RUSH: In the past couple of days discussing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the ensuing controversy, which, do you know what the latest with that is? Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski, the coach of Duke basketball team, refused to comment on it. The NCAA’s demanded to pull out of there and the Final Four, whatever’s going on there, I guess it’s in Indiana. I’m sorry for not knowing. I don’t follow basketball, college basketball. So if I appear ignorant, it’s because I am and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Anyway, I happened to be watching my monitors today as part of the show prep routine, and I never have the sound on, cause it’s just irritating to me, so I look up there, look at CNN, and there’s a picture of Coach K, and there’s a feverish discussion going on with a has-been punter 
for the Minnesota Vikings, Chris Kluwe. Kluwe is a big supporter of gay marriage, so I said, “Hmm, this must be about Indiana.” So I turned the sound on. You know what they were doing?
They were giving Coach K the business for not commenting on it. Coach K said he wasn’t gonna comment on this, and they were giving him the business for not saying anything. I just printed it out, right here’s the story. “CNN’s Carol Costello attacked Duke head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski for refusing to weigh in on the new religious freedom law in Indiana. … Krzyzewski didn’t come down one way or the other on the law, he simply refused to address it.”
But, see, this is the new statism. Because he didn’t fall in line with other sports figures condemning the law, CNN does a whole segment attacking him for not saying anything. So this is the double way that they pressure you. If you say the unacceptable thing, then they destroy you. If you don’t say what they want you to say because you saying it would add ammo to their point of view — and of course Coach K, one of the most highly respected basketball coaches ever, the anti-Indiana forces would love to have Coach K on their side.
He didn’t come down on any side and so he has to be taken out for that reason alone. The intimidation in stories like this and the veiled defamation, by the way, cuts both ways. If you don’t say what they want you to say — and to them, you matter — they’re gonna come after you. If you say what they don’t want to hear, they’ll come after you for that, too.
I saw this written about at TheRightScoop.com. They make a great point here. For crying out loud, Duke’s on the verge of going all the way to the NCAA championship. That’s what Krzyzewski’s thinking about. They play this weekend and this is the last thing probably on his mind.
What head coaches do in any sport is take the heat off the players. They try to take as much media attention off the players and onto themselves as they can, for obvious reasons, to depressurize the players, to keep them focused, any number of things. Krzyzewski knew if he weighed in on this, didn’t matter how, didn’t matter what, that would be the only story about Duke and being in the championship in the tournament. What Krzyzewski said would supersede everything. He simply didn’t want Duke or his team or his players or himself anywhere in the middle of this story, one way or the other.
But you see, it doesn’t work that way because Carol Costello representing the forces of doom here, the Stalinist type forces of doom demanding that Coach K speak up and demanding that he say what they want him to say. They’re going after him practically the same as if he had spoken up in favor of the law. But he didn’t. He didn’t say a word about it, and, in fact, said he didn’t want to address it.