Criticism of Musburger unwarranted

“When I nod my head, you hit it.” — Moe, from The Three Stooges

IT COMES flying at us, all day, all night, every day. We’re surrounded. To the bell tower! Sanctuary! The best we can do is distribute numbers, like in the deli section at the supermarket.

1. Brent Musburger —

I never have liked the hyperbolic, self-serving content of Musburger’s TV and radio work. Long before CBS had enough of him, 22 years ago, he regularly was identified here as a dare on the better senses. Also, I’m a born, raised and reminded feminist. I have two sisters, no brothers; two daughters, no sons.

But of Alabama QB A.J. McCarron and girlfriend Katherine Webb, during Monday’s national championship on ESPN, Musburger said nothing — nothing — wrong.

If he was guilty of anything it was of being corny, the way uncles at Thanksgiving tease the teens at the table by saying, “You must have to beat the boys/girls back with a stick.”

“Aw, cut it out, Uncle Brent. And please pass the gravy.”

Musburger noted McCarron’s girlfriend, a 23-year-old Miss Alabama, is stunning.

“Wow, I’m telling you quarterbacks, you always get the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman, wow!

“If you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throwing in the backyard with pop.”

Musburger reprised a harmless, 90-year-old American folk axiom: The QB always gets the pretty girl.

For crying out loud, in a 1935 Popeye cartoon, Olive Oyl sings, “You’ve gotta be a football hero, to get along with a beautiful girl.”

But the media, conditioned to pounce on some things while giving others a complete pass — most in the news media first cautiously weigh social, political, ethnic, racial and religious components (real and imagined), based on their perceived personal risk — determined Musburger is a lascivious old man.

Nonsense. You wanna hear sexist, objectifying spiels on ESPN? Watch the ESPY Awards. The cheap, sexual stuff comes scripted.

How come the news media never have issued a peep of protest when ESPN proudly announces its latest deal with some rapper whose commercial success includes vulgar boasts to regularly use and abuse young women? Not a peep.

ESPN’s typical of Big Media in that it overreacts, underreacts or doesn’t react, based on considerations beyond or beneath right vs. wrong. Thus, ESPN seldom comes close to getting it right. In this case it should have politely responded that Musburger said nothing wrong, thus those demanding his contrition — or termination — should take a hike.

But ESPN never has been able to present anything into proper context, thus it went with, “The commentary in this instance went too far, and Brent understands that.”

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