A First Draft of a Fisking:

"To my mind, it's time Americans started being more like the English - or at least learnt to lose with grace."
--John McEnroe, Sept 10, 02

As far as foreign policy analysis goes, John McEnroe is a first class former tennis player and social gadfly. He cites Churchill as an example of leadership--yet who would Churchill have turned to?

"And it must be known that war is inevitable, but that if we accept it more readily we will find our enemies less committed, and that out of the greatest dangers emerge the greatest honors for both city and individual. Remember that it was our fathers, standing against the Medes, not drawing on such resources but abandoning even what they had, more by their policies than by fortune, with greater daring than might, who drove out the barbarian and advanced our power to its present level. We must not fall short of them but resist our enemies by every means and attempt to hand it on undiminished to our descendants."

Pericles, son of Athens

I just can't believe an editor didn't change "normality" to "normalcy." I mean, I know they're virtual synonyms but really, "normality"?

Who is this ignoramus McEnroe, anyway. Don't we have enough offal in the media already without the pitiful musings of some meathead celebrity? Skip this crap and read Gove's article in the Times today.

We are at war because there are good guys and bad guys. We are the good guys. The Islamo-fascists are the bad ones.

I love Britain but thank you no, I love being an American - and so would 1/2 the world if they could!

I hope they don't build anything on the site of the old World Trade Center, just a memorial. It would be incredibly inappropriate if they did. So you build one 60 storeys high instead of 110? What does that prove? What sort of show of defiance is that? You have to think of those who died there. That's where we've lost our perspective.

--With all due respect to their surviving loved ones, I think those that died there are DEAD, John. The rest of us (or many of us, anyway) don't have (1) a rich daddy who could send us to Trinity, (2) the athletic talent to have made millions playing an elitist court game, and (3) the annoying personality to have ALSO made us millions more as a media darling; in short, the REST of us NEW YORKERS need to EARN A FRIGGING LIVING, and 16 acres of prime downtown real estate that used to house 50,000 jobs seem to be a real nice place to build something where the LIVING can make a LIVING.

Getting back to normality this year has not been easy, since that in itself seemed the wrong thing to do. It took a while before New Yorkers could bring themselves to look each other in the eye, never mind celebrate Christmas in the way most people normally do. You just longed for a sense of calm and continuity. But eventually things do return to normal and I have been as guilty of that as anyone because of a hectic schedule which has involved the promotion of my autobiography, seniors' tennis and television commentary.

--Sorry its been such a tough year for you, John; particularly guesting for your brother's New York Hamptons team, and say-- whatever happened to "the Chair". Well, John, I'm only one of the lucky ones who only lost MY JOB; at least I didn't lose a loved one! Get a grip man-- and I don't mean your left hand on the racquet!

However, the US Open, which finishes at Flushing Meadows in New York today, has focused my mind once again on the events of last year. The two are somehow connected for me. Last year's championship ended on September 9 and my thoughts were still on the tennis when the first of those planes struck the World Trade Center. Ever since then it has been hard to get a perspective on anything.

--Yes, John, we know what you mean. But now that Pete Sampras has regained the US Open title, we in New York City can feel duly vindicated, and put the last 12 months in their PROPER perspective. Obviously, it would have been BETTER had a NEW YORKER, such as Vitas Gerulaitis (no wait-- he's DEAD) or, YOURSELF? won the Open, but we'll take Angelino Pete if we have to.
Damn, I feel MUCH better about 9-11 now.

In travelling the world as a tennis player, I have a better appreciation of other countries than most Americans. We could do with being a little less besotted with money, money, money, win, win, win. When I am in England each summer people always ask: "Why don't English players win Wimbledon? They ought to be more like Americans and play to win." To my mind, it's time Americans started being more like the English - or at least learnt to lose with grace.

--Well, John, let's just say that going into BATTLE against the ENEMIES OF CIVILIZATION, I think we can all thank God that in REAL LIFE (as opposed to the sort of things that people like YOU used to get all upset about-- like whether the freaking ball was in or out) the English, like us, ALSO play to win. Its wonderful, John, that a guy who coupled up with a movie star, lives on a Long Island estate, and otherwise has just about every privilege Western civilization can provide short of absolute power over every creature in the universe, can be so humble and say "its about time the rest of us didn't play to win all the time". Thanks John, for that humility. Humility: I'll always equate that with YOU.

I've spent quite a bit of time among professional athletes and entertainers, and folks, gving the vast majority of them space to fill on a large newspaper's editorial page is like giving a gift certificate from a bordello to a eunuch; they really don't know what to with it. McEnroe is a stupid, pompous, ass, who somehow thinks traveling the world as a highly paid court jester gives him sufficient insight into foreign cultures to allow him to adopt a smugly superior attitude regarding his fellow countrymen's alleged provincialism. I suspect that the average bartender in El Paso or Buffalo has a better sense of the commonly held views of non-Americans than McEnroe, and it does take a particular sort of numbskullery for a dolt who has already made his pile, due to his fortunate cricumstance of having lived in a prosperous society in which trivial entertainment can be so highly valued, to lecture others on their oh-so-gauche preoccupation with filthy lucre. What an imbecile; one should refrain from examining the fatuous rhetoric regarding graceful losing in this context, lest one be accused of abusing the mentally handicapped.

Don't laugh. I hear Mac's alma mater - the Nick Bolleteri Tennis Concentration Camp and Country Day School - has the top foreign policy program in all Sarasota County.

Here's MINE!

Too beautiful to post here....

As a writer Mr. McEnroe might want to consider "hooked on tennis". I could be wrong , but I'm thinking he may have just alienated a large segment of British society who are not "gracious losers". I'm curious to see what the Group Captain, Samizdata et al have to say. An English roast is in order.

When I read things like what "superbrat" has to say a line from a certain Cake song just echos in my head - "shut the fuck up, ahh, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, ahhh shut the fuck up....."

Here's one:

http://davidhogberg.blogspot.com/

A full-frontal fisking can be found here.

Johnny Mac captained the Davis Cup team for America for no money when no other tennis player of his stature would step up. At the height of his career, he refused big bucks to play tournaments in South Africa. He's a stand-up guy, and if you don't want to read his opinions, you don't have to. So stop congratulating yourselves and move on.

Hey alkali? "Stand up" guys don't produce inconceivable useless drivel about "graceful losing" in the context of murderous slaughter, on the eve of the slaughter's anniversary. Mc Enroe is free to write whatever he pleases for whatever newspaper is willing to publish his idiocies, and then everyone else is free to excoriate him for producing the excrement he seems to think constitutes penetrating thought. If McEnroe doesn't like being recognized for producing excrement, then he should refrain from doing so. Does this mean that McEnroe is evil, or that he has never done anything worthwhile? Of course not, but I write this as I listen to the names of the murdered being read, and I have little toleration at this time for some dimwit's recommendation regarding losing with grace. More tyrannical, evil, enemies need to be put to a terrible, swift, sword, and until that grim but necessary work is completed, nobody needs any tripe about graceful losing.

Damn! It took years to actually start liking the guy for his tennis commentary and now you've flushed that down the toilet with one little link. At least this came out after our man Pete took the crown. God knows how I could have watched the US Open knowing what a freaking pussy piece of garbage McEnroe really is.

No. McEnroe needs a damn good thrashing.

I wish these rich self-indulgent assholes would just shut the fuck up and go back to sucking up cash from the American ticket-buying public they are so eager to despise and betray.

bj

In "A Good Walk Spoiled," my impression from the author's description of PGA golfers is that they're talented, hardworking, spoiled brats ignorant of anything three feet beyond the head of their golf club.

In order to perform at the top of their game, they have to screen out anything and everything and concentrate solely on winning. This mean that they know nothing beyond their sport.

McEnroe proves this in the very first graf:

"The Civil War apart, we Americans have never felt the full horror of war so close to home; Pearl Harbour was too far away to have much impact upon the population. 9/11 was our reality check."

To wit: so what? Thousands of soldiers fought in both World Wars. Thousands of soldiers fought and died in Korea and Vietnam. McEnroe should go to a VFW hall and say, "You know, you've never felt the full horror of war because your county's never been attacked."

And what's this about traveling the world, learning about other cultures? When he's not on the tennis court, showing his understanding of other nations and their peoples by throwing major hissy fits (lovely way to show himself as an Ugly American. I wonder how many people looked upon his antics as representative of the culture.) anyway, he's been living off other folks money and has no idea what seeing other cultures is like outside of the Hilton breakfast buffet.

McEnroe cannot be serious.

I won't bother with a full Fisking, since it's been done by so many others. Here's a short one: Tennis players should play tennis.

John is a master of the tennis game. He is doubless a brilliant guy and a fierce patriot. He refuses to avail himself of any tax breaks. [then again, Liberals view paying tax as a form of worship] He has spent his teenage and adult life in an very unreal environment and for a large part overseas.

If you read his autobiography, he discloses that he must see a shrink twice weekly to comply with a court-ordered anger management regimen that he must maintain in order to keep custody of the children he shares with Tatum. I believe that [shrink x 2/wk] + Tatum = psychotic break/Barneyfication.

John was foolish to opine in public about anything other than tennis.

Mebbe this'll learn 'em.