Eli Manning and the New York Giants, all but given up on mid-December, saved their best for the last, pulling out a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback against the New England Patriots to finish off a brilliant stretch of play with a 21-17 victory Sunday for the franchises’ fourth Super Bowl title.

Manning delivered a 78-touchdown drive, capped by six-yard Ahmad Bradshaw touchdown run against an uncontested Patriots defense with 1:04 left. New England tried to give Tom Brady as much time for a comeback as possible, but the Giants defense stopped them to seal the victory.

It was Manning’s seventh fourth-quarter winning drive of the season for the Giants, who seemed to court disaster and play their best with everything hanging in the balance. It also signaled another late-game, Super Bowl outdueling of Brady, considered among the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Manning previously won a duel between the two in Super Bowl XLII.

The Giants took over at their own 12-yard line, trailing 17-15 with just 3:46 remaining. Manning started with a pass to Mario Manningham, who made a circus 38-yard grab down the sideline. The Giants moved methodically the rest of the way, both killing the clock, burning New England timeouts and eventually forcing the Patriots to concede the winning points rather than allow a field goal with no time left.

…Or during the halftime show…

While sharing the stage with Madonna and Nicki Minaj during the song “Give Me All Your Luvin,” M.I.A. — in Cleaopatra gear and black stiletto boots — gave the middle-finger insult directly to a camera for a full second.

Janet Jackson’s 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” in which her breast, with a nipple guard, became exposed during her halftime show with Justin Timberlake has been a difficult-to-top moment in TV history.

Jackson’s indiscretion resulted in a $550,000 fine levied by the FCC against CBS for airing the uncensored, highly controversial moment.

…This Super Bowl had a distinct sense of deja vu about it, right down to yet another Government Motors, Chrysler division commercial praising the joys of bombed out, government stimulus-ed out Detroit, this time with Clint Eastwood — once a  self-professed libertarian — playing the role of Eminem:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And once again, presumably Mark Steyn’s next weekly column or Corner post writes itself.

Update: “Would Dirty Harry ask for a handout? Hell no, he wouldn’t.” In contrast, the attendees at the Super Bowl have a bit more common sense than Clint: “#Occupy Protesters Heckled Outside Super Bowl.”

Paterno died Sunday at a State College, Pa., hospital, suffering in his final days from lung cancer, broken bones and the fallout of a horrific scandal that not only cost him his job, but also his trademark vigor and a portion of his good name. He was 85 years old.

This is a complicated passing. What was once the most consistent and basic of messages – honor, ethics and education – seemingly lived out as close to its ideal as possible was rocked Nov. 5, 2011, when a grand jury indicted Paterno’s former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, of multiple counts of sexual abuse of children.

Many, including Penn State’s Board of Trustees, believed Paterno could have and should have done more to stop Sandusky, especially after allegations of misconduct arose in 2002. Within days Paterno was fired from the program and school to which he’d become synonymous.

Now, a little more than two months later, he’s gone for good, a bitter, brutal ending for an American original.

He was the winningest college football coach of all time, compiling a 409-136-3 record. He won national titles in 1982 and 1986 and recorded four other undefeated seasons, including consecutively in 1968 and 1969.

He was a bridge from a simpler time to the cutthroat business college football has become, somehow serving as both a progressive force (he believed in players’ rights, a playoff system and welcomed advancements in television) and a stubborn traditionalist (the Penn State uniforms remained basic, he never learned how to send a text message and he still used old-school discipline).

If you’ve got a mild sense of deja vu over this news, perhaps it’s because several news and opinion sources jumped the gun badly last night.  Perhaps the biggest media source with a slight case of egg on heir face was CBS — whose news reputation is already shaky (see also, origins of this Website’s original name) — flashed this on their sports division’s homepage last night in their attempt to be the first of the Big Boys to break the story. The Washington Post reports:

The Paterno incident demonstrates the consequences of reporting unverified information from an obscure source. It also suggests once again how quickly information, including the inaccurate kind, can move in the digital age. The entire life cycle of the Paterno story — from initial death reports to face-saving corrections — took about 45 minutes.

The episode brings to mind the media chain reaction that followed NPR’s erroneous report a year ago that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) had died after being shot in Tucson. Giffords was severely wounded in the shooting, but survived.

Even as news organizations and journalists scrambled Saturday to correct their misinformation, the initial accounts touched off a massive wave of Paterno-is-dead postings on Facebook and Twitter.

“Say it ain’t so,” one Penn State student posted to Facebook around 9:45 pm. “RIP, JoePa.”

Another student posted a quote he attributed to Paterno: “’They asked me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not that I was a good football coach.’ Joe Paterno, RIP.”

A few minutes after that, another student responded, “I heard he’s not dead.” And still another scolded: “Just thought everyone should know: Paterno family is denying the story he’s dead. Do some research, people.”

Several journalists took to Twitter late Saturday and early Sunday to criticize their own. “Paterno mess should teach journalists to — G-forbid — report before reporting,” tweeted Joe Flint, the Los Angeles Times’ media reporter. “Unlikely, as we we live in age of shoot first and aim later.”

In a note posted Saturday night on Onward State’s Web site and Facebook page, managing editor Devon Edwards retracted the Paterno story and said he was resigning. “There are no excuses for what we did,” he wrote. “We all make mistakes, but it’s impossible to brush off one of this magnitude. Right now, we deserve all of the criticism headed our way.”

Of course, for the Washington Post, the problem typically isn’t in breaking news too quickly; it’s keeping the news bottled up in their palace guard role as the President’s Official Gatekeeper.

The Giants are going all the way!

That sentiment would draw cheers in San Francisco during the baseball season, but when it was shouted by Vice President Joe Biden during a campaign event Wednesday it drew jeers from the crowd.

The vice president, who is well known for his gaffes, mixed up the San Francisco baseball and football teams when trying to cheerlead for the 49ers before their playoff game showdown Sunday against the New York Giants.

Biden, speaking at an event in the Financial District in support of President Barack Obama’s re-election, told supporters that “the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl.”

When the comment drew boos from the crowd, Biden quickly apologized, saying he was used to talking about the San Francisco Giants’ baseball victories.

I haven’t heard a gaffe like that since FDR went on ESPN in 1929 and confused the Frankford Yellow Jackets with the Staten Island Stapletons.

If the Broncos, 7-5 and not really what you’d call a dominant football team, not only make the playoffs but defeat the Patriots and/or the Ravens and then go on to defeat Green Bay, 13-0 and likely one of the all-time best teams to ever play the game, that heralds the Rapture and then the End of Days tribulations.In any event, enjoy the ravings of a religious bigot straining mightily to explain, like a Klansman might, that his bigotry and hatred are rational, man.

Next Sunday, the Broncos host the New England Patriots in a game coveted so much by the networks that NBC and CBS sparred in unprecedented fashion over who would get to broadcast it. And why not? While the Patriots are adored by their fans (myself included), to many nationwide they are regarded as the Sons of Darkness, with their perfectly coiffed Hollywood quarterback and their brilliant – one might say diabolical – hoodie-clad coach.And, oh yes, the most identifiably Jewish owner in sports. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft are all upstanding citizens, moral exemplars in their home communities, but in this Oberammergau of the Rockies, they are playing the role of Pilate.

People are always looking for signs of God’s beneficence, and a victory by the Orange Crush over the blue-clad Patriots, from the bluest of blue states, will give fodder to a Christian revivalism that has already turned the Republican presidential race into a pander-thon to social conservatives, rekindling memories of those cultural icons of the ‘80s, the Moral Majority and “Hee Haw.” The culture wars are alive and well, and, if the current climate in Washington is any indicator, the motors are being revved up for what will undoubtedly be the most cantankerous Presidential campaign ever. When supposedly well-educated candidates publicly question overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change and evolution and then gain electoral traction by fabricating conspiracies about a war on Christmas, these are not rational times.

I’m bolding that to note that while this guy is coming from the Jewish perspective, he is more crucially coming from a liberal perspective, and he’s been taught, as many liberals have been, that Hatred is a powerful and useful weapon, and can be righteously wielded against the Unworthy.

If by chance the Broncos win it all, I’m sure the resulting horrors across the land will be even worse than when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ played in packed movie theaters in 2004. We all remember what happened back then, right?

Absolutely nothing.

Back in April of 2004, Rabbi Aryeh Spero noted in the Wall Street Journal:

And herein lies one of the most disheartening but salient observations one is forced to make, post-”Passion,” about many in the Jewish community: They still don’t get it. Even after more than two charmed centuries in America, they confuse contemporary America with medieval and postmedieval Europe, still not realizing how America and American Christians are a category wholly different from those of other nations, other religions and other strains of Christianity.

* * *To be sure, there were justifiable reasons for apprehension given some elements in and circumstances surrounding the film. Aside from the understandable worry that Jews were for the first time being depicted on widely distributed American celluloid as eager for Jesus’ death, there was the devilish ugliness in which they were physically portrayed, something not found in the New Testament. The graphic ugliness, blood and gore was thought to be potentially more scorching than the Gospel text.What’s more, Mr. Gibson’s father is a notorious Holocaust denier. Surmising that perhaps branch follows root, some suspected that the producer-director’s intent was to portray Jews as the focal point of evil in the crucifixion episode, to return us to the pre-Vatican II days of Jews as official “Christ-killers.” Mr. Gibson declined to distance himself from his father’s remarks about Jews, whether because he agreed or simply out of filial loyalty. Added to this mix was the combustible ingredient of Mr. Gibson’s subscription to a fundamentalist brand of Catholicism critical of Vatican II.

Yet for all this, acts against Jews never materialized. The reason is that anti-Semitism flowers not so much in the seed as in the soil, and the American soil–the disposition of its people–has proved over two centuries to be remarkably resistant to strains of anti-Semitism.

But that doesn’t mean that somebody won’t get the vapors over that ole-time religion and those who openly practice it. Or as Andrew Klavan noted yesterday, “Tis the Season of Christ-o-phobia.”

Related: Despite cries from the MSM in 2009 that the Tea Party was ushering in a new age of racial terror, the nation as a whole, not to mention its public parks, seemed to emerge rather unscathed from their efforts. (Despite the best efforts of the MSM to pin Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting on them. Or at least their clip art.) Contrast that with the damage that’s been done to America’s bluest cities by the far left but “mostly peaceful” Occupy Wall Street gang.

Could it be that for decades, the MSM have constantly looked to the wrong side of the aisle for the Dark Night of Fascism to emerge?

Nahhh.

Update (12/14/11): Rabbi Joshua Hammerman’s screed has gone down the Memory Hole at The Jewish Week, but Newsbusters managed to grab a screencap before it was “disappeared.”

Spanier was fired not because of any personal role in the Sandusky football scandal, but because of negligence on his part in ensuring that the allegations were properly investigated. This was not the only case in which Spanier failed to ensure proper investigation of misconduct allegations. As noted above, Spanier had falsely reported to the Penn State trustees and the public that the Penn State Inquiry Committee had properly interviewed critics and had examined the Climategate documents and issues “from all sides.”

On Thursday, John Hinderaker of Power Line wrote, “If you have ever wondered what would happen in a society consisting entirely of liberals, the Occupier movement is providing the answer: devolution.” But long before Occupy Wall Street, academia was an insular society consisting virtually entirely of “liberals” — though the meaning of that word has been increasingly in doubt for quite some time. Penn State, whether it comes to searching for a way to regulate the freedom out of virtually all economic activity, while simultaneously looking the other way during the most heinous of human behavior can increasingly be seen as an exercise in moral and intellectual devolution.

Earlier this week, David Brooks wrote a fascinating column on young people’s moral lives, basing it on hundreds of in-depth interviews with young adults across America conducted by the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and his team.

The results, according to Brooks, were “depressing” — not so much because of how they lived but because of “how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.” Asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life, what we find is “young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.” What Smith and his team found is an atmosphere of “extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism.” The reason, in part, is because they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to “cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading.”

This is part of a generations-long phenomenon. In his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom​ wrote, “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” And the university, Bloom argued, is unwilling to offer a distinctive visage to young people. The guiding philosophy of the academy is there are no first principles, no coherent ways to interpret the world in which we live.

But there’s one thing that they’re certain of:

Of course we’re going to riot,” Paul Howard, a 24-year-old aerospace-engineering student at Penn State University, told the New York Times. “What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?”

The coach in question, as we all know, is Joe Paterno, the decades-long patriarch of Penn State football. Paterno was fired by the board of trustees for his part in a reprehensible non-response to the alleged rape of a ten-year-old boy in the locker-room showers.

You have to wonder what’s wrong with our society when someone can say, “Of course we’re going to riot,” but not over the cover-up of pedophiliac rape. Rather, students feel it is their obvious right, perhaps even duty, to throw violent temper tantrums when a multimillionaire football coach is fired, simply because the coach is part of their “college experience.”

But almost 45 years ago, Bobby Kennedy told them that it was, quoting William Allen White in his speech to Kansas State University:

“If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vision and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better world for tomorrow.”

Of course, Bobby never told them what to rebel against. As another young deep thinker asked, whaddya got?

Related: “See, though, the thing about tribalism is that it often works. “

Growing up in the Delaware Valley, Joe Paterno was an institution, sort of the area’s college football equivalent of Tom Landry — he was always there, and always will be.

Until he wasn’t:

Penn State trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier amid the growing furor over how the school handled sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach.

The massive shakeup Wednesday night came hours after Paterno announced that he planned to retire at the end of his 46th season.

But the outcry following the arrest of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky on molestation charges proved too much for the board to ignore.

Speaking at his house to a couple of dozen students, Paterno said, “Right now, I’m not the football coach. And I’ve got to get used to that. After 61 years, I’ve got to get used to it. I appreciate it. Let me think it through.”

He shook hands with many of the students, some of whom were crying.

Other students were upset. A large crowd descended on the administration building, shouting “We want Joe back!” then headed to Beaver Stadium.

One key question has been why Paterno and other top school officials didn’t go to police in 2002 after being told a graduate assistant saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in a school shower.

Paterno says he should have done more. Spanier has said he was not told the details of the attack.

Sandusky has denied the charges.

Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley will serve as interim coach while Rodney Erickson will be the interim school president.

What an ignominious end — but if the allegations swirling tonight are accurate, what an disgraceful lapse in judgement from a man viewed by many in the Philadelphia area as a benevolent father figure:

While Joe Paterno was not accused of legal wrong doing by the grand jury, advocates for sexual abuse victims have called for charges to be brought against him for not contacting the police himself. On November 7, Pennsylvania state police Commissioner Frank Noonan said that though some may have fulfilled their legal obligation to report suspected abuse, “somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are taking place with a child,” and that, “I think you have the moral responsibility, anyone. Not whether you’re a football coach or a university president or the guy sweeping the building. I think you have a moral responsibility to call us.” Further, criticism and condemnation of Penn State leadership and Paterno himself, including calls for his dismissal, followed reports of these arrests for their role in “protecting Penn State’s brand instead of a child”, and allowing Sandusky to retain emeritus status and unfettered access to the university’s football program and facilities despite knowledge of the allegations of sexual abuse. On November 8, 2011 The Patriot-News of Harrisburg published a rare full-page, front-page editorial calling for the immediate resignation of Penn State President Graham Spanier; it also called for this to be Joe Paterno’s last season. The same day, an editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called for the resignations of both Joe Paterno and his assistant coach Mike McQueary.

Beyond Paterno’s firing, Jon Ondrasik of Sports Illustrated writes, “If what we know is what we think we know, Penn State Football should be shuttered. If the NCAA’s standard for the ‘Death Penalty’ is SMU’s covering up of ‘recruiting violations’ how can there every be another game at Happy Valley?”

Update: “Rioting Penn State Students Topple TV Van & Attack Reporter in Wake of Paterno Firing,” The Blaze reports, adding, “Officers used pepper spray to control the crowd. Some students chanted ‘We want Joe! We want Joe!” Others kicked in the windows out of the toppled news van.” Click over for a photo of the toppled, demolished van and much more.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meanwhile, via Breitbart TV, “Live On CNN: PSU Students Chant ‘F**k The Trustees’ In Wake Of Paterno Ouster.” Great priorities there gang — and exceptionally advanced skill with the English language, to boot:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(H/T: PJT)

 Michaels was stopped Monday evening outside Boa Restaurant in Hollywood and asked on camera, “Are we (the Raiders) ever going to win a Super Bowl while Al Davis is still alive?”

“No,” Michaels responded without hesitation.

“Never?” asked the photographer, a self-professed “huge” Raiders fan.

“How much longer do you think Al Davis is going to live?” Michaels asked, turning the questioning back to the cameraman.

“He’ll outlive all of us!” the TMZ photog exclaimed.

“Well, he may do that,” Michaels said with a laugh, “but you ain’t gonna win a Super Bowl.”

Just as the Dallas Cowboys have been a very different franchise after Jerry Jones bought the team and let Tom Landry and Tex Schramm go, the post-Al Davis Oakland Raiders are likely to be a rather different organization without its original architect at the helm. Presumably a less litigious one, given Davis’s propensity in recent years to sue early and often.

If you’re an NFL fan, feel free to post your thoughts, pro and con on Davis in the comments.

“Guess What’s Happening Thursday Night?”

Update: Allahpundit adds:

The worst part is that, with the economy on the brink of a double-dip and consumer confidence falling off a cliff, this guy’s mind is still so preoccupied with the campaign that he can’t muster a moment of presidential leadership without counterprogramming it against a Republican primary event. He could have given this speech at any point. Six months ago, the day after the debt-ceiling deal was struck, last week, yesterday, today, tomorrow, the day before the Republican debate, the day after. Any of those would have been fine — the earlier the better, of course, given the magnitude of the problem — but that doesn’t occur to him because his own reelection is ever foremost in his imagination. We’ve known that for months, ever since he rolled out his horrendous budget that punted on entitlements so that he’d have a freer hand to demagogue the GOP, but in case you forgot, let this refresh your memory. If you could somehow promise him right now that he’ll get a second term no matter what happens with jobs, he’d tear the speech up and watch the Packers/Saints game himself. Pathetic.

Or as Bryan wrote at the Tatler, “Shorter Boehner: Did you guys even bother to check into this at all before blaring it all over the press?”

After the Packers v. Bills game, Buffalo released quarterback Trent Edwards.

During the Packers v. Eagles game, the Packers injured Philadelphia quarterback Kevin Kolb. Philadelphia then had to play backup quarterback Michael Vick.

During a playoff game against the Eagles, the Packers injured Michael Vick and another backup was needed.

After the Packers v. Cowboys game, Dallas fired Wade Phillips.

After the Packers v. Vikings game, Minnesota fired Brad Childress.

Four weeks after losing to the Packers, the 49er’s coach, Mike Singletary, was fired and replaced.

During the Bears playoff game, the Packers injured Jay Cutler and backup Todd Collins
forcing the Bears to go with 3rd string quarterback Caleb Hanie.

Question:

Is it just me, or did the Packers create more jobs than Obama last year?

To be honest, I think that’s a topic best explored in the Canadian Football League.