Drop Back Five And Punt

Today, the other shoe finally fell in the story of embattled Oakland Raiders' coach, Lane Kiffin. Over the past decade, it seems that all the Raiders have had are "embattled" head coaches. Most of them have cited their relationship with the team's owner, Al Davis. Kiffin’s job security was in question as far back as January, when a dispute with Davis over whether he could replace their defensive coordinator led to the owner sending his coach a letter of resignation to sign.
And that's when the bell went off in my head. Remember in last Friday's debate, when John McCain started off by telling a story about Dwight D. Eisenhower: "President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and Allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever. And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation to the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow, we've lost that accountability." He went on to link Eisenhower and his letter to McCain's repeated calls in recent days that Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox resign for his role in the financial crisis. Mister Cox wrote this in response: "History will judge the quality of our response to this economic crisis, but now is not the time for those of us in the trenches to be distracted by the ebb and flow of the current election campaign.... The best response to political jabs like this is simply to put your head down and not lose a step doing the best job you can possibly do on behalf of those you serve."
For history's sake, the actual note Eisenhower wrote wasn't a letter of resignation, but rather one assuming responsibility for a failed invasion, if it had come to that. Eisenhower should be lauded for his strength of character, but it doesn't take a lot of guts to point fingers and assign blame.
And so, we watch as Al Davis pulls the lever on another head coach. One who only managed to win five of the twenty games he coached, so one might understand the response. Meanwhile, John McCain continues to look for someone else to fire as the nation's financial crisis continues to swirl ever closer to that open drain.