Oh, Please

Gentlemen,

I have just had the pleasure of reading Bill's open letter to me, and I thought a response was in order.

First, a few explanatory statements are needed. As Bill has rightly realized, Tony shedding centers to me was never an option - Tony put the question on the table, and let me 'decide' which of us should win, and it was my 'decision' to yield, since the possibility of a breakthrough the other way around was certain. Was this 'choice' that Tony gave me a false choice? Certainly. Has Bill told me anything I did not already know? Not at all. (Think about that for a second).

I made the decision not to betray Tony - the real decision - anyway, in no small part because it seemed the best way to end this game to my satisfaction so another could start, in which I shall surely get what's coming to me, if I am included.

Secondly, Tony posted his note "Must we do this... really?" of his own volition and without prior consultation with me. You have no proof but my word on this, but I aspire to no dual-kingship. If things continue as they are going now, I shall be just as much a loser - if a voluntary one - as Bill, a point to which I shall return.

Third, I have no problem going through with the mechanical destruction of my forces. The prospect is neither appealing nor unappealing, but it is a choice that I have made.

This is my question: why should I help you all, when the only man sticking his neck out to extend a rather insulting olive branch is the same man who did exactly what I'm doing now only a few months ago? In essence, I am just following his precedent. As I am giving up all hope for victory, so too did he. Maybe I should be reprimanded for my choice, but not by Bill.

But Bill's selective memory is worthy of Rovian praise. Why should I allow that I should "start playing the game like a human being" when the man accusing me of irrationality depicted himself as the Giving Tree heroically shedding Greece and Trieste when he made the same sacrifice? Bill was a font of all things good and sunny, and now I'm a "supine body" hardly blocking the end zone. I could still opt to humiliate myself by going through with this, just as you, Bill, have already humiliated yourself. Or is the scorn dripping from your prose the sound of your own regret? Maybe the same is true with me.

If Bill wants to respond that circumstances were different (citing France) when he gave over all his centers, I do not admit that it was a "stroke of luck" by which France fell, since there was nothing Craig could do when Tom, Tony and I systematically betrayed him. I talked about this with Tom, back before the Phillies game, and he and I both agreed that Bill had come to the wrong conclusion.

With an open mind, I see no reason to entertain betraying Tony, given Bill's hypocrisy on this very issue. The insults, graphic or otherwise, do not bother me, but to be called out of keeping with the game's spirit by a man guilty of the same theoretical crime does not entice me. To call Bill's idea of persuasive rhetoric patronizing and hypocritical hardly does it justice. I understand that part of his motivation was to respond to some of the more ludicrous ideas in Tony's post, and he (incorrectly, but reasonably) inferred that I was of the same opinion.  Tony was trying to be a good friend to me, and I don't fault him for trying. Still, I'll be a loser, but in losing I'll have actually handed over a victory trophy, an achievement Bill's self-sacrifice was unable to pull off. I hope you all enjoy watching the Leo Show unfold over the coming weeks. Feel free to send me your emails and phone calls, I'm happy to see how the show fares in ratings and reviews.

Leo