Last updated on May 2nd, 2014 at 12:31 am
By now, everyone has made some kind of statement or comment about soon-to-be former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s lifetime suspension from the NBA. Generally, people within the league and around the country feel that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made the right and just decision to ban Sterling from the sport due to his racist comments. Of course, we’ve had some conservatives who now feel that Sterling was set up by his former mistress and Magic Johnson to pave the way for Magic to buy the Clippers.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
While the Sterling ‘trutherism’ is pretty far out there, former Republican Congressman and now right-wing pundit Allen West decided to go even further down the rabbit hole on Wednesday. On his personal website, West wrote a blog post where he somehow found a way to shoehorn Benghazi and hatred for Obama into a discussion about Donald Sterling’s racism. West said that we know more about Sterling’s racism than we know about what happened in Benghazi or with the IRS. He also wanted to know why there wasn’t more outrage over Kerry’s apartheid comments.
Where is the cultural, public outrage over a behind closed door comment such as referring to the State of Israel as an “apartheid state?” Probably most of America doesn’t know who said it or even what “aparteid” means.
Or how about the outrage that should have come when our own president leaned over to then-Russian President Medvedev sayng, “Tell Putin that after my reelection I will have more flexibility” and of course Medvedev said, “I will tell Vladimir.” And now we know what that “flexibility” has allowed.
Aren’t those “private” chats reflective of behavior that is dangerous for the United States?
Or how about the lies and deceit of President Obama on healthcare and of course Benghazi, which we now know a video had nothing to do with.
Has our culture devolved to the point that the private statements of an NBA owner draws more outrage than the lies and deceit of the President of the United States?
Donald Sterling’s behavior is despicable, but so is that of President Barack Hussein Obama — and whose abhorrent behavior has more impact on our country?
The difference is that the media lead us along like sheep to the slaughter, turning us into reactionary, shallow thinking, low information voters along the way. We know more about Sterling than Benghazi — or the IRS scandal.
Sterling is a jerk, an unlikeable fella, but is he guilty of a crime that demands his property be confiscated? Uh, no.
We’re told however that Obama is a likable fella -regardless of the incessant lies, deceit and abject failures. What is happening to American culture and values?
I don’t like jerks, but I really don’t like jerks who are liars, do you?
Sigh. I guess some people will use any reason to just fling crap at our President, regardless if the incident in question has anything to do with POTUS or not. This is the same guy that blamed the recent Ft. Hood shooting on the President. In this instance, West just wanted to ramble on about Benghazi and the IRS, conservatives’ pet ‘scandals’ that American taxpayers have already wasted millions of dollars on in investigation after investigation. It is hilarious that West still insists that we don’t know anything about either so-called scandal, even though Congress has held dozens of hearings dealing with both situations.
This is just another attempt by conservative pundits to get Benghazi and/or the IRS back into the mainstream conversation. The country has moved on from the unnecessary hand-wringing and fake outrage over both ‘controversies’ and doesn’t want Congress to waste anymore time or money on them. However, the right needs a scandal to stick to Obama. They really, really, REALLY want this. Pundits like West are totally upset that Americans aren’t buying the faux outrage.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
