Winner speak

          Have you ever noticed that the first thing a winner does is try to make the loser look good?

          Think about it. A football coach is interviewed seconds after the game ends and one of the first comments the coach makes is, “That’s a heck of a football team we just beat.”

          The score was 34-0. The starters for the winning team did not play beyond the first half. Three managers played in the fourth quarter. The losing team was in the midst of a 15-game losing streak. Make it 16 games.

Lee: Great but lost

          But the winners always praise the losers. It goes beyond sports. Who is the best-known general of the American Civil War? Robert E. Lee. What side was he on? Well, that country doesn’t exist today.

          But who looks good? Seriously, if Lee was a genius, what does that make Ulysses Grant? Whatever the word is, it means Genius Beater.

          Go read a few books about the Second World War. Read about the German general, Erwin Rommel. Every third word about Rommel is either “genius” or “brilliant.”

Rommel blitzed the African continent, then lost it. Given command of the Normandy beaches, he managed to be away from the front when the allies launched the largest amphibious assault in history. Rommel was involved with the plot to kill Adolf Hitler (which is to Rommel’s credit), but even that didn’t work out.

Montgomery: Beat Rommel

Well, winners write military history. We won and we’ve written that Rommel was a brilliant genius.

The British general, Bernard Montgomery, thought Rommel was a genius. So did US commander George Patton. Montgomery beat Rommel in Africa and Patton was part of that theater. Thus, they beat the brilliant genius. So Montgomery and Patton must have REALLY been something, huh? (Not together, you understand. Patton and Montgomery were not friends.)

Watch the next US Presidential election. It does not matter who wins, they’ll say the same thing the night of their victory. Almost word-for-word, they’ll say, “I’ve just called (the loser) and congratulated (him/her) on conducting a tremendous campaign.” Translation? The winner is really saying, “We beat those losers easily but I want to look good, so I’ll pump them up.”

Watch a NASCAR race sometime. Frequently, after a close finish, the winner will say, “We probably had a fifth place car today, but we won.” In other words, the winning driver is saying, “I carried this sorry sled around for 500 miles and I’m a better driver than the rest of those guys.”

So keep an ear on what people are saying. Are they gracious winners? To be sure. But what are they really saying? Think about it: They might be saying, “Look at me!! I won!! I won!!”

That other blog is tremendous, too. Thanks for reading this one first.