Admittedly, I am not the biggest professional basketball fan in the world (my youngest son holds that title) but I took a great deal of satisfaction in watching LeBron James win the 67th NBA All-Star Game’s Most Valuable Player award. For a dumb guy who should just, “shut up and dribble,” not bad at all. That brings me to the Fox News propagandist who started a very unnecessary controversy, Laura Ingraham using that very statement, “shut up and dribble.” First, I would like to give a shout out to the Commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver. Silver apparently had the forethought to encourage last night’s game commentators to mention the controversial statements by Ingraham. Whether orchestrated or not, having the lead play-by-play announcer Marv Albert, a long time respected sports broadcaster, who happens to be white, introduce the subject and step aside for his partners Chris Webber and Reggie Miller (both black men) was as in your face to the executives at Fox News as you could get.
Ingraham a few days ago tried raising her Fox News profile with remarks that could only be construed as stupid at best and racist at worst. For those of you who do not know, LeBron James may be the most gifted athlete of our times. Straight out of high school with a man’s body 6’8” and 250lbs. Mistakenly or stupidly during her little tirade Ingraham said that James was an attempted high school dropout, well Ms. Laura, Mr. James did in fact, graduate high school, was offered numerous college scholarships but because of his extraordinary prowess chose to forego college and enter the NBA and is currently worth in excess of 400 million dollars.
What could it be about James that caused such a visceral reaction from the esteemed Ms. Ingraham? Let me think about it, could it be a liberal black celebrity and liberal black fame, mixing with liberal politics? Why the double standard? Afterall, Scott “Chachi” Baio was loved by Joanie and Sean Hannity, and I am Clueless enough not to believe that the political expertise of Stacey Dash was not a breath of fresh self-hatred on the network. Afterall Ms. Dash of African- American and Mexican descent once suggested that we do away with Black History Month to make things fair. No, no Clueless was the film’s title not the title of her memoir.
I guess a standard clause of the Fox News contract is to be first, willing to lie, second, say something stupid and if all else fails, find a racist trope. The NBA ran toward the controversy because it was the right thing to do. The NFL, on the other hand, hauled their cash and fleeting reputation, amongst its players out of sight and took a knee. As far as Ingraham goes, she went out of her way to insult a man, whom she claims insulted another man [ the President], calling him “unintelligible and ungrammatical” sort of projection by proxy. I had not seen the video of her escapade until today, I purposely avoided it because I knew coming from the lips of a Fox host nothing good could come of it.
You be the judge…
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