White House visit stirring up Patriot haters
Wins, Trump fuel anger
Sports and politics deliver a combustible mix.
On April 19, a mere 242 years to the day the original New England patriots fired the shot heard ’round the world, the NFL’s ultimate revolutionaries will be honored at the White House.
Don’t fire the hate tweets until you see the whites of Tom Brady’s eyes.
If we’re to believe CNN, President Trump may be operating out of the Kremlin by then.
Bill Belichick will speak from the presidential lectern. Millions on Twitter will post: “If only …”
Boston rests in the waning days of a 21st-century sports Camelot. Tom and Gisele are its JFK and Jackie. We can’t wait until little Benji makes it official by playing hide-and-seek under the Oval Office desk.
Several Patriots — including a few no longer with the team — said they would not take part in any celebration at the Trump White House.
Each will receive “Courage” awards from ESPN. The mythical storyline of the Patriots’ “Trump problem” persists. Those faux fans who could no longer support the team because of its ties to Trump still loaded up on baskets of Super Bowl LI swag like the rest of us.
It might be time to upgrade that bumper sticker on the Subaru.
“Love trumps hate. The Patriots dominate everything else.”
Sports and politics were linked 2,785 years ago. The ancient Greek city states invented the Olympics, in part, to help settle their differences without having to go to war. The athletes were all nude and all male. No one dared kneel during the national anthem.
The dance between sports and politics continued — thankfully, with clothes. It waltzed in Berlin during the 1936 Olympics. It raged when Muhammad Ali and others used their stature to protest the Vietnam War and the state of racial relations in the U.S. in the 1960s.
It boogied when the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team won the Cold War at Lake Placid. It did the Macarena as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry lauded “Manny Ortez” for his contributions to the 2004 Red Sox.
Robert Kraft flies on Air Force One after spending the weekend at Trump’s Southern White House. Trump and Brady are quasi-BFFs. Belichick wrote Trump a fan letter before the 2016 election — we think.
Then FBI director James Comey threw Trump under the Moscow express, inexplicably voicing his Patriotsphobia. Comey went full David Tyree on the president. The FBI director said he “hates” the Patriots, in part, because they represent “sustained excellence.” It’s reassuring that the nation’s top cop is turned off by the concept of continued greatness.
Thankfully he’s not a Jets fan. We’d like the FBI — which found Brady’s stolen jerseys in Mexico — to get it right more than four times a year.
The State Run Media playbook on athletes and politics is simple:
Athletes who lean to the left are intelligent and compassionate, and show a depth of character that t ranscends sports.
Athletes who lean to the right are uncaring, jingoistic dopes who don’t pay enough taxes.
This hypocrisy rings from Morrissey Boulevard, to Brighton, Bristol, New York and beyond.
Was any athlete who supported Hillary Clinton ever asked to explain her policy failures or deceitful statements? Not on my internet. Yet, Brady was quickly labeled a coward (and worse) because he refused to answer for and denounce Trump’s fast array of zany tweets and statements.
No doubt Brady will be in store for much worse in Washington next month. Such is life when you win a fifth Super Bowl.
Bill Speros (aka Obnoxious Boston Fan) co-hosts the Obnoxious Boston Show with Meredith Gorman at noon Mondays on Herald Radio. He Tweets @RealOBF and can be reached at bsperos1@ gmail.com.