ODE TO TONY TERRIFIC

   Not that he's - ya know - dead 'n gone, but Tony Romo's statement on Tuesday was certainly saturated with resignation.

   Oh, and also guts, class, respect, dignity and professionalism.
   For some of us who've loyally - even stubbornly, at times - supported the most prolific passer in the history of the Dallas Cowboys, it felt a lot like a retirement speech. Or at least the official beginning of the end.
   Kleenex, anyone?
   He's won playoff games and made Pro Bowls and shoved Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman from the record book, but not sure I've ever been more proud of No. 9. And also never been more sad for him.
   No way around it, at this point in their polar careers Dak Prescott is a better quarterback than Tony Romo. You know it. I know it. And, yep, Romo - gulp - knows it.
   Under heavy pressure in a town that loves, loves, loves it some quarterback controversy, Romo made one of the best, most accurate deliveries of his career. On time. And on target.
   I was at Texas Stadium the night Romo replaced Drew Bledsoe and it felt - yeah - kind of eerie. With Romo injured and certain to get his job back (we figured), there was no similar passing-of-the-torch moment on the field this season. But while Romo sat silently and helplessly, Prescott yanked him off the pedestal and down the totem pole.
   The rookie who's only a Cowboy because of dumb luck (management whiffing on several other more desirable options) and only under center because of two injuries (Kellen Moore ring a bell?) is now on the verge of a magical season. The Cowboys are 8-1, and they just might win a championship.
   As a Cowboys lifer, I'm rooting for another Super Bowl. But, I admit, without No. 9 throwing the winning touchdown or taking the final knee, it will feel a tad hollow. Much like it will if the Rangers ever win a World Series without Michael Young, or maybe Elvis Andrus. Like it would've had the Mavs triumphed after Dirk Nowitzki.
   You just root for great things to happen to good people. But sometimes life - and sports - kicks that hope square in the kisser.
   Nobody's been persecuted in DFW sports more than Romo. So on this bittersweet day, I figured I'd dust off one of my many defenses of No. 9.
   What it was like to be a Romo fan in 2013?

   Exactly like this.

TRUMP 290, CLINTON 228: MY TOP '16 WHITTY COMMENTS

You're ... hired?!

   16. No, I'm not moving to Canada. Or rioting in the streets in protest. Or joining some nut-job Tea Party to waste my weekends waving banners from highway overpasses. It's politics. I get it. In this state - and in this country - if you bleed blue you'll always be in the minority. Life goes on. That said, I do sympathize with Democrats balking at the "forgive and forget" demands to unify for a smooth transition of power. I'm sure they remember Trump's "birther" movement and Rush Limbaugh openly hoping that new President Obama "fails miserably." It's difficult to accept losing, especially when - technically - you won. By perhaps 500,000 votes. Trump said all the right things in his acceptance speech and deserves credit for doing so. But when you run on a platform of insults and intolerance, you can't be naive enough to think the wounds will heal overnight.

   15. Hillary is a person that made bad decisions, but Trump is a bad person. My vote was 20% for her; 80% against him. My vote, like our country, has never been more divided.

   14. Lots of left-wing pundits are waxing angrily today, but this is one of the best takes. And it comes not from TV analyst nor spurned Senator nor Hollywood elite, but the head coach of the NBA's Detroit Pistons:

  “I didn’t vote for (George W.) Bush, but he was a good, honorable man with whom I had political differences, so I didn’t vote for him,” said Stan Van Gundy. “But for our country to be where we are now, who took a guy who - I don’t care what anyone says, I’m sure they have other reasons and maybe good reasons for voting for Donald Trump - but I don’t think anybody can deny this guy is openly and brazenly racist and misogynistic and ethnic-centric, and say, ‘That’s OK with us, we’re going to vote for him anyway.' It’s incredible. I don’t know how you go about it, if you’re a person of color today or a Latino. Because white society just said to you, again - not like we haven’t forever - but again, and emphatically, that I don’t think you deserve equality. We don’t think you deserve respect. And the same with women. That’s what we say today, as a country. We should be ashamed for what we stand for as the United States today."

   13. "When they go low, we go high." Great quote and, in theory, solid strategy. Unless of course, it isn't. Easy to second-guess, but perhaps Hillary should have lashed back at Trump with a barrage of personal and professional insults instead of keeping her hands clean. In biting her tongue in an attempt to allow Trump to hang himself, she gave power to her opponent's snippy, childish sound bites without a return of service. Hillary might have taken the high road, but she also lost a primo job. Same plan backfired on a certain former radio host a couple years ago. Ring a bell?

   12. Get ready for four years of the biggest Fascist blowhard this side of North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Trump actually said and - in his delusional brain - likely believes:
   "No one respects women more than I do."
   "I know more about ISIS than all of our generals, believe me."
   "I could shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."
   "I've given $100 million (of my own money) to my campaign."
   "I donate a lot to charities, tens of millions to charities."
   "My health is perfection."
   "My golf handicap? It's a 3. Could be better, but now it's a 3."
   Ya know, those things are indisputably false. And I'm minimizing doozies like Obama being born in Kenya or climate change being a hoax. Seems as long as he doesn't have a private email server his followers will allow him the freedom to blabber gross hyperbole sans accountability.

   11. Make America Great Hate Again.

Clearly they've been dealt impossible hardships

   10. I still believe Trump was/is better suited for the WWE ring than the White House. Think about it. He's a fake villain in a grotesque wig who riles up crowds with salty, aggressive monologues and audacious actions. And, of course, his gullible fans buy into every ounce of his character. His pro wrasslin' cameo should've been a career.

   9. Tuesday night felt like I was watching golf's Ryder Cup, hoping to see one color but being besieged by repeated body blows from the opposite shade. Though I wasn't real fond of the outcome, watching an event that unpredictable felt very (and historically) sportsy.

   8. 42% of women - inexplicably - voted for Trump. Tell them to shut up? Rate them based on looks? Call them nasty and slobs and smugly claim that no flat-chested woman could ever be a 10? Walk in on them naked in a dressing room? Even brag about forcibly kissing them and grabbing them by the pussy? No problem. The biggest shock to me is that almost half the women in this country hate private email servers more than being objectified and disrespected.

   7. I long for Bernie Sanders (and his competence). I already miss Barack Obama (get ready to cringe at Trump's crass over his class). And I fear at some point I'll even dream of the "good ol' days" of George Dubya Bush. I'll even shed a tear for Obamacare. Why? Because I'll gladly pay increased middle-income healthcare premiums as long it allows low-income Americans to have insurance they couldn't otherwise afford. But that's just me.

   6. So let me get this straight: We elect a man who didn't get the most overall votes and whose victory publicly elated the KKK and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and we're sure we got it right? In the wake of Obama's 2012 re-election Trump Tweeted: The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy. To which I say, Amen. But, like it or not, them's the rules for both teams. (If you're fearful of Trump as truly dangerous, however, I might just have a safe solution for you.)

   5. Another thing I don't get is the venom spewed toward the media. By my unofficial math the major networks covered Clinton's email scandal more than any other singular campaign topic. And no way Trump didn't get his fair share of face time. Besides, what newspaper or station or anchor or analyst would be that wrong on purpose? They were wrong - all of 'em - because they were wrong. Not because they wanted to be wrong. If you believe that a media outlet knew Trump was going to win but stifled that opinion in favor of some ratings-nabbing agenda then, I'm sorry, you have zero clue how the media actually works. I have 30 years' experience in media and ... Oops, probably the wrong number to be pushing ... I've picked against the Cowboys many times. Not because I wanted them to lose. But because I believed they would lose. And, yep, been wrong several times.

He said; She sad

   4. Despite his six bankruptcies over 18 years, Trump may be good for American business. Trickle-down economics giving tax breaks to the wealthy led us to the financial meltdown in '08, but I'll have an open mind. It's the social and moral components of him, his platform and his followers that irk me. Exclusion and intolerance are both despicable traits. But Trump's VP Mike Pence is on record saying homosexuality can be "cured". And this morning I read this nauseating Twitter exchange: A Syrian refugee that had recently relocated to Texas asked nervously "Now what?" A proud "Deplorable" Trump follower retorted with "You go back! Now!!" I fear that's just the tip of the iceberg.

   3. In a scene straight out of the movie Idiocracy, a coalition of non-degreed White males has up and elected a reality-show TV star with zero political experience to the office of President of the United States of America. More bizarre, along the way the candidate publicly alienated and denigrated women, Blacks, Muslims and Latinos. How'd he survive? Trump somehow tricked his followers into thinking he was of them. They are working-class Americans he calls the "forgotten." But him? He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, lives in a gold-plated Manhattan palace and has worn a blue collar about as often as he's paid taxes. Hint: never. (By the way, wouldn't it be justice if Obama now turned the tables and dogged Trump with a "taxer" movement that demanded the new President produce his "long-form" tax returns?) In exit polls 60% of voters said Trump was "unlikable" and 53% admitted his takeover of Washington, D.C. would make them "concerned" and/or "scared." He will be, by far, the most controversial and least popular person to ever assume the Presidency. Which - in Idiocracy - means even more High-5s.

Coming soon: The new Trump Tower

   2. Bottom line: Whites voted against Hillary as if she was trending Black, and Blacks mildly supported her as if she was trending White. She got 88% of the Black vote. But that is down from 93% for Obama in '12. Ramifications? Clinton earned 129,000 fewer votes in Detroit than Obama, and 95,000 fewer votes than him in Milwaukee four years ago. She wound up losing Michigan by 61,000 and Wisconsin by 73,000. And the Latino backlash toward Trump that many experts predicted never materialized. Despite the insults and promises of deportation and plan to build a wall, Latinos voted for Hillary even less than they voted for Obama. Women and minorities had their chance to defeat Trump. You can either blame them for blowing it, or blame her for being such an unconvincing candidate. In the end, the male chauvinist pig d. the scheming, dishonest woman 7-5, 6-4.

   1. Congrats to Trump and his passionate supporters for pulling off an upset that rivals Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson. (I do find it painfully ironic that the candidate who criticized a "rigged" election won the Presidency despite finishing in 2nd place.)  I may never like President Trump. But rest assured I'll afford him more respect than a lot of Texans ever gave President Obama. Hopefully you'll treat Democratic Presidential Nominee Michelle Obama better come 2020. Peace Be With You.