This is an opinion of an opinion posted by W. James Antle III (using a name like that? How elitist can you get?) So let's look at what this "managing editor of The Daily Caller and author of" a book said, and could have said:
Can we be honest for a minute about the latest liberal crusade controversy gripping the country like a deflated football?
"We"? I can. W? Probably not. Especially if he doesn't know the difference between honesty and defamation.
If you are sincerely concerned about fair play in sports and waiting patiently for the NFL to conclude its investigation of “Deflategate,” this column is not directed at you. Maybe you’re a New England Patriots fan or just a neutral observer. Maybe you don’t care about football at all.
I'm interested in fair play in all things. I'm also interested in facts, honesty, honor, integrity, and truthfulness. Boy, wasn't he quick to draw partisan lines. His patience almost gave me whiplash.
But for the rest of you, the mob salivating over the prospect of finding something to diminish the Patriots’ 2014 achievements, let’s face it.
You hated Tom Brady before the national media lost its collective mind over the air pressure in footballs.
He got this from
somewhere up his butt,
The Hater's Guide to Divisiveness, The GOP Big Lie Playbook, who knows where. He's certainly not waiting patiently for his liberal boogiemen to say something to justify his salivating.
You hated Tom Brady before Spygate.
Did I? What was "Spygate? When did I start to know the difference between Tom Brady and a hole in the wall?
Your hatred of Brady goes back much further than that. You despised him in high school, when you wanted to sit with the jocks in the cafeteria. You detested him when he was dating the cheerleaders.
Why would I have wanted to sit with the jocks? I didn't know any of them personally, nor had any idea or interest in who they were dating. Perhaps he is projecting his own petty jealousies and desires onto those he despises.
You loathed Brady when he upset your team in the Super Bowl. You screamed with rage when he dissected your team’s secondary like a surgeon and exposed the Swiss cheese-like holes in your coverages. You were outraged when he didn’t come out of the game after throwing at least four touchdown passes.
Definition of DEMAGOGUE
: a person who stirs up public feelings especially of discontent {that politician is just a demagogue who preys upon people's fears and prejudices}
Then when he married a supermodel? Game over.
He quit playing to marry a supermodel? I don't think so.
(Yes, I did deliberately misinterpret what he said in order to make it sound like he meant something else. I included this as an example of a device commonly used by propagandists, so learn to watch for it.)
You don’t hate become disappointed in him because when he cheats. You hate respect him because he wins. If he’s exposed in the current NFL probe, that’s something you’ll love be sad to see.
I get it now, but for a long time I didn’t. I could understand why people disliked Bill Belichick, even if I didn’t agree. But Brady wasn’t much of a trash-talker, at least off the field. He was no Richard Sherman. He usually says the right thing in public. His teammates seem to enjoy playing with him and for him, even if he occasionally yells at receivers who run the wrong routes or referees who make unfavorable calls.
Thank you God for giving us the opportunity…. That's all you can ask for….Thank you everyone for the support all year
— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) February 2, 2015
Few professional athletes have the character of Mother Teresa. If they’re even as decent proselytizing as Tim Tebow, they’ll soon be out of a job. But if I had to compile a list of the biggest jerks in the NFL, Brady would not rank very high.
Tom Brady is a winner. He has won 76.5 percent of the games he has started. He has been to the AFC Championship the majority of seasons he has played. He has three Super Bowl rings. He is about to make his sixth appearance in the big game.
I hate to interrupt his bromance
with union labor, but W's op-ed was supposed to be "about fair play in sports". The Tom Brady/Straw Man
fixation argument is irrelevant and getting a little old.
A certain amount of jealousy is human nature. But the contempt for Brady’s sustained success fair play goes beyond that. It’s a larger liberal conservative war against success, based on the sentiments expressed by the senior senator in the Pats’ home state, Elizabeth Warren, and then later repeated more pithily by Barack Obama supporters of unregulated free markets.
All those records? Tom Brady free markets didn’t build that.
Success cannot be earned individually, or through a loose confederation of teams, the game must be rigged regulated.
The industry is self-regulating because it could not survive exclusively under the rules of free market capitalism, and they know it.
- A losing team would lead its franchise to bankruptcy.
- A history of failing franchises would discourage investment in new franchises and devalue surviving ones.
- A failing franchise also kills jobs while reducing the ability of athletes to negotiate decent wages.
- Fewer franchises means fewer local markets, fewer local fans, and less revenue. Variety in competition within the sport would have to be replaced with repetition in order to maintain the length of a season. Even the uberfans would lose enthusiasm over time. There are too many other sports eager to soak up fan loyalty and fan dollars. There's your free market at work, as it should be.
And when was the last time you heard of a stadium being built without massive taxpayer subsidies and tax incentives? Yep, W is loving him some "socialism".
You don’t care that he has three rings, because Spygate. You don’t care that when throwing fully inflated footballs he completed 82 percent of his passes against the Indianapolis Colts just this year, because cheating.
I can already hear you saying, “Wait a minute, Antle. I’m no liberal. I’m a true-blue red-state American and I just don’t like the cut of Brady’s cheating-assed jib what you're saying .”
The liberals conservatives have gotten to you anyway. They know you don’t like Boston, the city closest to the union shops where Brady plays, or California, where the quarterback is from shared revenues, where the profits grow. You might not even like The University of Michigan, where Brady went to college.
H/T to Eclectablog for the heads-up.
The same politics of envy that liberals exploit to make some people crave tax increases on the wealthy has turned you against the winningest (sic) quarterback of our time, a hero to the blue-collar and culturally conservative parts of the Bay State, a true Patriot. propaganda machine that conservatives use to play on fear, prejudice, and false pride to make some people work against government for the people, is being invoked to promote the idea that a patriotic sounding name automatically means that the group using it are automatically patriotic. There is more to patriotism than rhetoric or trademarks. Just as the Detroit Lions are not literally lions and the Seattle Seahawks are not literally birds, being a member of the New England Patriots does not make one either patriotic or unpatriotic.
If the rules were broken, they were broken and someone needs to be held accountable. Personal responsibility is a conservative value talking point. As Belichick is fond of saying, “It is what it is.”
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
- Yogi Berra
What I’m talking about is the pure joy some people feel at the possibility a new anti-Brady wedge-issue talking point exists, the unadulterated glee that accompanies each Patriots loss exploitable moment.
Drew Bledsoe, the man who lost his job to Tom Brady, doesn’t feel this way. Neither apparently does Rich Gannon, who lost the “tuck rule” game to him.
I have no idea if this is true or false.
Brady has been battered by some elite tough NFL pass rushes. Does he have the "pocket agility" to evade the rush to judgement exploit him?
If Brady loses the upcoming Super Bowl, there will be only one consolation. All the people who hate winners will transfer their bile to the Seattle Seahawks instead.
If the Seattle Seahawks win the upcoming Super Bowl, their win will not be tainted and those who condemn dishonesty will be free to turn their attention to the propagandists.
There, I fixed it for him.
Clean and corrected version of what a decent person might have said lurks below the fold...
Can we be honest for a minute about the latest controversy gripping the country like a deflated football?
If you are sincerely concerned about fair play in sports and waiting patiently for the NFL to conclude its investigation of “Deflategate,” this column is not directed at you. Maybe you’re a New England Patriots fan or just a neutral observer. Maybe you don’t care about football at all.
But for the rest of you, let’s face it.
You become disappointed in him because when he cheats. You respect him when he wins. If he’s exposed in the current NFL probe, that’s something you’ll be sad to see.
I get it now, but for a long time I didn’t. I could understand why people disliked Bill Belichick, even if I didn’t agree. But Brady wasn’t much of a trash-talker, at least off the field. He was no Richard Sherman. He usually says the right thing in public. His teammates seem to enjoy playing with him and for him, even if he occasionally yells at receivers who run the wrong routes or referees who make unfavorable calls.
Few professional athletes have the character of Mother Teresa. If they’re as proselytizing as Tim Tebow, they’ll soon be out of a job. But if I had to compile a list of the biggest jerks in the NFL, Brady would not rank very high.
A certain amount of jealousy is human nature. But the contempt for fair play goes beyond that. It’s a larger conservative war against justice, based on the sentiments expressed by the supporters of unregulated free markets.
All those records? Free markets didn’t build that.
Success cannot be earned individually, or through a loose confederation of teams. The franchises must be regulated for the league to survive.
I can already hear you saying, “Wait a minute, Antle. I’m no liberal. I’m a true-blue red-state American and I just don’t like what you're saying.”
The conservatives have gotten to you. They know you don’t like the union shops where Brady plays, or shared revenues, where the profits grow. You might not even like The University of Michigan, where Brady went to college.
The same propaganda tactics that conservatives use to play on fear, prejudice, and false pride to make some people work against government for the people, is being invoked to promote the idea that a patriotic sounding name automatically means that the group using it are automatically patriotic. There is more to patriotism than rhetoric or trademarks. Just as the Detroit Lions are not literally lions and the Seattle Seahawks are not literally birds, being a member of the New England Patriots does not make one either patriotic or unpatriotic.
If the rules were broken, they were broken and someone needs to be held accountable. Personal responsibility is a conservative value talking point. As Belichick is fond of saying, “It is what it is.”
What I’m talking about is the pure joy some people feel at the possibility a new wedge-issue talking point exists, the unadulterated glee that accompanies each exploitable moment.
Drew Bledsoe, the man who lost his job to Tom Brady, doesn’t feel this way. Neither apparently does Rich Gannon, who lost the “tuck rule” game to him.
Brady has been battered by some tough NFL pass rushes. Does he have the "pocket agility" to evade the rush to exploit?
If the Seattle Seahawks win the upcoming Super Bowl, their win will not be tainted and those who condemn dishonesty will be free to turn their attention to the propagandists instead.
Antle would probably go ballistic if he saw that someone twisted his words into a rational note.