Watching the intro to Monday Night Football is going to take some getting used to now that Hank is gone. By now, I'm sure you have heard the news that Hank Williams Jr has been fired from ESPN after 20+ years over comments he made on Fox & Friends last week:
For me, the real story here is how the media handled this. I'm the kinda guy who likes a fair fight. I want to point out that I'm registered as an Independent voter. I don't see myself as a Republican and I don't see myself as a Democrat. I have voted for Republicans and I have voted for Democrats, so I'm not a "good 'ol boy" who is standing up for my man. Did Hank make and EXTREME comparison? Definitely. Did he say "Obama is Hitler", like many media outlets and headlines claimed? No. The news stories and headlines were pretty misleading when this story broke, and Hank took a beating from the media. Freedom of speech is the issue. Hank was speaking his mind, pure & simple. The flip-side of the coin with freedom of speech is, your employer may not have the same political views as you have, and may not want you speaking for their company. For example, every once in a while we add a new song that, in my opinion, just flat-out stinks. But I know that if I go on air and say "Geez, that song is horrible. How could anyone possibly like that song?", I would probably offend some people and my boss wouldn't be very happy with me. The point is, you have to know how far you can go with your comments, or, as some would say, you have to have filter between your brain and your mouth. I don't think Hank has that filter. Maybe he should have used Nick Saban and Les Miles for his comparison, or the Red Sox and Yankees. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but I believe that ESPN should have given Hank a chance to apologize for his comments, and if he refused, then go ahead and fire him. It was interesting to sit back and watch news reports on this story because Democrats were sooooo offended that Hank said "Obama is Hitler" (which he really didn't say) and equally offended by him saying that Obama, Biden & other Democrats are the "enemy". C'mon. You're foolish if you think that Democrats don't look at Republicans and the Tea Party as the enemy. Where was the outrage when Kanye West went on live TV (a fund raiser for Red Cross after Katrina) and said "George Bush doesn't care about black people"? If you don't remember that story, it's because it was swept under the rug by the media. It's on YouTube if you have time to search for it. Can you imagine what would happen if Hank would have said "Obama doesn't care about white people"? Where was the outrage when A-list celebrities were crushing President Bush and calling him Hitler? There was outrage back in 2003 when the Dixie Chicks were on tour in London and Natalie Maines said "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas". There were quite a few media reports that said radio station were boycotting the Dixie Chicks and refusing to play their songs because of that statement. The truth is, the listeners boycotted the Dixie Chicks, not radio. For every one person that would call to support the Chicks, we would get 40 people say they never want to hear them played on the radio again. There was no radio boycott, there was a listener boycott. Months later, we considered putting the Chicks back in rotation, but when we asked random listeners what they thought of that, their feelings hadn't changed. They still had no interest in hearing the Chicks, so, to this day, we don't play them because, for the most part, our listeners don't want to hear them.
With all that said, I would like to exercise a little freedom of speech of my own with a message to Hank Jr, Dixie Chicks and every other singer/political analyst wannabe......shut up and sing your songs. I don't care about your political views.
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