And.....The recently "sacked" from the intro to ESPN's "Monday Night Football".
'Ol Bocephus shot his mouth off this morning on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" show drawing a parallel between the golf summit between Obama and Boehner and a hypothetical meeting between Der Fuhrer & Benjamin Netanyahu. Here's the video:
...and the following is ESPN's comment:
“While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”
A pretty meatheaded thing to say no doubt. But, it seems apparent that it was more a poorly framed analogy than a direct comparison between Barack Obama and Adolph Hitler. I hope his intent was to draw a comparison between two individuals who would be the staunchest of enemies if they lived in the same time. I hope that is the case.....Either way, it's a dumb thing to say to be sure.
But the sudden outrage from the media and public does beg the question........"Why the sudden sensitivity to comparing a sitting president to Hitler?"
I seem to recall:
Sure, none of those people above are employees of ESPN / ABC but...
I distinctly recall Rosie O'Donnel and Joy Behar both comparing then President Bush to Hitler and Whoopi Goldberg calling him a Nazi on "The View"......which is, as you know, an ABC show.
Further, Keith Olbermann, practically made a career (if you can call it that) of drawing Bush / Hitler / Nazi parallels
Maybe the folks at ESPN / ABC have a short memory...or maybe they just don't like it when their sacred cow is gored with the same sword their own employees have wielded?
In either case, playing the "Hitler" card is stupid. It's the most base of ad hominem attacks. It's the last gasping effort to dehumanize dissent when the intellectually challenged have run out of intelligent things to say.
But I can't help wonder about the media and the public's fascination with the opinion of celebrities with regard to politics. Think about it for a second. Regardless of their respective political leanings, a person such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin or his brother Steven, Robert Duvall, Bono, Kelsey Grammar, Kid Rock or Hank Williams Jr. What do they actually "DO" for a living? For the most part, they repeat words that other people write. Who gives a rip what Matt Damon thinks about Global Warming or raising the debt ceiling?
These are not towering intellects, these are marionettes with great hair. How 'bout we leave them to the task of entertaining whilst the rest of us learn to speak to one another without feeling the need to insult each other because of differing values?
EDIT- I was just alerted to an error above. Olbermann never appeared on MNF, it was the NBC Sunday evening football broadcast. My bad.
A brief note for the chronically sycophantic who seem to have missed the point, follow along closely below:
- Hank Williams comments were STUPID
- The protesters signs comparing Bush to Hitler were STUPID
- The comments from cast members on The View were STUPID
- Keith Olbermann's Hitler / Nazi comments were STUPID
In no way did I attempt to excuse Williams comments by way of moral equivalency. I sought instead to point out the STUPIDITY demonstrated by anyone (key point there kiddies, read it again) who resorts to such a loathsome and small minded insult.
If you still don't get it...feel free to not read my blog. I shant miss you.
Dont disagree on anything, AND its all protected by our freedom of speech.
ReplyDeletebut when people are fed up and asked box hole questions ,sometimes stupid DOES come out.
Now on the View there are just a gaggle of stupid so we dont have to go there too hard.
Protesters,as such, USUALLY havent got enough brains to do more than make a sign someone told them to, walk straight and convert oxygen to carbon dioxide!