Wait, you say, no Starting Five? Quel est le probleme? Well, I do have a bunch of items lined up (I fear my friend Keith Arnold has not listed Jesse Bongiovi in his Top 25 Notre Dame Football Players of 2014, for example) but I’m tight for time this a.m. and I wanted to discuss one topic that I think, as the kids say, will get some burn. Hence, our inaugural installment of The Daily Harrumph. 

Our topic: The kerfuffle that was sparked by Screamin’ A. Smith’s unfortunate statements on domestic abuse, Michelle Beadle’s rapid and enraged public response, and the fallout. Here, then, are an Unknown (at this moment) Number of Things I Think I Think About the Screamin’ A. Smith-Michelle Beadle Kerfuffle. 

 

1. I think that unless she is about to shoot you or stab you (the famed “Fatal Attraction Dispensation”) that there is never an appropriate time to strike a woman. Not even, if she uses her fists, in self-defense. I think we can learn a lot from Jay-Z on the latter part of this statement.

2. I think that Screamin’ A. Smith (heretofore, SAS) actually had good intentions with what he said, which is what made it all the more offensive. He was basically trying to help women by saying not to provoke your man, but by doing that, unwittingly, he was blaming the victim. I personally have some empathy for SAS on this issue because he was actually coming from, in his mind, a protective place. His intent was benevolent, though misguided. Your mileage may vary.

3. I think that Michelle Beadle (heretofore, Beadle) came from a very personal place in her response. Far be it from me to upbraid someone for going off all emotive and half-cocked on Twitter (been there, tweeted that), but the immediacy and anger of her her tweets tells me that this wasn’t an argument about global health initiatives. She has been in that woman’s hypothetical position –was it a hockey player? –and, as she alluded, has intimate familiarity with this issue.

4. I think that SAS never gets suspended if Beadle never tweets. Hence, his suspension is only partially about him telling women not to provoke men. It’s more about ESPN taking Beadle’s side. It’s a power play and Beadle won.

5. I think that if I’m Sage Steele’s agent, I consider an exit strategy. Beadle loves the NBA, has a glomance (a guy-girl bromance) going with Bill Simmons, and is an avowed Spurs fan. She just went all in with a pair of sixes and won. Now her chip stack is even bigger.

6. I think ESPN Suits (heretofore, Norby), with their abysmal track (and field) record of sexual discrimination and harassment, had to decide whether the greater good was to punish a high-profile on-air talent for using social media to admonish a high-profile on-air colleague, or whether to “side with Cheryl” and thus not throw any gasoline on the domestic violence fire. Norby chose the safer bet and Rob Parker’ed SAS.

7. I think there are a whole lot of ESPN talent who ain’t happy with how this went down. SAS is paid to bloviate, he bloviated, and he got suspended. A public on-air apology was not sufficient?

8. I think that, if she’d taken a breath and counted to 30, and then maybe asked, “WWBLD?” (What Would Bob Ley Do?”), Beadle would have realized that, like SAS, she appears daily on weekdays on her own nationally televised show on ESPN. And that maybe the appropriate response would be to ask her producer –ahem, tell her producer– that she wanted to take a moment at either the top or bottom of the show (the A Block or the…F Block?) to revisit SAS’ comments and to respectfully tell her colleague where he got it wrong. I think she might also phone him to warn him that she would be doing this before she did so.

9. I think that Peter King is a good egg but that he may be just a little intoxicated on his own bug juice. Did Cam Newton owe it to Peter King to approach him? Or might it not have been better the other way around? This is one King who really does expect you to bend the knee.

10. I think that deep down in places that you don’t talk about at parties, the brothers –and sisters– are laughing at white folks trying to tell them how relationships should be handled. Should a woman ever be struck? Of course not. Is the world that SAS grew up in a little different than the one Beadle was raised in? Yes. Should I say that domestic violence transcends racial boundaries? Yes. Is that what happens in actuality? I don’t know.

11. I think that Jason Whitlock’s comment on “Olbermann” that “Canadians just don’t have it’ (a hunger to win) was in many ways no less offensive. It was an ignorant statement that ascribed a qualitative trait to a demographic en masse. But maybe because we think of Canadians as white, and maybe because John Saunders did not rip Whitlock a new one on Twitter, he escaped scot-free. Whitlock was referring to Andrew Wiggins, who is Canadian…and black. What if a white panelist had said that the Cavs can afford to part with Wiggins because, well, blacks are known to be lazy? Yeah, then you’re getting Rob Parker’ed.

12. I think that, given that SAS’ comments and Whitlock’s comments happened within days of one another, that Norby should’ve meted out the same punishment or non-punishment to both. Didn’t happen.

13. I think that this would be an excellent topic for Keith Olbermann to lead with on his eponymous show because right now, in the first week of August, it’s the most intriguing sports media topic on the horizon. And the essay would be more articulate, and certainly not enumerated. But Olbermann cannot touch this because all involved are ESPN personalities, which is the essential flaw of his otherwise brilliant and incisive program. It’s what keeps the show from approaching greatness.

14. I think we need more Bob Costas in this world. He basically missed Sochi and these are exactly the types of issues that he’d handle with insight and eloquence, and he wouldn’t do it at halftime of your Sunday Night Football Game, which a few of you seem to take as a personal offense. How dare he, trying to edjumicate me!

15. And finally, I think women are going to continue to allow men to hit them as long as they don’t think they (and remember, sometimes kids are involved) are better off without them. And that men are going to continue to hit women when they grow up in a household that is devoid of a real father showing you how a woman deserves to be treated. Which is not an excuse. But, alas, I fear it’s the truth.