On Wednesday, Kevin Durant of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, said he won't attend a celebration for the team at the White House if an invitation is extended. One of the liberal commentators on ESPN praised Durant for that decision, insisting it's not political. Another ESPN talk show co-host ripped into President Trump and says he is fed up with people complaining about sports media going political.
“Nah, I won’t do that,” Durant said in an ESPN report Thursday when asked if he would accept an invitation to celebrate at the White House. “I don’t respect who’s in office right now. I don’t agree with what he agrees with, so my voice is going to be heard by not doing that.”
Durant also said he suspects no one else from the Warriors' team would accept an invitation to visit President Trump either. “[I]f I know my guys well enough, they’ll all agree with me."
Afterward, ESPN talk show co-hosts Michael Smith and Stephen A. Smith supported Durant and bashed President Trump. Speaking on the "First Take" program he co-hosts with Max Kellerman, Stephen A. Smith spoke calmly of how much he respects Durant. But on SC6, Michael Smith angrily attacked President Trump and people who say sports media should stick to sports, in a discussion with his co-host Jemele Hill.
Both of the Smiths are clearly leftists and inferred how wonderful things were when Barack Obama was in office and how rotten the times are now with Trump.
After Hill asked if "talking about what Kevin Durant said, is that essentially saying the water's wet, the sky is blue today?" Michael Smith took off an anti-Trump tirade:
When you have guys so willing to be frank about the president and talk publicly the way they might in a barber shop, or the way they might in private, given everything that's on the line traditionally for higher profile people and players, all it speaks to is the guy that works for us, the elected official, the guy that reports to us, in theory that is not our ruler. So many people recognize how little he respects the position, how little he respects the office, how little he appreciates his obligations. So really to me it's a story because really it reflects the times and the frustration of where we are as a country when guys are saying stuff like that, knowing that the backlash may take them in some circles, speaks to how bad things are in the highest office in the land.
Stephen A. Smith said, "I completely applaud KD; he's absolutely positively on the money. It's not just with his position; it's how he articulated himself. ... He comes from a community 95 percent black. So as a black man, as a minority, he sees the direction that the country is in. He compared it to the previous administration. and in defense of Kevin Durant, he's not necessarily talking about the politics ... what we was alluding to and comparing the Barack Obama Administration to the present administration that is that of Donald Trump. He's talking about how divisive it is. About it seems to, for lack of a better word, encourage divisiveness. There's no other way to slice this."
Yes, there is, Stephen. Obama could not have been more divisive. He and his henchman, former Attorney General Holder, did more damage to race relations than any other two people in recent times. They ramped it up to the frightening tone we see before us today.
Hill acknowledged to Michael Smith that not everyone feels the same way they do (as leftists)"
But we're living in such strange times, and there's just so much of it, to the point that I don't want to make it seem like it's normal, but at some point people who accuse us, as a network, as a sports media entity in general, of not wanting to stick to sports and we just want to hear about the games. At that point, as I point out. the athletes aren't letting us. So even if I wanted to --
Michael Smith cut her off and vented: " -- bottom line, and honestly, I'm sick and tired of justifyin' it. I'm tired of justifyin' it for the crowd that says 'stick to sports, I want an escape.' That's your reality. There's a lot of people for whom that is not an escape. I'm sick and tired of us and everybody havin' to, implicitly, explicitly, (apologize) for discussing something that is the most important thing in our country right now!"
If the powers that be at ESPN want to know why they are turning off and losing viewers, these two separate videos are the perfect place to start their research. It's not just that sports media are going political, but that their point of view is completely biased to the Left. Half the country is not the least bit interested in one leftist debating another leftist in a daily stream of ESPN's programming.
