House of Eratosthenes

Hank Jr. wasn’t really even comparing President Zero to Hitler; he was only making a point regarding how absurd it is for Republicans to play footsy with radicals bent on destroying America as we know it. But the media establishment’s tolerance for transgression is extremely limited when it isn’t coming from the left.

So there are two issues here. One, it’s pretty obvious that “Obama==Hitler” was not what Williams was trying to get across, so the decision to suspend him was made by someone who didn’t even get the point; or, that is, someone acting on behalf of someone else, real or imagined, who didn’t get the point.

Two, unless ESPN has been sniffing around for reasons to suspend Williams, and just now managed to find one, this wasn’t a well-advised move. Simply ignoring the dumb metaphor would have carried a very high potential for success. So: Williams has been fired for a long time and just didn’t know it; someone bolluxed the cost/benefit part of should-we-or-shouldn’t-we-suspend; or, ESPN figures its bread is buttered by libs. Pick one of the three.

Sadly, Williams’ inept expression of his sentiment has caused said sentiment to be lost in the shuffle: People right now aren’t terribly inspired when they see opposites playing patty-cake with each other. It isn’t encouraging. It has the opposite effect.

James Wilson, who comments often at Daphne‘s & Gerard‘s places, often is seen to write that the result of mixing fine wine together with sewage, is sewage. I think that’s on par with what the country music artist was trying to say…but I don’t know if that would have created any less of a tempest. Like watching your favorite mousing-cat play hopscotch or pinochle with the mice? Oh well. We know a little more about him, and we know a little more about ESPN.

It’s probably that someone at ESPN was personally offended.

All media people are liberal, but sportswriters are the worst of the lot. I forget who said it, but he pointed out that the sportswriter’s life is even more hamster wheel-ish than the average reporter’s — how many times can you say that Michael Jordan was a great basketball player or that the Kansas City Royals really need to find some pitching? Plus, nobody has ever settled an argument about sports by quoting Jim Rome (and most folks I know who watch sports talk shows use those fellows as sarcastic punchlines: “well, the PTI guys think Rutgers has a shot this year, so that’s what I’m going with!”).

In short, they’re the Janine Garofalos of the journalism world, and the only way out of D-list obscurity is to be obnoxious about politics. They’ll spout moonbattery whenever they get the chance, because that’s the only way they can feel like they’re really being a part of this thing.

My guess is that Williams Jr. has never even set foot on the campus of ESPN or interacts with anybody there; it’s all set up by his publicist and recorded elsewhere. But he does country music, and that’s, you know, icky, so they’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of him for some time, but those football-watching rubes, damn them, wouldn’t understand the understated arrangements and lyrical nuance of intellectual bands like The Decembrists, so they have to tolerate Williams Jr., but damn it, they’ll take the first opportunity to get rid of him…
- Severian | 10/04/2011 @ 06:31
OK, mark me down as a football watching rube who has never heard the Decembrists much less even tried to understood their “understated arrangements and lyrical nuance”. So in that vein could someone, very slowly, ‘cause evidentially I’m just not getting it, when Hank used his analogy, who exactly is Hitler?

Maybe staying up past my bedtime and watching my Colts lose yet another game (Suck for Luck!!!) has somehow diminished my obvious limited ability to understand the superior intellect of Hank Williams Jr.
- tim | 10/04/2011 @ 08:11
tim,

I’m not defending Hank Williams Jr. — about whom I know virtually nothing. Rather, I’m arguing that ESPN was probably gunning for him for a long time (cf. Morgan’s point #2) because country music is (supposedly) conservative and sportswriters are notoriously knee-jerk moonbats even in the moonbat-infested precincts of so-called “journalism.”

I don’t know who the Decembrists are either, frankly. I just know that the kinds of douches who wear knit longshoreman’s caps even in 90 degree weather list them among their favorite bands on Facebook, so I assume they write the kind of nuanced, intelligent, yadda yadda yadda songs that make hipsters go all gooey.
- Severian | 10/04/2011 @ 13:10
Though they probably could’ve just ended their relationship when they wanted to, say when his contract ended last time.

Song sucked anyways, stupid thing to say…let’s get some hot chick to open the game. Or better yet, like they did last night, actually hear what everyone else at the stadium hears – the National Anthem…shocking.
- tim | 10/04/2011 @ 13:41

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Hank Williams, Jr. Fails the “Could Be Construed As” StandardTuesday, October 4th, 2011

Hank Williams, Jr. Fails the “Could Be Construed As” Standard
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011