David Fehrity's comments make me sick. In case you didn't hear about them, here's Keith Olbermann's Worst Persons from Friday (5/8). The comments come in at the 1:11 mark:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
I don't know how Sean McManus, the son of the late Jim McKay who serves as the president of CBS News and CBS Sports feels, but this actually belongs in the hands of the big man at CBS, Leslie Mooneves (or as I like to call him, "The Only Reason His Wife, Julie Chen, Has A Job On The Early Show") to make the call in sacking him. It's not the first time someone at CBS has opened their mouth with their brains on idle and made a dumb comment.
Before the 1987 NFC Championship Game, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder made an refernce about African-American athletes having been breeded in a different way a couple days before the contest at a Washington watering hole. That time, CBS was swift and gave the greek the ax, and The NFL Today as we knew it was broken up the next season. Out went Brent, Phyllis and Irv, enter Greg Gumbel and Terry Bradshaw (he is not an idiot, but does play one on TV.) A decade later, the network's long time distinguished golf announcer Ben Wright made comments on the week of the LPGA Championship that the tour was being populated by lesbians according to an interview he did with the Wilmington (DE) News Journal. Later that week, he was dropped faster than a Ford Pinto with Firestone 500 radials driven backwards by Leon Spinks into a tree. And if you think their relationship with Augusta National Golf Club and The Masters - a tradition like no other - has been rosy, you've been barking up the wrong dogwood tree. Esteemed announcer Jack Whitaker was banished from the premeses for a time decades ago for saying that the gallery of patrons was "a mob." Meanwhile, Gary McCord is curretly personna non gratta from Augusta after making a comment that the greens there were given a bikini wax, and any player who missed a putt were getting body bags ready for them.
CBS should drop Fehrity now. No ifs, ands or buts. The comments he made in D Magazine are an embarrassment to the country, golf, the military, elected officials and the human race in general. The armed forces of the United States of America are not mercenaries unlike those at Blackwater Xe, they are there serving for us until all is settled. These were made on an off week for the network's golf coverage as NBC is doing The Players' Championship this weekend, and I'm sure Johnny Miller will have something to say about this as well. Joking about something like Sean Hanity's waterboarding is all in good fun around here, but Fehrity's comments are just plain sick, and Mr. Mooneves should take action.
UPDATE: Both the PGA Tour and CBS Sports through spokespersons condemned Fehrity's comments. Media Matters has led a campaign to hve Fehrity either fired or forced to resign, and VoteVets.org has also called for the head of Fehrity, who has issued an apology via his agent. The apology is IMHO, not enough...hence the call for the firing.
Posts
JC,
ReplyDeleteexcellent comment. one small nitpick, if D magazine is like any of the other slick metro glossy magazines, the April 2009 issue was on sale in March, meaning that this was written sometime in January. which makes me wonder why no one noticed this until now.
It was actually brought to light by Mike Smith, who guest hosted Comedian Boss Limbaugh's humorfest Friday (5/8).
ReplyDelete