A great column from Matt Barber:
A French proverb declares: “What is hard to endure is sweet to recall.” I seldom agree with the French, but, as a former professional boxer, I know this to be true.
In 2003 I was fighting Cuban heavyweight Roberto Valdez before thousands at Chicago’s UIC Pavilion. Valdez was big, strong and mean. I was told that, a few years earlier, he had traversed shark-infested waters, alone, on a rickety makeshift raft to enjoy freedom in the land of the free.
This, of course, is the very land Barack Obama seeks to “fundamentally transform.” The American vision he shares with many Democrats – to include Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill – is something not dissimilar to the land from whence Valdez came. McCaskill, of course, is defending her title against embattled Republican Rep. Todd Akin; but more on that later.
At length, and evidently having confused boxing with baseball, Valdez found himself enjoying the freedom to attempt knocking my head into the nickel stands. In the second round he connected with a big left hook, sending me – for the first and only time in my boxing career – to the canvas.
I found myself with a decision to make. As I grasped for the ropes, my head full of cobwebs, and made it to one knee, I seriously considered, for an instant, waiting out the ten-count.
For an instant.
