Olympic Magic Marker

Am I crazy or were the letters 'USA' on the U.S. relay team bibs written in magic marker?  That's how it looked.  The other teams had printed letters on their bibs.  Is this symbolic of lack of training for the race?

 

Olympics: a history of dropping the baton

It's basically ridiculous to link national fortunes to Olympic success, but the fact that both the U.S. sprinters, both the the men and the women, dropped the baton in the first round of the 4 x 100 meter relay gives me the chills.

It's hardly the first time.

The U.S. men dropped the baton in the 2005 World Championships.

Some history from Sports Illustrated:

At the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden, John Drummond and the very
inexperienced Tony McCall botched the second handoff in the first round and
the U.S. team did not advance. At the 1997 Worlds, the very inexperienced
Brian Lewis and Tim Montgomery botched the first handoff and the U.S. team
did not
advance. (We won't even mention a similar problem at the 1988
Olympics in Seoul,
because that was a very long time ago).

S.I. attributes the pattern to inexperienced runners. But no one who make an Olympic team is inexperienced. They have all run in college and in high school and before that and after that internationally. It's unsettling. Perhaps because dropping the baton is a metaphor for a big mistake in life. And despite Jamaica and Usain Bolt, the U.S. is so deep in sprinting (as in basketball) that its should never lose a relay, but it often does by making mistakes that high school kids should not make. Maybe other countries have the same problem and we just don't notice. I don't know. But we notice when we do it and it take us back.

Olympics: Phelps Double Counting and Phony Medals

No one can say that Michael Phelps is not a great swimmer. But best Olympian ever? The fact is Phelps basically does two events, but gets eight medals out of it. He sets world records while winning, but so does nearly every other gold-medal swimmer. It's a function of technology: the new swimsuits and the faster pool:

Here are Phelps's races-- basically the 100 and 200 meter freestyle or butterfly four times over:

1. 100-meter butterfly: Phelps swims 100 meters using the butterfly stroke (a stupid stroke, which no one would swim if the goal was to get across water)

2. 400 freestyle relay: Phelps swims 100 meters freestyle

3. 400 individual medley: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly and 100 meters breastsroke; with two other strokes

4. 200 butterfly: same as 1 and 3, only longer

5. 200 freestyle: same as 2, only longer

6. 200 individual medley: butterfly and freestyle, with backstroke and breaststroke tacked on

7. 800 freestyle relay: same as 4

8. 400 medley relay: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly, same as 1

Three of the medals are in relays, so he is down to five. (Spitz won relays, too, as did Carl Lewis, but only one.) Really Phelps deserve three medals: the 100 meter butterfly, 200 meter butterfly and 200 meter freestyle. He is not the best at anything else. As for the medleys, no other sport has them. Indeed no other sport has strokes. (Who invented the butterfly?) It's as if Usain Bolt was entered in the 100 meters-while-waiving plus the straight 100 meters.

This double counting is especially annoying given the presence of the dolphin kinc, which is used in every race regardless of stroke. On the initial dive and with every turn, the swimmers abandon the assigned stroke and scurry under the water. As the announcers made clear, Phelps gets a tremendous advantage from the dolphin kick. Maybe they should add that stroke.

USA Olympic Basketball: Great but not Good

USA basketball seems to be back on track, winning games by 30 or more. The difference is the players seem to have remembered how to shoot. When I last looked at the numbers for the Wall Street Journal in 2003, NBA teams were shooting on average 44% from the field, an all-time low. Last year, they averaged 46%. While the U.S. team actually shot poorly early in the 2008 Olypic tournament, against Australia the team shot 57% from the field and 41% from three-point range en route to a 116-85 blowout.

Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.

Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.

Olympics: the Great Saytiev

Michael Phelps has been hailed as the greatest Olympian on the strength of his eight gold medals. Phelps is great, no doubt about it, and I guess he is the greatest swimmer. But basing conclusions on medal counts is ridiculous. Swimmers by nature can get multiple medals. There are four races at some of the same distances using different strokes. The same guy can get three four medals by doing the same 100 or 200 meter freestyle: two individual races, the freestyle relay and medly relays. The result is multiple medal winners proliferate. Just this year, at least 30 swimmers won more than one medal. Five swimmers won at least four medals.
Compare that to track and field where just two men (Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis) have ever won four medals in the same games. And a wrestler or boxer can win just one. There are no relays, leta alone multiple relays, to boost the medal total. So counting medals by itself is a a ridiculous measure.

If one is searching for greatness, consider Buvaysa Saytiev. Today, Saytiev won his third gold medal in freestyle wrestling. Only the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved, who won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, has done the same. Medved has the advantage because he won in three different weight classes. But Saytiev, unlike Medved, had to beat fields that include wrestlers from former Soviet republics, which now have their own terrific teams. In the finals, Saytiev beat Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan. One bronze-medalist is from Belarus. (The other is from Bulgaria.) There are great wrestlers from Georgia, Armenia and Kazahkstan. It's as if the USA basketball team was broken up and there were individual teams from California, New York and Ohio competing with the U.S. team. In general it's impossible to compare athletes in different sports. But in terms of outdistancing the field, Saytiev stands with Phelps.

Olympics: How they ruined wrestling

I was a wrestler in high school (of no distinction whatsoever). But I am a student of the sport and have followed it ever since. It seems that the FILA wrestling's chiefs are continually frustrated that the sport is not commercially popular. Wrestlers are fanatics about their sport and they can't fathom why not everyone is. As a result, they keep changing the rules, hoping that the newest wrinkle will add action and improve the ratings. It never works. And the more recent rule changes are ruining the sport.

This year in the Olympics, FILA has instituted a three-period format, where the wrestler who "wins" two period out of three wins the match. I am not sure, but I guess the idea is that a wrestler who falls behind early, that is is the first period, can come back by winning the second. This means that the leader can't sit on a lead, so there will be more attempts to score.

But the result is the opposite. Now a wrestler can score a single point in a period and he has every incnetive to stall for the rest of the round. It also means that a wrestler can win the hout by compiling a 2-0 lead over four minutes-- at that point the third period is eliminated. Wrestling is supposed to be about strength, endurance and toughness. Winning 2-0 in four minutes shows nothing. Four minutes is too short. The trailing wrestler should have a chance to come back.

Also, in recent years, FILA has added off-mat judges who must confirm scoring calls made by the mat official. This ref-by-committee may make scoring more accurate. But it also leads to conferences that break the action, which gives wrestlers the chance to rest, which negates the role of endirance. The real problem with the judging is that back points are so subjective, as a wrestler can gan them by "exposing" the back even if he isn't controlling his opponent. It all results in defensive, reactive wrestling. The rules should reward aggression, control and scoring. Now they do the opposite.

Prosecution by leak

What’s really disgusting in the Spitzer mess is the use of the press to force a plea bargain where there are no charges. If the stories are true that the feds are negotiating with Spitzer, and they may not charge him if he resigns, that raises the question of why he has not been indicted yet. The organizers of the prostitution ring have been indicted. Spitzer is mentioned, though as Client 9 and not by name. If there was some crime committed by Spitzer (and suggestions about the Mann Act and money laudering sound pretty weak) they should be in an indictment or a criminal information. It could be under seal. But to leak his name and to link him to crimes that are not charged and may not be chargeable strikes me as a clear case of abuse of prosecutorial power. Sure, Spitzer may have done this kind of thing himself (did he? it’s not clear). But even if so, it doesn’t make it right.

Elliot Spitzer is right: This is a private matter

The criminal complaint charging members of the now-famous Emperor’s Club prostitution ring does not charge Gov. Spitzer with anything. It doesn’t even name him. (See http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20080310spitzer-complaint.pdf) That means that someone leaked confidential grand jury material to the Times. This happens all the time. But the fact remains that the information was supposed to be private. I don’t think Spitzer is even a hypocrite. Did he ever prosecute clients of prostitutes? This is no different from the Lewinsky mess. I hope, like President Clinton, he fights and doesn’t resign.

Embarrassment of Embarassments?

For most of this primary season, the standard refrain was that the Democrats suffered (if that’s the word) from an embarrassment of riches. They had a half-dozen terrific candidates, it was said, and I don’t deny it. The last two standing, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are not just excellent, but historic, groundbreaking. Either would be a vast improvement over the incumbent.

All true—except the incumbent ain’t running in ’08 and that’s the rub. The embarrassment of riches has real potential to turn into an embarrassment of embarrassments.

In spite of themselves, the Republicans have selected John McCain, their most electable candidate by far. Many Democrats see McCain as essentially in line with his party, and that may be true, too, the talk radio yahoos notwithstanding. But tarring McCain with Bush won’t be easy since McCain has often been a Bush antagonist. His vote on the taxes and his bitter 2000 GOP primary class with the president are just two examples, and two is probably enough.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, for all his strength, has huge weaknesses, mostly glaring. No matter how much one questions the value experience, the fact that Obama has been in the Senate for just four years. Abraham Lincoln, another gangly lawyer from Illinois, had even less experience in office—this is true. But Lincoln was a national leader of the anti-slavery movement. Obama was never a national leader before winning his Senate seat.

While Obama has run a terrific primary campaign, he has never won a tough general election. People forget it, but Obama won in 2004 only after his opponent Jack Ryan, an investment banker turned schoolteacher, dropped out in late June after a nasty sex scandal involving him and his ex-wife the actress Jeri Ryan. Amazingly, the Illinois Republicans could not find anyone to take Ryan’s place, so they bussed in perennial candidate Alan Keyes, who of course lost badly to Obama.

Obama is even more untested as a public servant. While he had some success in the Illinois legislature, that’s not the stuff of national campaigns. We often hear of his days as a community organizer. But what did he do? He was a civil rights lawyer, but tell us a case he won. He taught law school, but was never a full professor.

But he was right on the Iraq war—give him that. But after months about being defensive on the war issue (and rightly so) Sen. Clinton has herself has put Obama’s anti-war record in perspective: I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say — he’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience,” Clinton said a few days ago. “I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

Of course, McCain won’t concede Obama was right, as Clinton has. This could wind up hurting McCain, but it could also help him in one of two ways. He could convince the voters that his position—the surge—is correct now, even if the war was a mistake initially. Or he could impress the voters as a man of staunch principle, McCain’s specialty, his ace in the hole, even if it’s not true.

McCain has a proven ability to attract independents. The fact that he is hated by the clownish right only helps in this regard. Then there is the 3 AM question, that Clinton has famously made. It must be said at the outset that the 3AM question is idiotic. The president is not a fireman or a cop or a soldier. The president makes decisions after deliberation—at least 99.9% of the time—not when he is roused from slumber. The one split second call a president may have to make is whether the military should fire on a target, such as if the CIA learned where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. But even then, the decision would have been grounded in intense and extensive prior discussions. The one recent exception is President Bush’s immediate reaction to the 9-11 attacks—and remember how inept it was.

Still, if the voters (or some voters) take the question seriously, McCain wins the point over a junior senator who no one ever heard of until four years ago.

To be sure, Obama has huge strengths; McCain has obvious weaknesses (his age, his part affiliation, his advocacy of even more war). It may not happen, but the prospect for a Democratic collapse in November is very real.

Last chance to bribe McCain

McCain-Feingold who?

"But this victory ought to allow John McCain to raise a lot of money in a hurry from people who see the train leaving the station and want to get on board," GOP consultant Whit Ayres said, just after the Florida primary.

Bloomberg for Vice

While most everyone likes Mike, the idea of a billionaire buying his way into office-- or even contention-- is unsettling in a democracy. Since Mayor Bloomberg has at least held public office, his self-financed candidacy would not be as wacky as Ross Perot's, to say nothing of the absurdist contentions of Steve "the inheritor" Forbes.

But still. It would be better if Bloomberg could help someone else gain the presidency. It would be less vain, and would acknowledge that Bloomberg, despite his mayoralty, has relatively little experience in public life. Campaign finance laws make it hard for billionaires to finance others, but there is a way.

Bloomberg should run for vice president and draft Al Gore for the top of the ticket. Mike and Al are sympatico on the issues-- Bloomberg empahasizes global warming. He could free Gore from the drudgery of fundraising and the need to compete in primaries. Meanwhile Bloomberg would not seem like an egomaniac. Since he would be on the ticket, he could pay for the whole thing. And after servinge as vice president, Bloomberg would be a credible candidate--indded the front-runner-- for the presidency following Gore. Moreover, a Gore-Bloomberg ticket could actually win.

I can know longer trust Romney to be a fraud

Though I tend to prefer the Democrats, I used to think that Mitt Romney might make an acceptable choice for president because I was convinced he was a hypocrite. But now Mr. Romney has taken his hypocrisy one step too far.

Romney ‘s main claim to high office is that he is a successful businessman, a pragmatist, a problem solver. He seems to wear his ideology lightly. In Massachusetts he was pro-choice. Now he considers that position a “mistake.” As to how he made this mistake and what caused him to correct it he has no explanation. Obviously, he beliefs are based on expedience—that is they are not beliefs at all. In all likelihood, he would live and let live on this and other “social issues.” Or so I hoped.

With his speech yesterday on Mormonism, Romney insists that no one should be allowed to be against him because of his (Mormon) faith. On the other hand, Christians should be for him because of his (Christian) faith. I have known a few Mormons, and I could be friends with them without ever mentioning their faith. I doubt they’d want to impose their faith on me, even if they could. But Romney has thrown n his lot with those who would impose religious tests on policies—abortion being just one. I still don’t believe he believes in anything other than gaining the next rung on his resume. But I do think he is pragmatic enough that he would be slow to renounce a deal he has made with the Christian right is such detail.

Romney’s strength was that no one could believe his sincerity—his phoniness was too obvious. But now he is dug in and I con no longer trust him to be as fraudulent as he seemed.

Giuliani and Sarkozy

Lately Giuliani has been announcing his admiration for Nicholas Sarkozy. He has gone so far as to broadcat his "dream" about Sarkozy coming to America and the leading Democrats going to France. (Oddly, they all nearly die in a fiery mid-air plane crash in the process.)

I thought it was a pretty good line, even with the allusion to near death, until I learned the real reason that Giuliani so admires the French president. Sarkozy is getting divorced while in office. Now if Sarkozy comes here, he can advise Rudy-- and perhaps teach him how to find an attractive new wife.

And he is doing it in record time, the skids of France's divorce court having been nicely greased for the president.

It also brings to mnd a possible slogan for the campaign:

Rudy: Even his kids are voting against him

OR

Rudolph: If his family doesn't like him, why should you

Bush’s Resignation: It’s a Start

Yesterday’s Iraq hearing told us a lot about what we already know: Iraq is a mess and the “progress” there is uneven at best. But it told us little or nothing about what we don’t know: How do we know when to get out, and, if not now, when?

The questions morally and strategically are: (1) whether our exit would leave the Iraqi’s worse off—and how much extra Iraqi violence and misery would be justified by the decline in death and suffering by U.S. troops? (2) What effect would the departure of U.S. forces have on our “interests” in the Middle East? Both questions are blurred by the desire for “victory” or the fear of “defeat.” It’s not clear now what we stand to win, nor what we might lose.

While these are hard questions, it seems clear that the president has no interest in studying them. Bush is so totally invested in his war—and in his desire not to “lose” it—that he will never change strategy: he will continue with the war, while allowing for the drawdown advocated by Gen. Pretaeus, which, as many have noted, is not a decision but an inevitability. The Democrats, meanwhile, control Congress, but not by enough votes to force the president to change. Thus we have a quagmire—not just in Iraq, but here at home.

Bush, of course, has no credibility on Iraq. To his credit, he has stopped talking about victory, I think, but without acknowledging that his previous course had failed and that his rhetoric was destructive. Still, he now must hide behind the general, who, after all, was selected presumably because he is largely in agreement with the president. (Whether the White House shaped or vetted Petraeus’ testimony is not the point. They chose the man who would give the testimony.) But he does have blocking power.

The only way out is for Bush to resign and leave office now, not waiting until 2009. Cheney, of course, would have to quit, too. The president’s departure would not sole the problem. But it would permit an honest reassessment of what, if anything, we owe the Iraq and what policies are best for us.

Bush: Steadfast, Determined... Oblivious

Dead Certain, Robert Draper’s new book on George W. Bush, portrays the president as a decisionmaker. (See the NY Times review at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/books/05kaku.html?ref=books and the first chapter at http://nytimes.com/2007/09/04/books/05draperfirstchap.html ) Bush would have it that he is steadfast, determined, and an optimist. His detractors call him stubborn. Actually, he is neither. He is something worse: Bush is oblivious.

The book also portrays Bush as a man of big ideas. His determination and optimism are, in his mind, necessary to inspire confidence and, therefore, encourage the robust following of his lead. The conclusion may be correct, but the premise is just silly. Bush’s principal “big idea” is to spread democracy in the Middle East. But there is no evidence he ever had that idea until after 9-11 and his decision to invade Iraq. The idea followed the decision. For leaders (or anyone) truly driven by ideas, the cause and effect works the other way: decisions follow ideas.

As for inspiration through confidence and certainty, there must be something to that. No one can follow a waffler or a plan that even the planner appears not to believe. But any decent leader would calculate based on observed facts and events. This is where Bush goes off the rails. Bush’s certainty fooled a lot of the people for a while, but it has now become apparent.

Bush was certain Iraq had WMDs and was in league with Al Qaeda. The people believed him and followed him to war. He was confident that the war could be won on the cheap because the U.S. would be hailed as liberators. The people believed him, or at least did not question.

Then it all blew up. The occupation force was inadequate to secure the country, looting resulted. There was no planning for insurgency or civil war, even though expert advisers predicted both. As Iraq got worse, Bush failed to reckon with events. He was oblivious to the facts as they were and as they newly appeared. As a result he lost credibility precisely because of his certainty. While he is still in charge, he leads no one.

Wrong and Reviled all at once

The other day the Wall Street Journal ran a book review about a new history of the Marshall Plan. Apparently, of the minority of Americans who were even aware of the Marshall plan at the time, a small majority was opposed to it. In retrospect of course, it was a great idea. The reviewer compared George Marshall then to George W. Bush today. Both are sticking to unpopular policies, convinced they are right. This steadfastness is said to represent courage. We hear a lot of this today from loyal Bushies.

It’s an idiot’s argument. That one unpopular policy turned out to be right does not mean all unpopular policies are right. Nor is there any correlation between unpopularity and correctness. The correlation, I suspect, is the reverse. And in a democracy, unpopularity is a problem in itself, albeit a surmountable one in a democratic republic such as ours.

The courage argument is more insidious. The Iraq war is not something Bush started despite opposition. Just the opposite, at the start, the policy was wildly popular. It was still favored enough in 2004 that Bush was reelected on the strength of his war—and the so-called war on terror more globally. It has relentlessly shed support ever since.

This is the Marshall Plan in reverse and in more ways than one. Marshall’s idea was poorly understood and disliked at the start. But as it succeeded, it gained support, including in retrospect. Bush’s idea has been an utter failure and it has, therefore, lost favor. There’s a word for that, but “courage” ain’t it.

Libby gets nothing and likes it

Even if you believe that Scooter Libby was wronged (though he was convicted) or that the investigation of the Valerie Plame leak was wrong (though it was ordered by Ashcroft) Bush’s commutation of his prison term is phony. Bush said he “respects’ the jury’s verdict but that Libby’s sentence was “excessive.” Never mind that the sentence was imposed by a Republican judge and could have been appealed. If that’s the case, why not commute Libby’s sentence after he has served half or a quarter of his time or a single month? Wouldn’t that show more respect for the jury and the law, and still show mercy?

As for the large fine, who can doubt that the tab will be picked up by friends of Cheney, or Cheney himself, as a small down payment for favors granted and future favors expected.

A Plan for Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds is taking a lot of heat, most of it unjustified. Even if he had retired before his then-glorious-now-notorious 73-home run season, he would have been a first-ballot hall-of-famer. Now he is reviled and hated (not only because of steroid allegations, but mostly because of them). Bonds stands on the precipice of hitting his 756th home run, breaking the record of Henry Aaron, who broke the even more celebrated record of Babe Ruth. What if Bonds hit his 754th homer and quit—announced his retirement out of respect of Aaron and in deference to those who accuse him of wrong. Everyone would know he could have done it. And he would be forever remembered for a dignified gesture, erasing a career of boorish acts. It would be an asterisk in reverse.

Bloomberg's Electoral Math

Mike Bloomberg’s departure from the Republican Party—convenient for a while, but no longer—sets the stage for his presidential bid. Of course, no third party or independent candidate has ever won the presidency. Only Teddy Roosevelt, a former president, has ever come close and that was in 1912.

But Bloomberg has a shot. The first and most obvious reason is that with a personal fortune tagged at anywhere from $5 billion to $20 billion, Bloomberg could outspend either party by writing himself a check for $500 million or $1 billion and not even notice the money was gone. This is how he became mayor—though if it was not for 9/11, Mark Green would have won in 2001. Even in Manhattan, it is possible to live off the interest of just $4 billion.

The real interesting question is what he could do with all that money. Ross Perot, for all his 19% of the popular vote, was not close to winning a single electoral vote. But he spent only $65 million. The key is not to win a large share of the popular vote, but a large enough share to win some electoral votes.

In the last two presidential elections, the winner scored just a thin margin of the electoral votes—Bush had 15 to spare in 2004. If the race between the major party candidates is similarly close in 2008, Bloomberg would need to win just a state or two to deny anyone else a majority in the Electoral College. If no one wins a majority, under the Constitution, the new House of Representative would pick the president.

For Bloomberg to win the House’s support, he’d certainly need a plurality of the popular and electoral vote. His charm, record, and media budget will have to take care of the former. Bloomberg could rack up 181 electoral votes (a plurality of 540) by winning California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington—that’s a total of 199. These are either liberal states, or big swing states where the parties are neck and neck. It could happen.

Is this the end of Tony?

With just one episode left, there seems insufficient time for the Sopranos to wrap things up. Tony could get killed. That’s the quickest way and it seems more than possible now that Phil Leotardo has put a contract on his head and that the Lupertazzis have killed Bobby Bacala and (almost) Silvio. But I still think it’s too easy (and not just because the producers want to leave open the chance for a movie sequel).

LKA thinks that Dr. Melfi firing Tony as a patient is a signal to us that we should also lose faith in Tony’s humanity. Maybe. But I disagree for two reasons. First, murderer and adulterer though he may be, Tony has always been the hero of the show and essentially a sympathetic figure. For the show to end by saying that Tony was a bastard all along would, in essence, say the audience has wasted its time and sympathy on a monster. I don’t think that David Chase holds that view now or ever. I also think he would want to undermine the show’s premise in its final weeks.

I also think that Dr. Melfi’s turning against Tony is wrong and hypocritical. It has never been her role to reform Tony or to get him to stop his criminal ways. No, she takes her patient as she finds him, and tries to make him a healthier version of himself. After all, the doctors at the hospital know who Tony is, and no one says they should refuse to operate to save his life after he has been shot (ditto for Christopher and Phil). The studies now being bandied about by Melfi’s fellow psychiatrists all seem to be based on the role of a prison shrink whose role it would be to make the convicts into better citizens. That is just not Melfi’s job, and she would know that. (I did think the bit about him ripping up the magazine was pretty hilarious in this regard.) After all, Johnny Sack was a killer, too, and he was treated for his cancer by a world famous oncologist—and this was after his conviction and imprisonment.

One might compare the beginning of “Analyze This”, where Billy Crystal’s psychologist character tries to refuse treatment to Robert DeNiro’s mob boss. “What am I supposed to do, make you a happy, well adjusted gangster?” he asks. In the end, he comes to like DeNiro, and he helps him. In the same way, Melfi has always liked Tony, with the full knowledge that he had people murdered on a regular basis.

I must concede that there has been no advancement toward my theory that the show will end with AJ being arrested and him giving up Tony (except that AJ is out of the hospital and that Tony roughed him up a bit). But I am still going with it. One terrific way to end: AJ gets arrested. He is facing 20 years in jail—hate crimes, racketeering, assault, attempted murder on Junior. He agrees—or is merely asked—to testify against Tony. But meanwhile, Tony cannot be found. He is up there sitting in the attic, slowly going mad, and the show ends with doubt about whether he will give himself up to help his son, or kill himself, or get killed. (Interestingly, Phil was also in his attic when he refused to see Tony when Tony came to his door—he’s a bit nuts as well.)

One of the great things about the Sopranos is that Chase doesn’t feel the need to put a bow on things. It can be messy, like life, with no neat endings. Every season has ended that way—maybe the whole series will end untidily as well. By the same token, every season has ended with the focus on Tony’s nuclear family. If the show ends with him, Carmela and the kids finally breaking apart—over AJ especially—that is the way it could really wrap up.

Whatever happens, this has been a fantastic season, maybe the best ever. However it ends works for me.