OPINION:
I was interviewed Tuesday by ABC 7 News about Hank Williams Jr.’s remarks about President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner playing golf together (“ESPN pulls intro after Williams’ Obama comments,” Web, Monday).
I told the ABC team that Mr. Williams did not assign the name Hitler to any person and that to pull his song from NFL football was political correctness run amok.
Instead of putting my remarks in full context and reporting that I’d made clear the name “Hitler” had not been slapped on Mr. Obama or anyone else, ABC only ran the politically correct remark, and then showed a woman directly after my remarks who said that the comparison, a non-existent one, was wrong. The station then showed a man saying that there was no room for politics in football. Mr. Williams did not compare anyone to Hitler, but rather simply drew an analogy, albeit an extreme one.
We all need to keep our eyes on the ball, to use a sports metaphor. It is not true that if your football team wins that all is fine and well. Likewise, we cannot be so dumbed down as a society that we jump at the name “Hitler” every time we hear it or ignore our country’s woes and ignorantly take off-handed jokes as political commentary. Where was ABC when critics compared President Bush to Hitler or called him a fascist?
ROB ARNOLD
Arlington
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