Jason Whitlock's letter to Barack Obama

He's not a God. He's not a fraud. He's not a hypocrite.

 

That's when an editor should step in and say what's off limits. If you're a sports columnist, I don't want to see you opining on the election when you've done nothing that leads me to believe you should write about the election. By his own admission, Whitlock doesn't vote. He's apolitical. He's come right out and said that.

If Whitlock were covering the campaign and asking the candidates questions and getting answers and he wrote a column about Obama, I wouldn't object to it. I'd say it doesn't belong in sports, but I'd give him a lot more credence than I give this particular column.

And 21, to suggest that EVERYONE who has expressed a negative opinion about this column is doing so because of the outing incident is presumptuous at best. I don't recall your ever reading my mind.

 

I said it was 'an overblown debate that wouldn't be happening if whitlock wasn't in SJ exile.' If you read the word 'EVERYONE' in there, I'll edit it out.

 

If Whitlock didn't write this column, nobody on this board would have blinked...

 

Exactly - Luppy has been writing political columns for months and no one has said a word.

 

In hindsight I'd like to add that I believe this kind of thing at least subconsciously feeds the notion that the news media is arrogant. It gives the appearance that we believe we are qualified to make judgments without having done the work. When a newspaper fails to cover a campaign, it loses the ability to defend opinion pieces, including endorsements, by saying the paper observed that candidate firsthand every day for months -- and the other candidates as well. Otherwise it is offering opinion based on second-hand sources that are available to anyone -- only of course we are smarter than you, so here's what we think about that CNN video or that AP story that you already saw.

 

Notice I said you "suggested," it, not "said" it.

 

Fixed. And take my word: The outing was reprehensible, and his past sexism on here is galling. Does character not matter? Anyhoo, even with those biases laid bare, I can judge anyone's work on its merits. I just wish we had more "anyones" talked about instead of the same old same old.

 

you're asking that guy if character matters? shiiiiiit.

 

No, I'm asking some of his acolytes on here, I guess.

 

by acolytes do you mean star fuckers?

 

Not touching that. But I guess the more important point I was saying is that there are dozens of columnists out there writing provocative stuff worthy of discussion, but we cite the same old ones, one of whom has built up an almost fetishistic mystique about superiority through the use of a real name (no, not Jones or Elliotte).