Americans love to talk sports. Polite Americans don't talk religion. So when those two things meet, the news media has no idea what to make of it. Unfortunately for journalists, sports and religion - Christianity in particular - seem to be publicly mingling more often these days. Some star athletes are more outspoken in their faith, while many others regularly find themselves in need of spiritual, if not legal, redemption.
The first rule of dinner-table conversation is no hot talk about politics or religion. Apparently there’s a rule regarding the discussion of religion during political talk shows, too.
Conan O'Brien Friday humorously took on rumors surrounding his future on NBC's "Tonight Show."
During his opening monologue, O'Brien addressed the chatter concerning Jay Leno and himself by listing a number of really preposterous rumors including:
Much as what Leno did the previous night, O'Brien also took shots at NBC (video embedded below the fold with complete rumor list):
Time TV writer James Poniewozik wrote on his blog Tuned In on Wednesday that he was impressed that Brit Hume wasn’t backing down on his Tiger Woods remarks, but he really wasn’t accepting Hume’s claim that talking about Jesus is much more controversial than talking about Buddha:
Who stole Bonnie Erbe’s chair? U.S. News & World Report writer John Aloysius Farrell (a longtime reporter for The Boston Globe) is the latest media liberal to rip Brit Hume for being "creepy" and saying his incredibly "stupid" piece about how Tiger Woods should try Christianity.
<p>Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller, no Bible-thumping <a href="/blogs/ken-shepherd/2008/12/08/newsweeks-miller-plays-armchair-theologian-defend-same-sex-marriage" target="_blank">fundamentalist</a> she, doesn't understand why <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%202:1-3&version=KJV" target="_blank">the heathen rage</a> against Brit Hume. From <a href="http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/05/don-t-be-sur... target="_blank">her January 5 post </a>at the magazine's The Gaggle blog:</p><blockquote><p>I'm not at all sure why the liberal left is always so shocked that evangelical Christians want other people to become Christians. The outrage that followed Fox News anchor Brit Hume's plea to Tiger Woods to find Jesus has been totally disproportionate to the statement itself. The usual suspects—MSNBC and The Huffington Post—and indeed the whole liberal left blogosphere leapt all over Hume for his arrogance and conservatism. </p><p>[...]</p><p>The word "evangelical" comes from the Greek word for gospel, or "good news." Evangelical Christians are those who want to spread the good news. They aren't pretending to believe in salvation through Jesus Christ. They actually do believe that it—and yours, and mine—comes through him. </p></blockquote>
On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann twice claimed that FNC contributor and former anchor Brit Hume’s public recommendation that Tiger Woods convert to Christianity to help solve his personal problems amounted to trying to "threaten" Woods into conversion. Previewing a segment focusing on Hume’s Monday appearance on The O’Reilly Factor to clarify his words from Fox News Sunday, Olbermann teased the show: "Brit Hume and the attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity. He does it again."
Olbermann also plugged the segment before a commercial break: "Brit Hume has tried to force Tiger Woods into becoming a Christian again. That in a moment."
The Countdown host introduced the segment, contending again that Hume had tried to "threaten" Woods into becoming a Christian: "Brit Hume of Fox News has not only not apologized for his bizarre on-air attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity, he`s actually gone further."
Notably, in December 2005, Olbermann distorted the words of former FNC host John Gibson from Gibson's radio interview on the Janet Parshal Show and compared the program to "an Al-Qaeda show on Al-Jazeera talking about infidels."
On Monday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann slammed FNC's Brit Hume for advising Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity while appearing on yesterday's Fox News Sunday panel, where Hume has regularly appeared for years and contributed his opinions to the discussion in a way that differs from his manner of moderating discussions in a more neutral way when he used to host Special Report with Brit Hume. Although Olbermann later backed away from likening Hume to radical Muslims, during the show's opening teaser, Olbermann did make such a comparison: "An organization proselytizing, trying to force others to convert to its faith alone, you know, just like Islamic extremists."
At one point as the Countdown host plugged a segment in which he discussed Hume with author Dan Savage, the words "Hume's Holy War" were shown at the bottom of the screen as Olbermann spoke: "So Brit Hume tells Tiger Woods he can be forgiven, but only if he converts to Christianity. Fox has given up all pretense, hasn’t it?"
As Olbermann and Savage went on to make fun of Christianity, the MSNBC host at one point quipped: "'WWJDIHS,' which is: What would Jesus do if he strayed?" Savage brought up fringe religious figure Fred Phelps, who has become infamous for holding protests at the funerals of American soldiers, and lumped him in with Hume, Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer. Savage:
<p>Tolerance is a virtue the Left loves to trumpet, except when the intolerable is set forward. In this instance, the intolerable is a gentle Christian evangelistic overture to a celebrity caught in sexual scandal.</p><p>Yesterday, Fox News analyst and professing Christian Brit Hume expressed his spiritual concern for Tiger Woods and urged the golf superstar to turn to Christianity for grace and forgiveness during a segment of the January 3 edition of "Fox News Sunday." </p><p>For that, Hume is being lambasted by some liberal bloggers, including <a href="http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2010/01/03/the-right-rev-brit-hume... target="_blank">Atlanta Jounal-Constitution's Jay Bookman</a> who unleashed this venom in a brief three paragraph blog post yesterday afternoon:</p><blockquote>
The director of the bachelor party gone bad movie "The Hangover" thinks Tiger Woods can regain his image by appearing in the film's sequel.
Welcome to the new American dream: cheat on your wife, destroy your career, lose millions of dollars, go from being one the most popular athletes in the universe to a public laughing stock, and end up in a blockbuster Hollywood movie.
With this apparently in mind, Todd Phillips told HollywoodScoop.com last week that Woods appearing in the sequel to one of this year's top grossing films will "help him regain his image" (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 2:30, vulgarity alert):
Just how far has Tiger Woods' popularity dropped?
Well, the good folks at Disneyland have added a joke about the embattled golf star in their production of "Aladdin -- A Musical Spectacular."
As the Genie explained the rules concerning wishes he will grant to Aladdin, he said:
Rule number two: Just like Dr. Phil, I can't make somebody fall in love with you. I'm only saying that to you once. I had to say it like fifteen times to Tiger Woods.
The crowd in this video clearly liked the jab (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 1:09, h/t Los Angeles Times):
Despite a growing sex scandal, golfer Tiger Woods has been named by members of the Associated Press as Athlete of the Decade.
According to AP Sports Enterprise Editor John Affleck:
The Tiger Woods scandal if you will, the, all of the, all of the personal turmoil that Tiger has been through in the past few weeks really had very little effect on the voting. Voting began a few days before his accident, and he had already established a lead, and he maintained that lead, and it even grew a little bit I think in the past couple of weeks.
Imagine that. His lead GREW after the scandal hit (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon):