The sports media continued their postgame celebrations on Thursday, after ESPN’s firing of Curt Schilling. A firing that so many members of the liberal sports media openly, and privately, rooted for.
Over on Hardball Talk, an NBC-owned entity which covers Major League Baseball, the self-righteousness poured forth with great gusto:
“With the way he had been proceeding it was only a matter of time. And now his time is up. Curt Schilling has been fired by ESPN.
The final straw came yesterday when Schilling shared a disgusting anti-transgender meme on Facebook and followed it up with supportive comments which took a distinct, inflammatory side in the ongoing debate about access to public facilities for transgender people. He later doubled down in a combative blog post on the matter. The matter has become highly controversial and Schilling weighing in in the manner he did was both insensitive to transgender persons and flew in the face of ESPN’s mandate to its on-air talent — often broken by Schilling himself — to not wade into highly-charged political topics in an inflammatory manner.”
To remind you, Schilling’s comments that Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk says took a “distinct, inflammatory side,” were these:
"A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic."
So, now biology, and basic bathroom functionality, are “inflammatory." Got it.
Also, the “combative” blog post in which Schilling defended himself, which can be read here, wasn’t really about the transgender issue at all, but more about the controversy over the summer, when Schilling posted a pic comparing the small number of Germans who were Nazis, to the small number of Muslims who are terrorists. Making the point that numeric majorities need not be present to totally take over the identity of a group and make everything awful.
All he said over the transgender thing, was that he was not the one who posted the highly unflattering pic of the transgender man (which is absolutely true), and that he only made a comment about the “functionality of men’s and women’s restrooms…”
The rest of the post was merely taking shots at a culture that has become overly sensitive and intolerant.
That’s combative?
Regardless, Schilling has been fired, and the purpose of this post is not to remind everyone of the obvious. Which, is that he shouldn’t have been. The purpose of this post is to expose the sheer hypocrisy of the ESPN policy that Craig Calcaterra refers to next:
“The matter has become highly controversial and Schilling weighing in in the manner he did was both insensitive to transgender persons and flew in the face of ESPN’s mandate to its on-air talent — often broken by Schilling himself — to not wade into highly-charged political topics in an inflammatory manner.”
So that’s the policy? You must forgive my surprise on the matter, since I’m old enough to remember when longtime ESPN veteran Kenny Mayne, once tweeted that he saw a car with a Sarah Palin sticker on it and would have intentionally rammed it. Only holding back because “coulda been kids in the car.”
Is that inflammatory? Vehicular assault with intent sounds pretty inflammatory to me. And yet, Kenny Mayne was never fired by ESPN. But you know, that was back in 2007. Way before ESPN really enforced their political policy. When it was totes acceptable for talent to threaten vehicular assault against innocent people.
That would never be tolerated today. Or would it?
ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose went on the “O’Reilly Factor” to discuss his new book, and basically accused the police of hunting black people. Which repeats a thoroughly discredited claim from the Black Lives Matter website, claiming a black person is killed by a cop every 28 hours.
A stat that Rose claimed is an “absolute fact.”
Now, you can choose to put aside the fact that the statistic is completely bogus, which you can read about to your heart’s content here. But if it were true, how is that not inflammatory? Rose made these comments in an incredibly emotional and politically/racially charged environment, where people literally rioted in the streets and attacked police officers.
Rose’s comments came in the midst of a far more dangerous and hostile environment than the one Schilling ventured into, when he wrote his post on bathroom functionality. But, here you have a major ESPN figure, getting up on national television, someone revered by a ton of people, many among them African-Americans already angry at the police, and he basically tells them the cops are out to get you.
This doesn’t run afoul of ESPN’s non-inflammatory political speech policy?
No, it doesn’t. Because that policy exists only for conservatives who disagree with ESPN’s radical leftist views. Not for people like Kenny Mayne and Jalen Rose who fit right in.
