
Scratch the “inexplicable.”
It was all explained in a brief halftime radio interview as LSU coach Les Miles was running off the field here in Saturday’s season opener at Lambeau Field. His team was trailing unranked Wisconsin 6-0 after the Tigers’ offensive juggernaut totaled 64 yards, 26 rushing and completed three passes for 38 yards.
Miles to LSU sideline reporter Gordy Rush: “We need to run the ball better. We’ve thrown the ball well.”
What is Miles’ definition of “well?” Is that is “Oh well” or “Well, hell.”
For the 30,000 Tigers’ fans who traveled more than 1,200 miles to watch No. 5 (writers)/No. 6 (coaches) LSU fall behind unranked Wisconsin 13-0 before losing 16-14, it’s more like “Well, hell no.”
Sans a couple of Tre’Davious White defensive plays, including a 21-yard TD interception return, one of the most experienced teams in college football was an absolute train wreck, a flaming wagon flying off a cliff, a grinding washing machine breaking down.
There’s no one to blame except the guy who pockets a $4.38 million annual paycheck, the person who said after nearly being fired at the end of last season he thinks his archaic offense only needs tweaking, the funny, quirky guy who annually lands top 10 recruiting classes and turns them into teams battling for minor bowl bids.
Again, when you judge Les Miles, you have to separate the person and the coach.
As a person, Miles is a gem, someone who deeply cares about his team and the city and state that has been his home since 2005. The class way he handled the last two months’ worth of tragedies in Baton Rouge, the racial tension, the police shootings, the recent flooding, can’t be disputed.
But he’s not handed a truckload of cash to be a voice of social conscience. He is being paid to win football games, especially the ones in which he has superior talent, which is most of the time.
His repeated answer to several questions from the media after Saturday’s debacle: “I’ll have to wait and see the film.”
Really, does he have to see the film to realize how unprepared his team looked?
Does he have to watch running back Derrius Guice fumble his first carry of the season and the ball is on the ground for more than two seconds with no LSU player making a move to recover it?
LSU played a Wisconsin team that had just five returning starters on each side of the ball after the Badgers lost two of their most experienced starters, one for the rest of the year and one for the remainder of his career, during preseason training camp.
Offensively, with eight returning starters, including running back Leonard Fournette, the college football’s rushing champ last year, the Tigers stumbled around against a Wisconsin defense that rarely had to change its 5-man front.
The Badgers didn’t need to make adjustments, because LSU did the same thing it has done since Miles arrived on campus – stick his offense mostly in the I-formation and run into a waiting wall of at least eight or nine defenders.
The move to put offensive coordinator Cam Cameron on the sideline and not the press box couldn’t rescue an offense that gained just 257 yards and didn’t have a drive longer than 49 yards. The next step for Cameron might be to find a TV monitor near a concession stand and call plays from there.
Honestly, it looked like no time had really passed between last season and Saturday. You have to discount LSU’s offensive explosion in the Texas Bowl against Texas Tech’s junior high defense.
The biggest disappointment was returning starting quarterback Brandon Harris. All through preseason training camp, Miles and all the key offensive playmakers raved about his poise and improved passing.
Against the Badgers, he never got in a rhythm, completing 12-of-21 passes for 131 yards, a TD and an interception at the end of each half.
The last one, though, was the killer, ending LSU’s last gasp of stealing a victory it didn’t deserve.
On first-and-15 at the Wisconsin 35 with just less than a minute to play, he spun away from pressure, rolled left and wildly fired an interception directly into the hands of the Badgers’ D’Cota Dixon.
If Harris would have thrown the ball away, LSU still had three downs and one timeout. Even at the 35, a 52-yard field goal would still have been in the wheelhouse of placekicker Colby Delahoussaye, who kicked a 50-yard game-winner at Florida two seasons ago.
LSU perhaps wouldn’t be trailing in the final 3:47 if Miles hadn’t gambled by trying to convert a fourth-and-one at the LSU 45 with 1:49 left in the first half.
His decision was senseless.
At that point, LSU’s defense had been on the field in the first half for 38 plays and just under 21 minutes. If LSU had punted, Wisconsin probably would have had to go at least 40 to 50 yards to get into field goal range instead of 25 yards. ,,,
As it happened, Wisconsin’s Rafael Gaglianone kicked the second of his three field goals, a 48-yarder, with 54 seconds left in the half for a 6-0 lead.
Without that field goal, Wisconsin has to score a TD at the end and not have the luxury of just making a field goal for the win. …
Miles also needs to get ready, if he already isn’t, for a return to perhaps the hottest coaching seat in the nation. Within two hours, someone created a GoFundMe account to raise $6 million towards buying out Miles’ contract.
Higgins’ colleague Brett Duke asks questions in photographic form:
When is a tweak not a tweak?
LSU’s offense was going to be much improved in 2016, according to Les Miles. But Wisconsin ran twice as many plays in the first half (42 to 21), had the ball more than twice as long (21:52 to 8:08) and LSU was 0-for-4 on third downs in the first half. They didn’t have a third-down conversion until the last play of the third quarter. Lourdes has more conversions in an afternoon and they’re considered miracles.
How do you know LSU’s in trouble?
When Leonard Fournette’s best play of a half is a tackle, the Tigers are doomed. His lunging takedown of Wisconsin DB Derrick Tindal after his first-half-ending interception may have saved LSU from an even deeper early hole.Does Les Miles remember how it feels?
A number of significant winning streaks are over for LSU and Les Miles. LSU had the longest non-conference, regular-season winning streak in FBS history with 52 straight; the Tigers last such loss was in 2002 to Virginia Tech in the season opener. Miles himself hadn’t lost a non-conference regular season game in 50 outings, which includes 8 wins at Oklahoma State. That was before Lance Armstrong stopped winning the Tour de France and a hanging chad became a thing.
Apparently this is how it goes in the world of Really Big Time College Football. Alabama fans will probably start yelling for Nick Saban’s head should he fail to win the next couple of national championships. Ohio State fans ran John Cooper out of town for only winning one Rose Bowl. Your opponent didn’t beat you; you lost.
Or maybe Sean Keeler has it right:
The prevailing narrative is that LSU choked on the big stage up North, that they lost their mojo, and – in a staggeringly dumb clothesline of defenseless Wisconsin safety D’Cota Dixon by senior guard Josh Boutte at the end of the game – their cool.
Here’s another thought, though:
What if the Badgers are for real?
What if Others Receiving Votes 16, Sleeper Pick To Reach The College Football Playoff 14 said more about the scrappy little underdogs in red?
Remember them? The ones who, in their last two games against old-money USC and title hopefuls LSU, have collected five sacks, three interceptions and held a pair of blue bloods to 326 and 257 total yards, respectively?
The ones who gave up just 35 first-half yards Saturday to an NFL tailback in an NFL stadium, Leonard Fournette, and just 76 yards, combined, in quarters 1, 2 and 4?
The ones who lost a two-touchdown lead in a span of about 80 seconds in the third quarter, but never backed down, never blinked?
“I think,” Dixon said, “we can be as good as we want to be.”
Before we hand Kirk Ferentz more hardware — and another lifetime extension — perhaps the path to Indianapolis for the wide-open Big Ten West runs not through Iowa City, but Madison. Unlike the Hawkeyes, the Badgers drew no favors from the dance card. And unlike the Hawkeyes, Wisconsin opens league play with the best three programs going in visits to Michigan State (Sept. 24), Michigan (Oct. 1) and Ohio State (Oct. 15) – the latter of whom spent Week 1 trying to outscore each other against poor Hawaii and Bowling Green, respectively. (The Buckeyes ‘won’ in that regard, dropping 77 points on the Falcons.)
Conventional wisdom has pegged the Badgers as a tough-luck, better-than-the-scoreboard-says seven or eight-win bunch, a scrappy collective that will probably deserve better than the cards it ends up getting dealt, a victim of the scheduling computer.
But did you see outside linebacker Vince Biegel, mohawk flowing in the summer breeze, chasing LSU quarterback Brandon Harris, getting knocked down and then rising up and somehow chasing him down again?
Did you notice Jack Cichy, aka Captain “A” gap, again trying to raise Cain up the middle by jumping the snap? Did you catch reserve linebacker Ryan Connelly, pressed into duty by an injury to Chris Orr, isolated in space on an LSU screen play designed to counter Cichy’s inside blitzes? Did you notice Connelly wrap up and turn a potentially game-breaking swing pass into a minimal gain?
Do they look like they want our pity, let alone justify it?
What if they’re for real? What if they’re spectacular?
“We set the bar,” Dixon said. “And I think you play every team the same way. I don’t think because you go from LSU to Akron to Georgia State that you play down. We take it one week at a time, and every game, every week, we (try to) win it. That’s the goal. That’s the plan.”
Of course, plans can change. Just ask the guys in the other locker room.
“It was shocking, for everybody,” LSU defensive end Lewis Neal said. “But all we can do is move forward and stay positive so we can win the SEC. Because we can’t let one loss just determine our season. It’s too early.”
Far too early. And what’s true in Baton Rouge is true in Madison, too. Akron and Georgia State don’t move the needle, but if you take your foot off the gas, even a little, an Appalachian State moment is only a sleepwalk away.
Saturday only guarantees the Badgers momentum out of the chute; playing with house money comes later, earned hand after hand, week after week.
The Southern half of the Lambeau media contingent walked away grumbling that Miles is in over his head (again), and start the funeral pyre. But what if that’s only half the story? What if he ran into a buzzsaw?
“We think highly of ourselves,” tight end Troy Fumagalli said. “We think we can do great things this year. And we absolutely made a statement today. We came out here, we fought hard, and I think we got what we deserved.”
To the victors go the spoils. And this spoiler just might be a hell of a lot better than anybodyoriginally thought.
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