Guess What? (For 2008)

William Safire wrote speeches for the political Prince of Darkness, The Trickster. He rehabilitated himself, post-Watergate, as a Times Op-Ed columnist and a grammarian. (Safire derived 10 books from his "On Language" column in the Sunday New York Times Magazine until he retired from the fishwrap in 2005.) Safire is a clever wordsmith and he originated the annual guessing game about the coming year in the NYTimes. Pop quizzes, hated by students and loved by teachers (The power-trip was intoxicating amid a chorus of groans.), can appear anywhere. This blog is no sanctuary. If this is a (fair & balanced) current events search and destroy mission, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
The Office Pool, 2008
By William Safire

This is the 34th annual office pool in this space, a New Year’s tradition that has become the most excruciating multiple-choice prediction test in world media. Nostradamus himself couldn’t score over 50 percent. Last year, despite a good bet on surging optimism in Iraq, I was mistaken 12 times out of 15. But the audacity of hope springs eternal; here, together with fearless readers, I go. For each item, choose one, all or none.

1. The business headline of the year will be:
(a) Big Bounce to 15,000 Dow After Soft Landing
(b) Recession Has Brokers Selling Apples for Five Euros on Wall Street
(c) Subprime Mess Was Greatly Exaggerated
(d) China Buys Boeing

2. The Academy Award for Best Picture will go to:
(a) “There Will Be Blood”
(b) “Sweeney Todd”
(c) “American Gangster”
(d) “The Kite Runner”
(e) “Charlie Wilson’s War”

(But don’t expect winners to cross picket lines to pick up their Oscars.)

3. The Roberts Supreme Court will decide that:
(a) gun rights belong to the individual, but the Second Amendment’s key limitation is that gun possession should be “well-regulated”
(b) states can require voter ID to prevent fraud even if it reduces access
(c) lethal injection is not cruel or unusual punishment if it isn’t painful
(d) the “ancient right” of habeas corpus applies to Guantánamo detainees no matter what law Congress passes

4. The fiction sleeper best seller will be:
(a) “Missy,” a first novel by the British playwright Chris Hanna
(b) “Shadow and Light,” by Jonathan Rabb, set in prewar Germany

5. The nonfiction success will be:
(a) “American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the W.P.A.,” by Nick Taylor
(b) “What Do We Do Now?” interregnum advice by Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution
(c) “Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History” by Ted Sorensen, President Kennedy’s alter ego
(d) “Basic Brown,” a memoir by Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco
(e) “Human,” by the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga
(f) “Come to Think of It,” by Daniel Schorr

6. The media world will be rocked as:
(a) fizzling ratings for a China-dominated ’08 Olympics induce G.E. to sell NBC Universal to cable-departing Time Warner
(b) “pod push-back” by music customers threatens Apple’s dominance of digital music space
(c) Google challenges telecommunications giants by taking steps to provide both telephone and video on the Internet

7. In United States foreign policy debates:
(a) success in Iraq will embarrass cut-and-run Democrats
(b) failure in Iraq will sink stay-the-course Republicans
(c) Iraq muddling along won’t affect the American election

8. The de facto dictator truly leaving the political scene this year will be:
(a) Hugo Chávez
(b) Vladimir V. Putin (afflicted by the Time cover jinx)
(c) Robert Mugabe
(d) Fidel Castro

9. By year’s end, American diplomats will be negotiating openly with:
(a) Hamas
(b) the Taliban
(c) Iran

10. The two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute appears when:
(a) a free election or civil strife in the West Bank and Gaza brings a unified, neighborly government to the Palestinians
(b) an Ehud Barak-Benjamin Netanyahu rematch results in a majoritarian, rightist coalition victory
(c) the Jerusalem division issue is resolved by expanding the official city limits to embrace two capitals

11. Assuming the Iowa caucuses to be meaningless pollster-media hype, the January primary state with the biggest influence on the outcome of both parties’ nominations will be:
(a) New Hampshire
(b) Michigan
(c) South Carolina
(d) Florida

12. The American troop level in Iraq at year’s end will be:
(a) the present 152,000
(b) the pre-surge 130,000
(c) 100,000 and dropping steadily

13. The issue most affecting the vote on Election Day will be:
(a) immigration: absorb ’em or deport ’em
(b) taxation: soak the rich or lift all boats
(c) health plans: incentivize or socialize
(d) diplomacy: accommodating realism or extending freedom

14. The presidential election will hinge primarily on:
(a) a debate blooper
(b) success or failure in Iraq
(c) Hispanic backlash
(d) a personal scandal
(e) a terror attack on the United States
(f) racism/sexism
(g) the economy, stupid

15. The Democratic ticket will be:
(a) Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama
(b) Obama-Clinton
(c) Clinton-Bill Richardson
(d) Obama-Joseph Biden
(e) John Edwards-Dianne Feinstein

16. The Republican ticket will be:
(a) Rudolph Giuliani-Mike Huckabee
(b) Mitt Romney-Gen. David Petraeus
(c) John McCain-Michael Bloomberg

17. The winning theme in November will be:
(a) time for a change
(b) don’t let them take it away
(c) experience counts
(d) nobody’s perfect

18. The election will be decided on:
(a) charisma
(b) experience
(c) character
(d) sex
(e) money
(f) issues

19. As 2009 dawns, Americans will face:
(a) a leftward march, with the Clintons in the White House and a Democratic Congress feeling no tax, entitlement or earmark restraint
(b) creative gridlock, as President McCain finds common ground with a centrist Democratic Congress
(c) a stunning G.O.P. conservative resurgence, with the equally long-shot Washington Redskins girding for the 2009 Super Bowl

My picks: 1 (a); 2 (a); 3 (all); 4 (b); 5 (a); 6 (b); 7 (c); 8 (d), and I’ve been losing this bet against Castro for 33 years; 9 (none); 10 (all); 11(c) 12 (c); 13 (b); 14 (a); 15 (a); 16 (c); 17 (d); 18 (c); 19 (b). Lose this list.

[William Safire, a former Times Op-Ed columnist, is the chairman of the Dana Foundation.

The Dana Foundation is a private philanthropy with principal interests in brain science, immunology, and arts education. Charles A. Dana, a New York State legislator, industrialist and philanthropist, was president of the Dana Foundation from 1950 to 1966 and actively shaped its programs and principles until his death in 1975.

Safire left public relations to join Richard Nixon's campaign in the 1960 White House race, and rejoined Nixon's staff in the 1968 campaign. After Nixon's 1968 victory Safire served as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew; he is well known for having created Agnew's famous term, "nattering nabobs of negativism."

Safire joined the New York Times as a political columnist in 1973. In 1978, he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary on Bert Lance's alleged budgetary irregularities. However, subsequent investigations by Congress could find no wrongdoing.

Since 1995 Safire has served as a member of the Pulitzer Board. After ending his op-ed column in 2005, Safire became the full-time chief executive of the Dana Foundation where he has been chairman since 2000.]

Copyright © 2007 The New York Times Company

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