In one of the most bigoted editorials imaginable, the Baltimore Sun blasted Tiger Woods for visiting the White House to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump. And fittingly, Rush Limbaugh took note.
The Medal of Freedom has a long and proud history. It was established in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, replacing an earlier Medal of Freedom initiated by President Harry Truman that specifically was awarded for civilian service in World War II. JFK’s executive order authorizing the medal specified that it be awarded as follows:
(a) The Medal may be awarded by the President as provided in this order to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1), the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
In the years that followed, the Medal was awarded to Americans whose “cultural endeavors” came in the following fields: Architecture, art, dance, movies and theater, literature, music, photography, business, economics and sports, to name but a few. The recipients are usually alive and well when the award is made, although sometimes they are awarded posthumously
In the sports category are included 33 athletes with names like Olympian Jesse Owens, baseball’s Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Ernie Banks. There are football players on the list, boxers (Muhammad Ali), basketball players, tennis players and, yes, at last, golfers. The latter category are only four: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Charles Sifford and — at long last — Tiger Woods.
The award for Tiger comes in the aftermath of the recent Masters tournament that riveted golf fans. It was a triumphant comeback from a series of professional and personal setbacks that, this being Tiger Woods, were splashed all over eight years worth of headlines.
And the reaction from the Baltimore Sun editorial? To blast Tiger for accepting the Medal because…because…the board can’t stand the president. And because, wait for it — because Tiger is black. Here is some of the hate spewed from the Sun:
Is Mr. Woods oblivious, or does he just not care that the president regularly demonizes minorities and emboldens those who hate? He has been spotted on golfing outings with the president on at least two occasions since he took office, including most recently in February, when golfer Jack Nicklaus also joined the pair.
...
Taking a kid glove approach to race is nothing new for Mr. Woods, so his feelings toward Mr. Trump should not come as a complete surprise. Some African Americans have long taken him to task for saying he gets offended when called African American, instead referring to himself as “cablinasian,” a term he coined to reflect his mixed Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian heritage.
In other words? Tiger Woods had the nerve to be his own man and ignore those that decide what African-Americans can and cannot do. For that the Sun editorial board wrote a disgraceful editorial attacking him - which caught the attention of Rush Limbaugh.
Said Limbaugh in response:
Now, I have the Baltimore Sun piece blasting Tiger Woods for accepting the award from Trump. Some of the other journalists are getting all on Trump for sullying the award. Tiger’s not finished. His career is ongoing. This is just a bro event. He just wants to hang out with Tiger since nobody else wants to spend any time with him. (That kind of drivel.)
(The Sun editorial says) ’A growing list of athletes have declined invitations from President Donald Trump to visit the White House as a stance against his racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Sadly, Tiger Woods isn’t one of them.’ By the way, the left says everything they disagree with is racist or anti-immigrant. Trump is not anti-immigrant, and he isn’t racist. Donald Trump has done more for African-Americans in terms of economic opportunity than any Democrat president ever has and ever will, for that matter.
These people are just a bunch of closed-minded bigots who are not open to anything other than what their prejudiced belief system is, and here they present themselves as God’s gift to knowledge, God’s gift to moral judgment, God’s gift to moral superiority. These people are a bunch of reprobates who sit in judgment of everybody else but cannot stand a split second of judgment about themselves.
…It’s part of the way the left simply tries to discredit the people they don’t like or agree with rather than engaging them. So they throw around all these labels that are not accurate, and then sit there in high moral judgment of everybody else, when none of them… I don’t care who wrote this editorial. I don’t care how many people contributed to it. There’s not a one of them who could do what Tiger Woods has done, and not a one of them could do 10% of what Donald Trump has done.
On Rush rolled, as recounted here.
Limbaugh said what needed to be said. Here is one of the best athletes in modern America being honored for his excellence in his sport and his personal comeback. And what was the response of the Baltimore Sun but to judge Tiger Woods by….his race. The racism of identity politics clearly reigns at the Sun.
It was disgustingly shameful and, exactly as Rush noted, itself a blatant example of flat-out bigotry.
For a sparkling example of just why the media’s credibility has never been lower with the American people, look no further than that editorial from the Baltimore Sun.
