The Final Four and Saddam

Wow. I had never heard this one before. Mike & The Maddog just played a segment from a show in April '03 in which they played a clip of the previous night's NCAA basketball championship. Jim Gray, the CBS sports announcer, is heard breathlessly, giddily announcing, "CBS News won't confirm, but NBC and CNN have announced that Saddam Hussein and his sons have been killed by US and British coalition forces." In the background you can hear a college marching band playing some team's fight song. Spine tingling patriotic moment, dammit! College basketball and a winning war. What could be a better fit?

To their credit, Mike and Chris ripped Gray and his producer for making unconfirmed and, ultimately untrue, news announcements during a basketball game, but ah, hearing it, made me wistful for those days of American certainty and exceptionalism. Mission fucking accomplished.