In case you thought Sarah Palin was going to tone down her criticism of ESPN in the wake of Curt Schilling’ suspension, think again.
First came Palin’s Facebook rant in defense of fellow conservative Curt Schilling and calling out ESPN for suspending him (indefinitely apparently) after tweeting an offensive message comparing Muslims to Nazis. Next, Palin was guest-hosting the show On Point on something called the One America News Network and she chose ESPN as her target once again. And thank God there’s video.
We make a living out of critiquing ESPN, so we can comfortably say that these are some of the most bizarre criticisms of ESPN that have ever been put on the record. ESPN has done some pretty dumb things over the years, but never have I thought about “ISIS propaganda” or “terrorists” in relation to the operation in Bristol.
Some of Palin’s pipebombs from this segment:
“A bunch of waterboys over there running the show.”
“Schilling’s tweet was just a stat, you use stats.”
“By denying the accuracy of that stat, it shows your utter weakness as you guys are just swallowing ISIS propaganda.”
“Terrorists using ESPN to mislead the public about the very real threat of terrorists.”
“ESPN concentrates on liberal, global politics.”
A couple things here – first, both conservatives and liberals have been able to take issue with ESPN over the years. They’re an equal opportunity offender for the hardcore, political wonks out there. Remember when ESPN hired Rush Limbaugh??Remember when they suspended Keith Law and not Curt Schilling after their evolution debate? It’s the political leanings of their employees that get ESPN into these messes and not the other way around.
Second, wouldn’t people just rather hear about sports? Palin asking that question is ironic because Schilling’s tweet had nothing to do with sports! That’s why he got suspended in the first place! How can you condemn ESPN and tell them to stick to sports and not Schilling himself? If Schilling had done just that and not turned his social media pages into the All-Star roster of terrible Facebook memes, we could have avoided all this in the first place.
Instead, Palin paints Schilling as a victim of a vast, left-wing, ESPN-ISIS conspiracy. Bet you never thought you’d see those two four-letters together, right?