Sports and Politics with a Wiff, again

On his ESPN radio talk show this morning, The Herd, Colin Cowherd waded into the world of politics in order to analogize a brash and ugly attack on the recently departed George Steinbrenner. Cowherd decided to share his opinion that he did not understand why any “regular” person would support Steinbrenner because he did not care about “regular” people much like former President George Bush did not care about anyone making less than 40 grand a year because he only cared about big business. Adding to that tripe, Cowherd went on with the oft spouted rubbish that “regular” people that don’t have six figure salaries shouldn’t admire successful people like Steinbrenner, Bush, (Donald) Trump, et al because they don’t care about them and that “regular” people don’t understand their own interests when they support the aforementioned.

It truly is a pity that Cowherd, not unlike most sports media members, doesn’t have the ability to avoid subjects that he doesn’t have a clue about. By most accounts Steinbrenner was a complicated person and certainly was not liked by many he crossed paths with. With his passing last week there have been many stories about Steinbrenner making a difference in the lives of many “regular” people. Cowherd’s main point was that Yankee games are too expensive and while that is true, almost all major sporting events are too expensive for most people with a family. To many fans, television is the most common way to follow a team and with that there is no substitute for success, defined in sports as winning and championships and it cannot be said that the Yankees under Steinbrenner’s tutelage lacked either.

Worse yet, bringing in the silly stereotypical caricature of President Bush as the big business cheerleader weakened an already weak hissy fit. Like Steinbrenner, President Bush made a positive difference in the lives of many “regular” people, like me, personally. The best way to look at this is in terms of campaign contributions from big business which perennially benefits democrats and to look at the affiliations of many titans of big business, names that include Gates, Jobs, Buffett and Soros, all democrats.

Cowherd is good on radio but is difficult to listen to when he makes personal attacks without acknowledging the whole person that was George Steinbrenner and drags our former President into the mud to make an ill-conceived and ultimately incorrect point.