Dan .. Patrick .. Is .. an Evil White Man

I listened to the podcast of the DP Show last night. If you listened to the whole show, and not just The Big Show when KO was on, did you get the feeling that Dan was apologizing for commenting on Michael Vick? This is what I jotted down from Portis Defends Vick, the 20 minute segment that preceded The Big Show on 21 May:

DP on Vick:

• … as great as he is … as great a talent as he is …
• It’s a cautionary tale …
• … let it all play out, see where it goes …
• The reason why I bring it up … when there are comments, when there are reports …
• I’m not going out of my way to talk about Michael Vick.

I’m not going to say that Dan needs to get a dog, but he doesn’t need to apologize for discussing a major sports story. Yes, Michael Vick looks bad so far as the facts of the situation are still being gathered. This does not mean that Dan Patrick is a racist for discussing the story.

One thing that has really stood out in my listening of the DP Show, which is going on about 18 months now, is that some people are obsessed with race. Obsessed to the point of being irrational. Anytime Dan makes a negative comment about Barry Bonds it proves that he is a racist. One nice comment about Jason Giambi (who, like Bonds, is tangled up in the steroids/performance enhancing drugs issue) means that Dan doesn’t like Barry and therefore Dan is racist. Those listeners probably think Dan’s got a Confederate flag flying at his house and has a set of white, hooded robes hanging in his closet.

Props to Dan and Phil the Showkiller for being fair-minded and letting those listeners call in to express their opinion, as well as reading a few of those emails on the air. But it’s getting to the point that when they give a forum to the Race Police I turn the radio off or turn the sound down.

It’s like when President Bush is on tv saying he fully supports Alberto Gonzales. Man! You cannot be serious!

It almost feels like Vick and Bonds have an organized army of supporters whose purpose in life is to defend them whenever DP doesn’t fawn over their athletic talents and ignore their on- and off-field transgressions. Maybe the pro-Vickian and pro-Bondsian forces are aligned with the pro-Heather Mills forces. From Scoop:

I know what you mean about Rashomon. But I still suspect that the comment answering my comment was made by someone who’s probably paid to go and defend Heather Mills wherever she is perceived to be being insulted across the swath of the Internets. You know, it reads like all the rest of the defenses of her: This poor selfless woman, she has done so much good, she was done wrong by that evil idolized ex-Beatle, how dare anyone say anything bad about her…Lather, rinse, repeat.

Clinton Portis sure didn’t come off as being terribly bright as a Vick supporter. A few highlights from his comments that aired on the DP Show:

• (Michael Vick): someone who is doing positive in the community …
• … a positive role model …
• … put him behind bars for no reason … for a dog fight?

Regarding the “doing positive in the community” part: Thus Don Imus should have kept his job at CBS, the good in his life outweighing the bad?

From Redskins RB Portis: Vick can do what he wants on ESPN. com:

When told that dog fighting is a felony, Portis replied, “It can’t be too bad of a crime.”

The NFL should re-write the players’ manual to include definitions for “felony,” “misdemeanor,” and other pertinent terms.