-By Warner Todd Huston
A hit piece on the conservative former Red Sox star Curt Schilling in Esquire magazine last month is amazing for its myopic liberalism. The piece conflates the opinion of left-wing sports writers to how “everyone” feels about Schilling, is incredible for its tone deafness, and exhibits a complete lack of introspection by the liberal writer about his own and the sports media’s liberalism.
Written by former Al Jazeera America producer Timothy Bella, the long screed against Schilling is made up of paragraph after paragraph demeaning the star pitcher and sports commentator and seems utterly oblivious to the fact that what it says about its subject’s demeanor can be said, only with reverse political ideology, about every foaming at the mouth liberal sports commentator working today. Introspection seems to be missing from Bella’s repertoire.
There is certainly no mistaking how liberal, Al Jazeera employee Bella feels abut Schilling. He is “racist,” “transphobic,” “unrealistic,” “right-wing,” “offensive,” “bitter,” and maybe even a “Nazi.” And that is just in the first few paragraphs.
Bella also writes the entire article as if his brand of extreme leftism is a middle of the road ideology.
Take this line: “He believes his opinions to be so important that he’s willing to sabotage his entire reputation to share them.”
This assumes that Schilling’s opinions are so outside the norm that no one could possibly accept them. But, if one holds a center right ideology, that sentence could apply to a litany of left-wing liberal sports casters who daily spew one leftist trope after another as they “report” the sports news.
Then there is this line about Schilling’s show here on Breitbart.com: “He can spout off his opinions, no matter how offensive, without a hint of real debate.” And this: “That’s the only room in his house where people unquestioningly agree with him.”
This can be said of every show on ESPN. Where is the “hint of real debate” on the nearly 40-year-old, pervasively left-wing cable sports network?
This sort of myopic point of view pervades the Esquire’s piece. Every charge of extremism thrown at Schilling can easily be said of the entirety of the liberal sports media. Nowhere in the mainstream sports media is any “hint” of debate. The sports media are up and down the line filled with liberals. It is a club where no conservatives are allowed.
And, while the former Al Jazeera employee was spending his energy slamming Schilling at every opportunity, he also took time out to insist that Schilling’s own kids accept that people think their father is an “asshole.” That was nice.
After sliming Schilling’s children, Bella then asks a few liberal sports writers and players how they feel about the former Red Sox great. Guess what? They all either hate Shilling or want him to shut up. Remember hat “hint of debate,” Bella was pining or. It sure isn’t coming from his friends on the left.
Along the way, Bella gets nearly every characterization wrong. For instance, he calls the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) “far-right.” CPAC is certainly a mecca for conservatives, but it is pretty mainstream in its appeal. It is hardly “far-right.” Bella also mischaracterized several incidents that happened among conservatives, as well, such as the nature of the images of WWII historical artifacts that Schilling once shared on social media.
In the end, it is almost seems that Schilling was the first person with center right views Bella ever met because it appears that he simply hasn’t the first thought that anyone but racist, hatemongers, could possibly vote Republican.
Bella ends his piece saying that Schilling wants to punch everyone who disagrees with him in the face.
Yes, there sure isn’t any mistaking how Al Jazeera employee Timothy Bella feels about conservatives in general and Curt Schilling in particular. And hate is probably not too strong a word.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, YoungConservatives.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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