First, here’s the video if you haven’t yet seen it:
Now, here’s what Costas’ spokesman had to say about the criticism Costas received for his bleating douchery, Costas himself apparently being too busy washing the gray out of his hair to comment directly. USA Today:
NBC’s Bob Costas, communicating through a spokesman Monday about on-air comments about guns he made Sunday night, “feels an unfortunate leap was taken that he was advocating taking away Second Amendment rights. He was not.”
Costas declined comment to an interview request from USA TODAY Sports to speak about comments he made during NBC’s NFL coverage Sunday night. But NBC spokesman Greg Hughes says,”In a short (on-air) time period he can cover only one aspect of a complicated issue. So he quoted (columnist Jason Whitlock) about the gun culture and an almost Wild West attitude in parts of this country. He is pro-sensible gun reform and pro-attitude adjustment on guns.”
Got that? It’s a complicated issue, and he only had a short time to cover one aspect of it. Which makes one wonder why he chose to take on such a complicated topic, knowing in advance that he had limited time to do so. Probably just an oversight.
Also, Costas himself is “pro-sensible gun reform.” What that means exactly, no one can say for certain — but were I to judge from his comments yesterday, I’d have to conclude that “pro-sensible gun reform” is some sort of value-free iteration of “ban the fucking things. They give me the creeps.”
By the way, classy move putting it all on Whitlock. As I recall, Costas introduced the quote by saying Whitlock summed things up about as well as they could be summed up, lending the extended quote an explicit endorsement. Until he started taking heat. Then? Scapegoat nation!
In his 90-second on-air comments Sunday that have drawn criticism in cyberspace, Costas discussed Kansas City Chief linebacker Jovan Belcher shooting girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and then committing suicide with a gun. Costas’ conclusion: “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”
Monday, NBC spokesman Hughes added that Costas is “in favor of people owning guns to hunt and carrying them in reasonably controlled circumstances.”
Again, what is “reasonably controlled circumstances,” and who gets to decide how our 2nd Amendment rights should be neutered and pruned so that Costas is made to feel comfortable with the fact that guns exist, and that free people of necessity must be permitted to own and carry them?
And then there’s this: how does Costas know that Belcher didn’t own the gun for hunting varmints or some such?
In truth, Costas is one of those people who believes the 2nd Amendment protects only muskets — and that hand guns are a scourge, evidently because certain well-paid athletes misuse them from time to time, which of course means that nobody can be trusted to own them and use them responsibly. Though Costas will allow that you can go out and shoot ducks, if that’s your thing. You stupid rednecks.
All in all, a non-apology apology, and one that I find remarkably unsatisfying. Costas revealed himself. Too bad. Because a football halftime show is no place to do it — particularly when all it does is serve to exploit the tragedy for a shot at some cheap liberal grace.
If OJ Simpson hadn’t possessed a knife, Nichole Brown and Ron Goldman would both be alive today…
I’m pro-attidude adjustment on guns myself. Limousine liberlas like Costas ought to learn to sympathize with people who can’t afford to hire private security.,
John Lott does what he does.
Next they’ll want to take away my psychic “Scanner” powers.
– We have only 19 days of civilization left according to the chicken littles among us until my birthday, so with that in mind I will write out my prediction for the coming decade or two.
– We will get blind-sided again sometime in the next 20 years, probably sooner than later, and this one will make 9/11 look like a Sunday school picnic. It will involve some sort of nuvlear device or devices, and the event will be even more horrific than normal because it will be semi-botched in a way that makes things even worse than a ‘clean’ strike. In the aftermath Progressivism will be blamed and open season will be declared upon their heads.
– Blaming Bush will prove to be a decidedly ineffective means of defense…….more tea anyone?
Just don’t let it be Chicago, I’m downwind.
*** Breaking ***
– “NASA JPL news release, Dec 3, 2012: NASA announced today that the Mars Rover compound analysis lab has detected some componds in the Martian soil that may or may not be indigeneous to the red planet and may or may not be organic in nature. Much more additional testing will be required to answer these and other critical questions. Paramont among those questions, the possibility of life having arisen on Mars independently will be finally determined if a Starbucks is discovered in the coming days.”
For an outstanding article and takedown of the buffoons Costas and Whitlock, go to http://www.foxsports.com and read Jen Floyd Engel.
Worth your time(sorry I can’t get the direct link to work).
The comments are sad/ amusing ; sad in that they demonstrate the mindless overall stupidity of the general population as a whole.
My favorite was the guy who admonishes another poster who advocates taking away guns from blacks and hispanics; “You do realize that whites are a minority in this country, don’t you?”.
Ah, no jackass, that’s in the cities. Overall U.S. population? Whites are 2/3rds of the population.
I’m not sure that having this “jovan belcher” alive today is a Worthy Policy Goal really
you’re gonna have to sell me on that one bob
…
*putt*
…
*putt*
…
There exists no
problemfeeling that action is necessary that cannot be addressed by the addition of a few extra laws.Whitlock has turned the volume up: http://bit.ly/TDoEED
I’d settle for discovering a starbucks in pennsyltucky
I usually watch Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN because they’re on back to back while I’m doing my workout. I really shouldn’t watch PTI, as it has that prejudiced Obama felating jackass, Mike Wilbon, as one of the hosts but there’s not much else on. He starts a rant yesterday, praising Bob Costas and basically saying “I don’t care if whoever is watching this gets offended, Costas was right.” I sent an unpleasant though polite email to ESPN about it and will no longer be watching PTI. I mean, if he doesn’t care who he offends, including me, why should i patronize his program. I wish there was an alternative to ESPN, quite frankly.
Its amazing to me that gun violence is a much bigger program in black communities, where used guns are being used by blacks to murder blacks, and yet black commentators like Wilbon do everything they can to blame whites and NRA members, who Whitlock claims is the “new KKK”. A black football player, who had problems with drugs, alcohol, woman and anger management, shoots his wife and himself and somehow, the “issue” is the NRA is the new KKK. FoxSports should fire him.
Reductio ad absurdum:
My father was killed in a car accident. If there were no cars, my father would still be alive today.
Someone already pointed out that if there were no knives, Nicole Brown would still be alive today.
When Jason Whitlock posits that having a gun makes it more likely for a person to escalate an argument, I would argue that knowing that the other person has a gun makes it much LESS likely you will escalate an argument whether you’re armed or not. Granted there are still sociopaths in the world.
There is so much wrong here that I feel redundant even typing about it.
How many kids die every year playing football, Bob?
I said it before and I’ll say it again: I think the reason the 2nd Amendment is now gaining popularity is because women are the ones buying guns by the truckloads. #Equality
The far left will always be against ppl being able to defend themselves, because the State is their god. But the more moms who have guns and want to keep them, the less likely the Leftists win this battle.
Geraghty’s column this morning was all about the Costas dealio. Guess I’m out of the club again.
This is the lesson of blogging: don’t disagree strongly or publicly with the ideas of fellow “conservatives.” Or you’re done. They’ll hate you for it. Stop returning emails. Etc.
protein wisdom is, I’m afraid, on its way out. Advertising is down to nearly nothing. Amazon affiliate program got canceled in CO. And the fundraisers are half of what they used to be.
I’m tempted to take the high road and say that this is the market speaking. But I know a type of central planning is involved with the right-wing opinion matrix, and there are winners and losers picked all the time, often by the same people.
Myself, I’d like to personally thank Glenn Reynolds for remaining a supporter of mine over the years. He has shown himself to be above the fray — even as on occasion I’ve disagreed with him and made that disagreement public. Again, always thinking that we were arguing issues in an effort to improve our national condition — when what it turns out we’re doing, in the vast majority of cases, is building little networks and hoping to get jobs as consultants out of the deal.
People have been trying to drive me away since at least 2004. The leftists never could. Ironically, it will be the right who does so.
There are a glut of voices out there, some far better or more persuasive than mine. Knowing this, I’m becoming content to bracket the attempts to marginalize me and just concede that, were I producing anything of value here to distinguish myself from other sites, an audience or advertisers, etc., would find me, no matter the impediments or backchannel efforts to exclude me from the club.
I know I go through these kinds of struggles a lot, but what I do takes time and effort — and has been truly geared, increasingly, toward trying to make the right see the error of its ways.
This is taboo. It is taken personally. And the overwhelming feedback I’ve gotten from it, since I was a very big player pre-2008, is that criticizing the bad advice of others on “our” side doesn’t establish a dialogue. It just bruises egos and leads to pacts.
And as I’m not really the diplomatic type, I find it difficult to perform in a way that keeps me in the good graces of those who have taken over the right messaging matrix.
So.
For some reason while reading this
…I was reminded of this.
Scroom. The truth begs nobody’s pardon.
Jason Whitlock may have amassed (so to speak) a body (so to speak) of evidence that pork rinds are destructive of brain cells than he has of anything at all relative to handguns.
The Second Amendment is limited to muskets and muzzle-loaded weapons in exactly the same way that the First Amendment is limited to quill pens and hand-cranked printing presses.
Deal with that.
In his 90-second on-air comments Sunday that have drawn criticism in cyberspace…
Evidently these people have no coffee pots, water coolers, or lunch rooms in their workplaces. ‘Cause it’s hardly just a few malcontents on the Web that have been discussing this.
Drumwaster win thread.
I tend to frame my argument for gun ownership without even mentioning the constitution. Every living creature has a right to self defense. No one makes the seal lie down and wait for the killer whale to eat it. Why should any human not be able to defend himself or herself against the predators among us?
Jeff…
I’m fairly new to this family, so pardon my audacity…
As long as there are Americans willing to fight the battles in the war to restore our freedoms and liberties, who need the intellectual ammo to sally-forth into the fray, there is a place for the Outlaw known as Jeff Goldstein.
Sam Adams never gave up, even though there were times when his Sons Of Liberty had been reduced to a few dozen members.
You owe it to The Founders to keep waging the war to preserve, protect, and defend their great gift, their legacy to us, by continuing to work to teach us just how precious freedom and liberty are. You owe a debt also to your Posterity and to all of those who will be born in here in the future.
Never Despair.
Never let the bastards get you down.
L’audace, toujours de l’audace!
Outlaw!
WOLVERINES!
FYI: Paco quote you, Jeff.
If only this were banned, a little boy would still be alive. Eh, Bob?
Pretty emphatic strtement Bob. “They would still be alive?” How does he know that?
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