Remember Sarah Palin? I know, I've been trying to forget her too, but every now and again she comes up with an unintentionally laugh-worthy quote which both makes me chuckle and thankful she was never Vice President.
After ESPN suspended Curt Schilling for his racist and historically inaccurate anti-Muslim tweet, Palin posted the following message on her Facebook page:
"ESPN IS A JOURNALISTIC EMBARRASSMENT
ESPN - what happened to you? Your intolerant PC police are running amok and making a joke out of you!
By picking and choosing who they'll tolerate and who they'll try to destroy, ESPN has zero credibility as a sound and reasonable media outlet. They suspended former major league great Curt Schilling because of his tweet:
'Only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How'd that go?'
ESPN reacted about as fast as a Schilling pitch, wimpering, 'Curt's tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company's perspective. We have removed him from his current assignment... pending further consideration.'
Two points - well, three, because Curt's a pretty conservative/independent guy.
One - there's been crude, rude bile spewing from the once-great sports network for years now. Trust me. I know. My name and reputation's been in it. One ESPN affiliate's on-air rant featuring their misogynist, animalistic 'analysts' grunting and giggling through an entire x-rated celebration of violence against women didn't even draw a chirp from ESPN's wussified leaders. Look it up; I don't want to have to recount it. ESPN radio affiliate in Las Vegas got its kicks out of convicted rapist Mike Tyson describing the next rape he'd want to see. (Warning, graphic language throughout that Sept. 20, 2011 broadcast.)
Two - Schilling's tweet - was he wrong? No! In fact his stats were too generous in estimating Muslims' attitudes. Reports show it's 88% of Egyptian Muslims favoring DEATH for anyone who leaves Islam. The majority of Muslims in many other places share the sentiment. In America, these views could be correctly described as 'extreme.'
The difference between Hitler's army and the genocidal maniacs of ISIS is that the jihadists don't have as much power... yet.
By denying the accuracy of Schilling's tweet, ESPN shows its weakness as it buys into the propaganda of ISIS and other terror organizations, helping mislead the public about the very real threat of terrorism. It shows once again that ESPN would rather concentrate on liberal global politics instead of report well on our beloved sports.
From those of us who used to LOVE the network (to the point of addiction, some would confess!), I say to ESPN, you are awful in this. Stick to sports.
- Sarah Palin"
Ms. Palin, first of all, Curt Schilling's tweet was not in fact accurate. Fact-checker PunditFact graded it as "Mostly False," adding this:
"Schilling tweeted that in 1940 only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis. That figure is too low. It might be close for the more limited fraction of Nazi supporters who formally joined the party, but it ignores the Nazis' electoral domination in 1932 and the popularity that came after the first military victories in 1939. The vote results and the assessment of the experts we reached point to a much larger figure in the range of 35 percent. That's five times larger than the figure in the tweet.
We rate this claim Mostly False."
Secondly, ESPN is a sports network first and foremost. I hear about as much on ISIS and other terrorist groups from my 2-year-old niece as I do on ESPN. ESPN's a sports network, and like anyone else, cares about their image and ratings. They want to anger as few people as possible, so when a personality of the network posts a tweet comparing Muslims to Nazis, expect the network to react swiftly. Also, the fact of the matter is Curt Schilling has a history of posting anti-Muslim memes on his social networking pages. Until this latest one, he had been able to get away with it. So let's not pretend that this was a one-time thing and ESPN overreacted to an aberration as opposed to a trend.
Lastly, I found the final line of Palin's message to be ironically hilarious. Curt Schilling, an ESPN baseball analyst, got suspended from announcing the Little League World Series due to a political tweet, and Sarah Palin closes her post by telling ESPN to "stick to sports"? Really? If Schilling had stuck to sports, he wouldn't have gotten suspended in the first place!
Curt Schilling: Posts a political tweet
ESPN suspends Schilling for the political tweet
Sarah Palin: "Stick to sports, ESPN!"
Stick to unintentionally making us laugh, Sarah! Thanks again!
http://deadspin.com/sarah-palin-lays-into-espn-over-curt-schilling-suspensi-1727183035
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/aug/28/curt-schilling/schilling-throws-wild-pitch-nazi-stat/
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/8/25/9207657/curt-schilling-really-likes-posting-on-facebook-about-muslims-being
After ESPN suspended Curt Schilling for his racist and historically inaccurate anti-Muslim tweet, Palin posted the following message on her Facebook page:
"ESPN IS A JOURNALISTIC EMBARRASSMENT
ESPN - what happened to you? Your intolerant PC police are running amok and making a joke out of you!
By picking and choosing who they'll tolerate and who they'll try to destroy, ESPN has zero credibility as a sound and reasonable media outlet. They suspended former major league great Curt Schilling because of his tweet:
'Only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How'd that go?'
ESPN reacted about as fast as a Schilling pitch, wimpering, 'Curt's tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company's perspective. We have removed him from his current assignment... pending further consideration.'
Two points - well, three, because Curt's a pretty conservative/independent guy.
One - there's been crude, rude bile spewing from the once-great sports network for years now. Trust me. I know. My name and reputation's been in it. One ESPN affiliate's on-air rant featuring their misogynist, animalistic 'analysts' grunting and giggling through an entire x-rated celebration of violence against women didn't even draw a chirp from ESPN's wussified leaders. Look it up; I don't want to have to recount it. ESPN radio affiliate in Las Vegas got its kicks out of convicted rapist Mike Tyson describing the next rape he'd want to see. (Warning, graphic language throughout that Sept. 20, 2011 broadcast.)
Two - Schilling's tweet - was he wrong? No! In fact his stats were too generous in estimating Muslims' attitudes. Reports show it's 88% of Egyptian Muslims favoring DEATH for anyone who leaves Islam. The majority of Muslims in many other places share the sentiment. In America, these views could be correctly described as 'extreme.'
The difference between Hitler's army and the genocidal maniacs of ISIS is that the jihadists don't have as much power... yet.
By denying the accuracy of Schilling's tweet, ESPN shows its weakness as it buys into the propaganda of ISIS and other terror organizations, helping mislead the public about the very real threat of terrorism. It shows once again that ESPN would rather concentrate on liberal global politics instead of report well on our beloved sports.
From those of us who used to LOVE the network (to the point of addiction, some would confess!), I say to ESPN, you are awful in this. Stick to sports.
- Sarah Palin"
Ms. Palin, first of all, Curt Schilling's tweet was not in fact accurate. Fact-checker PunditFact graded it as "Mostly False," adding this:
"Schilling tweeted that in 1940 only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis. That figure is too low. It might be close for the more limited fraction of Nazi supporters who formally joined the party, but it ignores the Nazis' electoral domination in 1932 and the popularity that came after the first military victories in 1939. The vote results and the assessment of the experts we reached point to a much larger figure in the range of 35 percent. That's five times larger than the figure in the tweet.
We rate this claim Mostly False."
Secondly, ESPN is a sports network first and foremost. I hear about as much on ISIS and other terrorist groups from my 2-year-old niece as I do on ESPN. ESPN's a sports network, and like anyone else, cares about their image and ratings. They want to anger as few people as possible, so when a personality of the network posts a tweet comparing Muslims to Nazis, expect the network to react swiftly. Also, the fact of the matter is Curt Schilling has a history of posting anti-Muslim memes on his social networking pages. Until this latest one, he had been able to get away with it. So let's not pretend that this was a one-time thing and ESPN overreacted to an aberration as opposed to a trend.
Lastly, I found the final line of Palin's message to be ironically hilarious. Curt Schilling, an ESPN baseball analyst, got suspended from announcing the Little League World Series due to a political tweet, and Sarah Palin closes her post by telling ESPN to "stick to sports"? Really? If Schilling had stuck to sports, he wouldn't have gotten suspended in the first place!
Curt Schilling: Posts a political tweet
ESPN suspends Schilling for the political tweet
Sarah Palin: "Stick to sports, ESPN!"
Stick to unintentionally making us laugh, Sarah! Thanks again!
http://deadspin.com/sarah-palin-lays-into-espn-over-curt-schilling-suspensi-1727183035
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/aug/28/curt-schilling/schilling-throws-wild-pitch-nazi-stat/
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/8/25/9207657/curt-schilling-really-likes-posting-on-facebook-about-muslims-being
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