Editorial, 'Quick Takes from the Editor's Desk' -- The Le Flore County Guardian, October 7, 2011

ESPN took exception to Hank's rowdy comment over at Fox News that a golf outing between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner was like Hitler golfing with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

That would have been a pretty interesting golf outing considering that Hitler died in 1945 and Benjamin Netanyahu had yet to be born. So, okay, on the surface it's kind of a dumb statement, but the point Williams Jr. was attempting to make was that Obama and Boehner are not soul-mates when it comes to political philosophies. He didn't actually call the president Hitler, unlike so many deranged lefties actually did say about George W. Bush during his presidency, but the damage was done. You just can't say things like that and expect to be taken seriously ... on a SPORTS NETWORK?

Williams now says he, his theme song, and all his rowdy friends "are outta here" when it comes to MNF after a 20-year run. He claims it was his decision to leave, not ESPN's, because "you (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech."

Putting aside the fact that there really isn't an absolute freedom of speech when you are being paid by a TV network, the First Amendment applying solely to a prohibition against government regulating what we say, Williams has a point that ESPN pulled him because of something he said on another network. Bravo for him telling the stuffed shirts at ABC/ESPN to go jump. They should stick to simple things like football.

Perhaps the best quote of the young political season:

In Massachusetts, Democratic front-runner Elizabeth Warren, in a primary debate, was asked what she did to pay for college, took a shot at the incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Scott Brown. "I kept my clothes on," she said.

That's not the quote.

Brown, who 29 years ago DID pose nude for a Cosmopolitian centerfold for the money, was asked for his response to Warren's statement:

"Thank God!" he said.

" ... one group of thieves might have set the standard last week by stealing a 50-foot-long bridge. State police said the bridge was stolen between Sept. 27 and Wednesday in North Beaver Township. The theft was discovered shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday. The bridge, around 20 feet wide, was in a wooded area along a railroad line in the township’s Covert’s Crossing region.

A release by state police did not include the name of the bridge’s owner, and trooper Darren Vizyak, the investigating officer, was not available for comment Wednesday afternoon. Township Supervisor Paul Henry said the bridge was not owned by the municipality and was not to have been used as a township road span.

The bridge was made out of corrugated steel and valued at approximately $100,000. Police said the thief or thieves used a cutting torch to dismantle the bridge where it sat.

How does something like this happen? Were law enforcement officials sleeping? Was it an "inside job"?

And how much more of this sort of thing has to take place before we demand that government at all levels quit trying to make the rest of us feel like criminals and start going after the real thing?