Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Final Jeopardy With Margaret Spellings

I am such a jerk. Ms. Spellings, our Secretary of Education, appeared on Celebrity Jeopordy this evening. I watch Jeopardy every night I can, and I was surprised to see her as a guest. I wish I could say that I wanted her to do well, but that would be a lie.
She started off slowly, mistaking the "henge" in Stonehenge for something other than circle. That one seemed pretty obvious; afterall, it is Celebrity Jeopardy. At the first break she hadn't answered a question correctly. When Trebek did the customary question and answer session with the guests, he posed a question regarding the state of American education. Ms. Spellings replied that we are losing the race against other contries.
I wanted her to fail even more. In that situation, I would expect Ms. Spellings to affirm the great things that American education does, while perhaps mentioning that we can always improve. Maybe I get this from watching professional sports coaches give such answers after each game.
By the end of round one, she'd recovered with an answer about bananas, a clue that had the typically obvious clue within. The clue mentioned "bunches" in a category about food. Hmm. Tough one. She nailed a second question, one about Chicago temperatures and why the thermometer would read one temp, but it would feel much colder. A science question. She answered correctly that it would be the wind chill.
In the second round, Spellings picked up the pace. She answered one quickly. A question about a long river in South America. The Nile, maybe? No, seriously the Amazon. Good job, Spellings; you are brilliant.
She stumbled on a question from the Movie Quote category, but only because she didn't listen to the category. She gave the name of the person quoting instead of the movie title. Trebek had made it abundantly clear what he was looking for. Minus points for not following directions.
Then she didn't miss again when she buzzed in. She got a question about a rhyming Spanish phrase that means "Thank you." Was able to translate the Russian word for Vodka--she is from Bush's cabinet. She got a tough one about the number of pedals on some type of organ. She got both Daily Doubles, and the stock symbol for, of all things, Exxon Mobile. She would have been fired if she had missed that one.
She ended the Double Jeopardy round in second place. The Final Jeopardy category: Books turned into Movies.

"Among the many movies that have premiered here at Radio City Music Hall was the 1962 film based on a novel by Harper Lee."
What is....To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah Ms. Spellings!

She did better than I hoped, and it has ruined my night.

2 Comments:

At 11:35 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The thing I hate about Celebrity Jeopardy is that they try so hard to make celebrities not look like idiots, which is why the questions are easier than those on the Children's Jeopardy episodes. Michael McKean looked a little bored while answering. Spellings looked like she was trying really hard not to look like an idiot, which didn't work when she messed up multiple times by not answering in the form of a question. The other guy just wanted to promote his book.

 
At 12:42 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

After you appear in therefore on USA day cash advances to urge each of our day and Fitting loan, besides will possibly your own very first compensation presumptively be fascination freed from charge, you cash advances may get to satisfy each of our workers, see each of our amenities and acquire the experience associated with specifically but borrowing kind USA day cash advances can assist you along side your short term economic wants.

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home