A Boston Tea Party … (Monday Morning Quarterbacks)

He should have gone for it on fourth down. He should have walked Barry Bonds. He should have made Shaq shoot free throws. Talk shows are full of these types of comments the day following a big game. The problem is seventy percent of the people making these statements only do so after already knowing the result of the actual play. Some of us prefer to decide before the play takes place. We make decisions as coaches as we watch the game. Sometimes those decisions are the same as the coach of our favorite team sometimes they are not. Occasionally on a talk show a person says they would have made the same decision as the coach did even after knowing the result. This kind of statement takes honesty and a realization that not all plays end up the way they were intended.

John Kerry is a classic Monday morning quarterback. The war in Iraq is easy to criticize the day after. To criticize the war before we went there would be legitimate, but to do it now is just plain sad. He voted for the war for political reasons before we went into Iraq when it is obvious to me that his heart wanted to vote no. He is to much of a United Nations crony to have felt the Iraq war was the right thing to do. The only reason he could not vote with his heart was that if he had done so he could never have run for President. To hear him say now that Bush should not have done this, he should not have done that is again sad. Think about it. If a decision works you say I (Kerry) would have done the same thing. If a decision doesn’t work he says Bush should not have done that or I (Kerry) would have done something completely different. Does he get out in front of the strategy in Iraq? Does he say bomb Fallujia? Or don’t bomb Fallujia? He says nothing until something happens then makes the obvious decision to be for it or against it depending on the result.

He also annoys me when he makes statements like he would get Germany and France to work with us in Iraq. He would make sure we win the war in Iraq. He would have a better plan for winning the war in Iraq. How does he know? No one can know for sure if the result would be better or worse. Should he not say instead that he would try to get Germany and France more involved. He would try a different strategy in Iraq. Try for less casualties. How can anyone know if his way is the right way? Isn’t he really just guessing? Isn’t that what war really is, an educated guess, you act then react then react again. You continue to forge ahead until your will is imposed on the other side, knowing that every decision will not always turn out as planned. You believe in your goal but you make decisions based on the best information at the time. You make decisions and not second guess them the day after. If the war had went exactly like Bush had planned, I wonder what Kerry would say about it. He would probably say that he would have done exactly the same thing. Decision makers don't have the luxury of "if you knew then what you know now" kind of thinking. In football terms I want my quarterback to play on Sundays, not on Mondays.