What’s a deal worth when your “friends” do what they want?

It was well-known in the day that Jim McMahon could drive Bears coach Mike Ditka nuts. In the iconic 1985 season, the Bears were losing to the Minnesota Vikings. McMahon was benched because he had violated one of Ditka’s dictates. He begged to be put in. The coach finally relented, and McMahon, in the space of a couple of plays, brought the Bears to another victory. One can do a split screen of McMahon firing passes and Ditka throwing his headset and anything not bolted to the ground as his quarterback ignored the plays sent in by his coach. The same phenomenon occurred in Miami, in the only game that the Bears lost that season. Coach would send in a pass play, and McMahon kept giving the ball to Walter Payton. Ditka finally asked his star what the hell he was doing. “Walter is close to setting a record of consecutive 100-yard games.” Ditka asked if that was true. When told that it was, he agreed with his QB and gave the ball to Sweetness as the game was lost, but they could at least help his running back set a record.

Donald Trump is determined to make a deal with the Iranians. One can easily argue as to whether making deals with serial liars is a good idea. That is for another column. The question today is simple: what happens when the president does not have control of all of the moving parts in the story? Winston Churchill famously said that the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. It is not an easy task to get people, groups or countries on the same page when they all have different agendas. I always stand in amazement at Phil Jackson, another famous Chicago coach. People have carped that anyone with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant could win multiple NBA championships. What they don’t understand is that Phil Jackson perfected the art of........

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