RUSH: There is an Internet sports site called SB Nation. I think it’s called SB Nation. I’m not sure. That’s close enough. The other day they were covering, on their website, a playoff game in the NCAA tournament, they posted a picture of eight or nine “white guy” fans who were cheering their team’s victory. This blog posted a picture of these guys, and made fun of ’em for being “too white.” They it looked like “spastics” the way they were cheering, and why were they even there in the first place?
I saw the picture. These guys were just enjoying the game. Their team was winning, or did win. These guys were in their fifties and sixties, and they were just excoriated, laughed at, impugned, and mocked for cheering in a way that was “just too white.” Now we go to last night on CBS Road to the Final Four pregame show, panel discussion before Marquette-Miami. The cohost Greg Anthony said to coanalyst Doug Gottlieb, “I think we’re gonna have four terrific games tonight, Doug. I think they’re gonna be pretty evenly matched, as it should be for the Sweet 16.”
GOTTLIEB: I don’t know why you guys ask me. I’m just here to bring diversity to this set here, give the kind of white man’s perspective on things.
ANTHONY: Okay.
GOTTLIEB: The point guard position, you know?
OTHER HOSTS: (sparse laughter)
RUSH: There’s sparse laughter because they were embarrassed. There are four guys on the set. Doug Gottlieb says, “I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m just I guess just to bring the white man’s perspective on things.” He says he’s the point guard, meaning… Now, why would he say that? How polarized are we? How sensitized? Here’s the “white guy” on the CBS set who has to essentially say, “I don’t know why I’m here. Maybe it’s just to give the white man’s perspective on things.”
Now, amazingly… He was cracking a joke. He was trying to be funny, but still the sensitization that this guy has to feel to make that joke, and then he makes the joke, and nobody thought it was funny. They got livid out there, and last night on CBS Road to the Final Four during the halftime show, they called in Chuck Barkley, and they wanted Chuck to offer input, and this is what Chuck said…
BARKLEY: I know this has nothing to do with the game. I want to say something about Doug Gottlieb. He made a joke earlier tonight and people are going crazy, all those idiots on Twitter — which I would never, ever do. Listen: Me, Kenny and Greg out there — and Greg Gumbel — did not take that personally. So all you people at home who got no life who are talking about Doug Gottlieb, get a life. It is over with, and it’s no big deal.
RUSH: Apparently there was outrage out there on Twitter that Gottlieb would ever say, “I’m just the white guy here with my perspective on things,” and Chuck wanted everybody to know that it wasn’t any big deal to the black guys on the set.