Sports and politics are an uneasy mix, but ESPN's "The Truth" columnist Howard Bryant sees no conflict from his end-zone perch at the back of ESPN's biweekly magazine. His column for the December 7 edition tackled a mini-scandal about the Pentagon paying for patriotic displays at professional ball games: "Are You Ready for Some Patriotism?" Bryant went beyond genuine concerns over the sub-rosa marketing by the Pentagon to criticize any such respectful acts as pandering to police. Going full p.c., Bryant even argued that Veterans Day was a slap in the face to American Indians.
Pentagon
ESPN Writer Laments Pro Sports 'Pandering' Tributes to Cops, Vets After Ferguson, Sees 'Fear, Nationalism'
By Clay Waters | November 27, 2015 | 11:54 AM EST 
By Curtis Houck | August 27, 2015 | 1:51 AM EDT
A story that the networks would have almost assuredly covered if George W. Bush was still President, the major broadcast networks failed to cover on Wednesday a front-page New York Times report that a Pentagon inspector general is investigating the possibility that intelligence assessments on the U.S. fight against ISIS may have be altered to reflect a better picture than reality allowed.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 25, 2014 | 7:53 AM EST
Jim Miklaszewski kept it relatively diplomatic, declaring "there's something amiss here." But Joe Scarborough was blunt: "boy, that's damning," said the Morning Joe host.
They were characterizing Miklaszewski's description of the Obama administration's "micromanagement" of the Department of Defense in which communication flows only in one direction: from the White House to the Pentagon. On today's Morning Joe, NBC's Pentagon correspondent reported that former SecDefs Robert Gates and Leon Panetta had recently "lambaste[d]" that micromanagement.
By Mark Finkelstein | January 25, 2013 | 7:37 AM EST
Joe Scarborough was a voice in the politically-correct wilderness this morning on the subject of women in combat. On today's Morning Joe, as other panelists voiced unerring if occasionally cautious support for the Pentagon's decision to permit women in combat, Scarborough sounded a stern warning note.
"I'll be damned; if we find out that the Pentagon is lowering standards for politically-correct reasons, then you know what? Then the blood of dead Americans in future battles will be on their hands." View the video after the jump.