So this muscle-head is asked to comment on Bengal's WR Chad Johnson changing his name to "Chad Ocho Cinco".... silly subject right?
The other analysts basically laughed it off as a silly marketing ploy, but then the camera turned to Howie Long and this is what he had to say:
"Chad must be a Barack Obama supporter 'cause isn't Barack Obama advocating being more multilingual"?
How the hell did Howie connect those dots? Was he seething this bad since Denver? He went out of his way to inject political "commentary" into a completely non-political topic.
Yeah OK Howie, we get it... Chad is black exotic too, right? And we all know how these "exotics" whine about tolerance, and diversity. So Chad decides to change his last name into "sumpin furheen and mexican" and.... Howie is now naturally scared and "outraged"... The camera then cut to Terry Bradshaw, right after Howie was finished spewing his xenophobic nonsense. Terry had this WTF!! expression on his face. Now I don't know Terry's politics to be sure (maybe I can search Newsmeat), but judging from his expression, I'm sure he thought that Long's comment was beyond inappropriate.
Can you imagine if someone at that show managed to work in John McCain's age as a "joke" during their "Grumpy Old Coaches" segment with Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer? Now I doubt this would happen on FOX, but let's say someone on CBS, or ABC/ESPN said this? Can you feel the fake outrage building?
FYI this is the second time Howie Long has done this. Remember his Al Gore "joke" from last season??
I already contacted Media Matters about this. If you saw the FOX pre-game show please feel free to share your thoughts with David Brock at mm-tips@mediamatters.org