Monday, FBI director James Comey announced his agency is investigating the possibility of Russia’s collusion with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and said he had no information to support Trump’s claims of being wiretapped by the Oval Office predecessor. He also talked Big 12 football.
During a discussion with Texas Representative Mike Conaway, the Longhorns-Red Raiders rivalry emerged after Conaway introduced it as an analogy of some sort for Vladimir Putin’s relative opinions of Trump and Hillary Clinton. I do not fully understand what he’s getting at, but let’s try.
Some levity in the #RussiaIntelHearing - Watch this #YogiBerra exchange between Rep. Mike Conaway and Director Comey! #WhosOnFirst pic.twitter.com/UUSlTGxjnG
— Justice&Mercy (@JRDarius1) March 20, 2017
“Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much, the flip side of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated,” Comey said.
“That might work on Saturday afternoon, when my wife’s Red Raiders are playing the Texas Longhorns. She really likes the Red Raiders,” Conaway said. “But all the rest of the time ... logic is, that because he really didn’t like candidate Clinton that he automatically liked Trump. That assessment’s based on what?”
“Whoever the Red Raiders are playing, you want the Red Raiders to win. By definition, you want their opponent to lose,” the director said, later explaining that when one side wins, the other side loses.
Comey later used a similar version of the analogy, explaining that a Giants fan would want the Patriots to lose.
So let’s think through this one. Conaway seems to have been on the verge of arguing that supporting Trump/TTU doesn’t necessarily equate to rooting against Clinton/UT and that, when they’re not playing each other, it’s possible to feel the same way about both. But if the two are playing each other, being a TTU fan sort of has to mean wanting UT to lose, unless college football works differently in Russia.
I think the Representative just wanted to discuss sports, which is fine. Me too! This is also not as bad as Paul Ryan’s Texas rivalry analogy.
.@SpeakerRyan "When you advance to a national championship don't you root for a Longhorn if you're an Aggie? Start thinking that way."
— jonathantilove (@JTiloveTX) July 19, 2016
No, Aggies do not root for Longhorns.
The Longhorns and Red Raiders play annually for a nice trophy, the Chancellor’s Spurs, and Texas leads the all-time series, 50-16, though the rivalry is most known for a shocking outcome early in the November of a presidential election year.