Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 29, 2015

Raiders 27 Eagles 10Jim Plunkett, the quarterback for the Raiders, had a storybook season.

Ah, the days when betting on Oakland wouldn’t provoke anyone in earshot to call for paramedics.

Duke called those he cared about

Actually we tried to send the cavalry in but their horses ran into each other,,,

President Carter got them released by convincing the Iranians President Reagan would happily nuke the entire country and all their neighbors..I wondered at the time how many people voted each way based on that same belief.

The hostages were released into US custody withing minutes of Reagan finishing has inaugural address. The Iranians intended this as a snub towards Carter, and a gesture of goodwill towards the new administration.

Things went downhill, unfortunately.

I was on a USN guided missile cruiser transiting the Straights of Hormuz, leaving the Persian Gulf when the hostages were released. None of my shipmates were happy that we had to leave. We wanted to be on station when we got word that Iran had released them.

Well, actually, it’s come out recently that the Ray-gun team had an arrangement with the Iranians to hold them until after the election, since Reagan would cut a better deal than Carter. And that deal turned out to be Iran-Contra, for which he got off scot-free. Imagine if Carter had done that. The cons would still be screaming.

The polling data was actually quite close until the Sunday before the 1980 election. If President Carter had gone to war with Iran, he would likely have been re-elected comfortably. He placed a higher priority on getting the hostages out alive, though.

In 1981, Oakland won!

Because Carter kept a cool head, they all came home with theirs.