New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers can read a defense, but he recently got caught flat-footed by journalists.
Whoopi Goldberg sings from the far-Left hymnal, so almost anything she says will be accepted or ignored by the very same press.
The difference couldn’t be more striking. It’s also terrible given our divided times, and it fuels our unsustainable, two-tier society.
Rodgers, whose refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine caused an uproar during the pandemic, often defies media narratives. He leaned into that spirit during a Jan. 2 chat on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”
The subject? The Jeffrey Epstein files.
Rodgers, whose NFL season ended on Week One after rupturing his left Achilles tendon, referred to the list’s potential release on McAfee’s show.
“A lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are hoping that doesn’t come out,” Rodgers said.
Stop the presses!
The media went into overdrive, skewering Rodgers for his fact-free suggestion that Kimmel should be personally worried about the contents. Story after story. Outlet after outlet. Kimmel joined the fray, and understandably so, knowing the media machine had his back and he had been personally besmirched.
Jimmy Kimmel calls Aaron Rodgers, “Karen Rodgers” pic.twitter.com/fIrkyZzZnx
— OutKick (@Outkick) January 9, 2024
Finally, McAfee vowed to cut ties with Rodgers following the media melee. One comment from a quarterback caused all of the above.
And, ultimately, Rodgers was wrong. He misused his media pulpit although the punishment hardly fit the “crime.” Even if some of his recent statements were more accurate, that initial comment deserved scrutiny.
Aaron Rodgers response to Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue demanding an apology from Aaron
-Aaron reminds everyone that Kimmel declared that the unvaccinated should not receive treatment
-Kimmel said derogatory and false statements about safe drugs ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine… pic.twitter.com/rhoiox2GVJ— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) January 9, 2024
Now, let’s see what Goldberg has said in recent days.
On Jan. 8, the “Sister Act” star ranted against the usual suspects – Donald Trump and the GOP in toto.
You’re worried that you can’t pay your bill? Wait until the other guy becomes president, and you won’t have to worry about it because you’ll be in some camp somewhere because that’s his promise. His promise to us is he’s going to force people to do his bidding. That’s what he said. I’m going to be good on day one, and I’m going to turn into this other person.
She wasn’t done.
Women don’t have reproductive rights anymore over their own bodies. Why? So they can have power over women. Why is French and Mandarin and Spanish being taken away from our public schools? So that we can be a monolithic — a monolingual society and can’t compete globally. The Republicans are intentionally dumbing down our electorate, erasing history, so that past can become prologue, and so they can remain in power!
That’s unhinged, of course. The Republicans aren’t in power. The Left is erasing history by tearing down statues and removing “dead white men” from the culture. Fact-checking her comments, though, is pointless. It’s like showing a photograph of the earth from space to a Flat Earther.
What’s the point?
Except Goldberg was just warming up.
You want everybody to have the ability to say how they feel, what they want, to move forward, or you don’t. Or do you want somebody who says, ‘I’m going to be, on day one, I’m going to be a dictator.’ Who says it to you, tells you, “I’m going to put you people away. I’m going to take all the journalists, I’m going to take all the gay folks, and I’ll move you all around and disappear you. If that’s the country you want, you know who to vote for. If that’s not the country you want, you have to make a decision.”
Where to begin? Why even bother?
It’s fact-free commentary that slanders a large portion of the country, and not just Trump, in the cruelest way possible. There’s no concrete evidence behind anything she says, and Trump had four full years in office and did nothing remotely like what she describes.
If he’s Hitler 2.0 his patience is remarkable.
It’s unprofessional, uncivilized and, coming from an august platform like ABC with a news division, wildly inappropriate. Plus, it makes the political divide in this country worse.
Except the media heard it all and yawned. No response. No outrage. No fact-checks.
Nothing.
Rodgers endured a week-plus of condemnation. Goldberg gets a pass.
Some conservative media outlets rightly reported on it. They didn’t demand Goldberg be censored for her rant. That’s not the point.
Free speech matters. So does free debate. When a major media figure says what Goldberg did it should be called out, corrected or at the very least addressed.
Not in a two-tier America, which we have at the dawn of 2024.
MAGA-friendly protesters are thrown in jail for modest offenses. Christians get dragged from their homes while their kids watch in horror.
Storm the White House for the Palestine cause? No problem.
Say the “n-word” in a private conversation, as Morgan Wallen did? Watch your career implode overnight.
Use the “n-word” repeatedly in text messages, as First Son Hunter Biden did? No ramifications, unless you call his burgeoning art career a consequence.
That’s just a sampling of the new two-tier landscape.
The Goldberg vs. Rodgers divide may seem modest by comparison, but the implications are profound. Just imagine 10+ months of Goldberg’s rhetoric on the body politic, and much worse coming from MSNBC and CNN and other far-Left media outlets.
Now, consider an improbable Trump victory on Election Day. What happens next? Do you want to end up in a “camp?” If not, what’s the next logical step?
Those “mostly peaceful” protests circa 2020 may seem quaint by comparison. The media giving Goldberg a pass will play a role in that nightmare scenario.