Remember when Hank Williams Jr. was a horrible human being because he analogized Obama’s golf game with John Boehner to a golf game between Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?  Of course you do; it resulted in his ‘Monday Night Football’ opener being pulled by ESPN.

That, of course, was their right, although they didn’t use similar discretion when some of their local radio hosts allowed Mike Tyson to fantasize about Sarah Palin being raped.

Where’s the reaction to Susan Sarandon calling the pope a Nazi? Perhaps you didn’t hear about that one, because she’s a Hollywood celebrity rather than a conservative country singer – and because Hollywood celebrities are usually granted full leeway to say idiotic things. In fact, Benedict served in the Hitler Youth unwillingly and was never a Nazi Party member. He deserted before the end of World War II and turned himself over to the Americans.

Now, I disagree with the Pope on a wide variety of issues: he received anti-Semitic priest Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk in 2007, he made a rather rotten speech at Auschwitz in May 2006, he was slow to respond to a British-born bishop who denied the Holocaust, and his perspective on the Middle East conflict is problematic.

Nonetheless, he has stood tall against terror on many occasions, and he has criticized in strong terms both moral relativism and radical Islam.

So what prompted the Nazi reference by Sarandon?

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NBC Sports:

Though ESPN’s decision to yank Hank Williams, Jr. from the opening theme music to Monday Night Football initially seemed to be a one-week suspension, it’s a little more permanent than that.

OK, it’s a lot more permanent than that.

ESPN has parted ways with Williams. The network announced the decision on Thursday, via John Ourand of SportsBusiness Journal.

“We have decided to part ways with Hank Williams, Jr.,” ESPN said in a statement. “We appreciate his contributions over the past years. The success of Monday Night Football has always been about the games and that will continue.”‬‬

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It was absurdly obvious Hank Williams Jr. was using a metaphor — a horribly misguided one when referencing the president of the United States, but a metaphor nonetheless, and the hysteria over this has been  jaw-dropping, calculated, phony, and ginned up. I don’t like hearing my president compared to Hitler — didn’t like it when Bush was president, don’t like it now with Obama in office — but compared to, you know, the ACTUAL comparisons we’ve seen from the Left comparing Bush to Hitler, Williams Jr. sounds pretty tame.

Anyway, my colleague Dana Loesch is one of the few who got this exactly right. This is an ESPN story, not a Hank Williams Jr. story.

And as much as I love me some “Fox and Friends,” Stewart’s opening bust is a pretty clean one.  This is why we avoid the whole “Shut Up and Sing” mentality at “Big Hollywood.”It’s just a fact that celebs can have an impact on the politics downstream from them. Sometimes that impact can be used for good and sometimes not. Do I care what Roseanne says? Yes, I do. She’s a moron but the MSM will always find her useful to create distractions and her nihilistic approach is very appealing to young people looking for a reason to not give damn about anything other than stroking their own narcissism — which means you’re pulling the lever marked “D.”

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Hank Williams Jr. was on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning and said this:

He was promptly sacked from last night’s broadcast of Monday Night Football:

Hank Williams, Jr., the voice famous for asking millions of football fans whether they’re ready for some football, has been pulled from tonight’s broadcast of “Monday Night Football” over a comment he made on Fox News this morning.

Williams, who sings the lead-in song to the game each week, criticized the president for his golf summit with House Speaker John Boehner this summer.

“It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu,” Williams told “Fox & Friends.”

USA Today, among others, picked up the quote, speculating on whether the comparison would get Williams booted from the broadcast .

This afternoon, ESPN released a statement to the affirmative:

“While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”

ESPN was fine when its Las Vegas radio affiliate joked about, and seemingly advocated for, the rape of Sarah Palin just a few weeks ago.

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There’s actually a bigger story here methinks. Cable television is starting to lose customers as people move towards Netflix Streaming and sites like Hulu that for a low monthly subscription fee offer greater flexibility at a much, much lower price. We’re also in the middle of Obama’s crippling recession and the absurd cost of cable is starting to feel less necessary, especially with all the options out there.

DHD:

Time Warner Cable plans one of the most ambitious efforts yet to combat the rising cost of sports channels: It’s preparing to introduce a low-cost service tier that won’t include expensive networks such as ESPN. Time Warner Cable has said that it’s exploring the “TV Essentials” package that would cost between $30-$40 a month.

We’re all tired of paying for channels we never watch and cable’s monopoly is starting to crack. (more…)

[Ed. Note: I just want to welcome Dan Riehl to Big Hollywood. If I have anything to say about it, you'll be seeing a lot more of him . -- JN]

Depending upon your age, you might remember charging up a hill, air gun, not air guitar, in hand - there may even have been a friend at your side. But there was an enemy out there somewhere in front of you and you, soldier, were going to take him out.

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Does that gut wrenching, rock American-hard, instinct still exist today? Initial sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops suggests it does.

Call of Duty: Black Ops destroyed previous video-game sales records, ringing up an unprecedented $650 million in retail sales within five days of release, according to Activision Blizzard Inc. More than half of the game’s take, about $360 million, occurred on Nov. 9, its first day out.

What’s going on here? This can’t be right! Don’t these people know anything? Don’t they … watch movies, for heaven’s sake? No one should be down for this type of thing. Where is the moral equivalence? How can the only greeninvolved be some male, or female, grunt’s digitalized fatigues? Quick, someone call the thought police!!

The television ad accompanying the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops opens with a woman in a suit walking through a war zone and blasting away with an automatic rifle. Over the next 60 seconds it shows adults from all walks off life – a university student, a balding concierge, a uniformed short order cook – smiling broadly and firing rocket launchers, shotguns, and pistols at one another. It ends with a bold and potentially controversial statement: “There’s a soldier in all of us.”

Never mind. They’re here. Enter Skip Bayless of ESPN. Dude! Do you kiss your Mother with that tongue, or just cluck it when some sports star, or maybe even an entertainer, does something not so PC? And I don’t mean PC, as opposed to PlayStation, or for the Wii. “Call of Duty: Black Ops” made $650 million in the first five days. That’s only 3 or more times what your average successful Hollywood film might bring in 5 days. One can only imagine how well it might have done were it in 3-D. (more…)

Nidal “Gary” Hassan – All-American boy was haunted by memories of Gitmo, ‘Nam, Hiroshima INEVITABLY, ANOTHER SOLDIER SNAPS Distraught pacifist conscientious objector tormented by horrors of war, as far as you know Newsroom experts: stress, violence, stupidity, tragedy a way of life for GIs Former M*A*S*H stars say it’s finally time to disarm the military Hollywood insiders: Sean Penn early favorite for lead in planned Oliver Stone biopic

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