Yanking Hank

In a statement shorter than a pay-by-the-word roommate ad, ESPN officially parted ways with Hank Williams, Jr. today in response to nonsensical political comments made by the performer on Fox & Friends Monday morning. I think the real hero here is the Huffington Post for finding a fabulous photo to complement this announcement.

ESPN pulled the Hank Williams, Jr. song from their Monday Night Football intro this week due to the comments, prompting Williams to make an apology nearly as nonsensical as his original comment comparing a golf game between Barack Obama and John Boehner to Adolf Hitler playing golf with the current Israeli Prime Minister who had not been born, nor was Israel in existence at the time Hitler would have been hitting the links.

"I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me. The thought of the Leaders of both Parties Jukin and High Fiven on a Golf course, while so many Families are Struggling to get by simply made me Boil over and make a Dumb statement and I am very Sorry if it Offended anyone. I would like to Thank all my supporters. This was Not written by some Publicist."

If HWJ has a publicist, one has to assume that they insisted upon that last sentence for clarification. I think it's pretty obvious it was not written by a publicist since clearly it was written by an 8th grader. Although to be fair, those two things may not be mutually exclusive in the south.

It is not my intention to defend Bocephus, but the big question is: Really?!? If ESPN had not pulled the song Monday night, would anyone have even made the connection between the performer and cable sports network? Would there have been a public outcry about this? I don't think so. The comments made on the Fox News Network were too bizarre to be considered incendiary. And let's consider the source. Are the comments more offensive than some of his song lyrics?

"If the south woulda won we woulda had it made.

I'd make my supreme court down in Texas and we wouldn't have no killers getting off free.

If they were proven guilty then they would swing quickly,

instead of writin' books and smilin' on T.V."

[-from If the South Would Have Won]

I can't help but wonder if ESPN was just tired of the song that they inherited when they took over Monday Night Football and took this opportunity to finally get rid of it for good. Like an employee who gets on your nerves and you just wait for him to finally screw up badly enough for you to fire him. In the end, I don't know that there was widespread outrage about the comments, and I don't think that there will be much outrage that the song is finally retired. But let's not be self-righteous about it and just admit that the song is just a little played out.

You know who I wish would go off and offend someone and get pulled off the air? That fucking transformer robot on Fox Football. Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly need to book that robot post haste and get him on the record with some objectional remarks because if any NFL icon has grown tiresome and needs a final nail in it's coffin, it is that damn robot.