Reader J wants to nominate Johnathan Capehart as idiot of the week for his piece suggesting that Condi Rice replace Roger Goodell.
I don’t follow the NFL much but from what I’ve seen she’d be about an even trade for the moron’s moron Goodell. Her experience being a toady and patsy for Bush would make her an excellent pick to take over from the ultimate corporate reptile, Goodell.
So maybe Capehart is right? I link, you decide.
Hawes
It’s not like the NFL goes around involving us in land wars in Asia. It would keep her out of trouble and confined to ESPN, so I don’t see the harm.
And Harriet Myers or Alberto Gonzalez can become Lead Counsel for the NFL, since they spent all that time around a guy with a head trauma.
am
What an incomprehensibly stupid suggestion. If they want a woman, Amy Trask, Dawn Aponte, or Rita LeBlanc actually have job experience in football.
GWB would be a better suggestion.
namekarB
We train soldiers to kill and then when they become civilians we are aghast when one uses that lethal training. We train little children to grow up honing their skills in a violent sport and then are aghast when they resort to violence off the field. Sowing and reaping.
Perhaps Commissioner John Woo could write a legal brief justifying special renditioning of spouses
Keith G
I tacked this idea onto a older open thread, but it belongs here, it seems.
I just finished listening to a person on the radio explain away Janay Rice’s defense of her husband as the type of all too familiar special pleadings commonly heard from emotionally confused women who have been battered by their partners. Before that, I heard Janay’s words from earlier today. She was steady and seemed thoughtful….and a bit angry.
Should others give her the agency to realistically feel that her husband and she have been grievously wronged by the process?
And have they?
edit Defense is not the best word to use. She did acknowledge the seriousness of that terrible event and that it was very wrong.
kindness
Well the only success the Cleveland Browns are ever going to see is if they invade Grenada. Hey, it worked for Reagan.
slag
Nobody could’ve predicted what that elevator tape would show.
BGinCHI
For all the gnashing of teeth about Goodell (who I good give a shit about one way or the other), isn’t it really the owners who make the culture of the NFL? Would Goodell do anything they didn’t put him up to?
Just curious.
PhoenixRising
Yeah, a league that is almost ready for an openly gay player would be best managed by a closeted lesbian with authoritarian leanings. Love.
Patrick
Mr Capehart, what qualifications does Ms. Rice have to run the NFL? She was run over by other people in the Bush administration and thus had no influence there or over the messy Iraq war. How the hell do you know that she won’t run over by other people running the NFL? NFL needs a leader, not a push over.
What’s next – Dick Cheney to run the NHL?
Keith G
@Patrick: I don’t think that his heart would be in it.
Betty Cracker
I’m with Hawes; it might be good diversionary occupational therapy that would keep her from greater mischief in a truly consequential role. Condi Rice isn’t stupid, and she seems to understand football a lot better than she ever understood modern international relations and 21st century US foreign policy.
In fact, I suspect Condi Rice wouldn’t have made nearly such a hash of her role in government if she’d served the GHWB administration rather than Dim Son’s. She specialized in Soviet studies, and her tragic mistake was thinking she could graft wingnut Cold War truisms onto the Middle East. She’d be unlikely to make that mistake as NFL commissioner, plus her expertise in Kremlinology might come in handy in that setting.
SatanicPanic
Why not? I’m hoping the NFL is doomed anyway.
Trollhattan
“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”
The woman should never be allowed around decent people, or the NFL for that matter.
Eric U.
@Betty Cracker: on 9/11, she was scheduled to address congress on a resurrection of the reagan cold war era “Star Wars” initiative. If she ever gets into government again, she will probably spend the first year of office resurrecting the Strangelovian “mine shaft gap” inititative
Citizen_X
@Hawes:
Yet.
Hobbes
I can think of another member of team Bush who would do a heck of a job.
judge crater
@BGinCHI: Right. The billionaire owners only care about their own prestige. Goodell is a flak-catcher and a mouthpiece for them. Newer, bigger stadiums and skyboxes are their priorities, not the well being of the players and their families.
Villago Delenda Est
This would be pretty much the equivalent of proposing appointing Joachim von Ribbentrop as President of the Bundesliga
shortstop
I never thought Rice was serious when she went around saying she wanted to be NFL commissioner. I always assumed it was an attempt to make a certain type of poorly educated white man like her better.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
Your comment is excellent.
I don’t think she did a great job as Secretary of State for Bush the Lesser, but she could do quite well as NFL Commissioner.
srv
I would rather have GW as commissioner than Condi.
He at least has an excuse for being incurious. Giving her the job would be like giving the cold fusion guys a Nobel.
Question for you dry cleaning experts. I bought some chairs with olefin fabric covered seat pads. Interior is 100% polyester fiber. They have the cat hairs. Am allergic. Can these be dry cleaned? Thx.
geg6
@Keith G:
My comment in response is in that thread. I won’t comment again because it won’t be so temperate this time. Go back and read it.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Sorry, Betty, but this assumes facts that are not in evidence. In fact, the evidence points to just the opposite.
Seanly
Wasn’t this bandied about in 2007 or 08? I know I’ve seen it before…
Yes, from 2006 Idiot likes football so make her NFL commissioner
WTF? Can I get LA Times to do a report on how I should be head of NASA because I like Star Trek?
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Keith G: I saw what you did there.
Chris I.
You know, I think Condi as the next NFL commissioner isn’t far-fetched at all.
Remember, she recently became one of the first two women invited to join the notoriously racist, sexist and aristocratic Augusta National Golf Club (host of The Masters). She’s an experienced lackey for plutocrats and war criminals. That’s perfect job training for being an NFL commissioner. I’m sure the owners see her as “one of the good ones.”
And the League would trumpet her appointment: “See? We do so care about women and minorities! She’s a two-fer! So you fans should just shut up and buy our shit and pay for our stadiums. (Condi, here’s $44 million per. Try to look busy, sweetie.)”
Pure PR, obviously. But it’s the same reductive mindset that led McCain & the GOP to pick Sarah Palin. “Hillary got lots of votes? Well, let’s find a Republican with ladyparts and stick her on the ballot. The rubes will never know the difference.”
The .01% think most Americans are idiots. I wish they were wrong.
Dog On Porch
I went on record yesterday saying Goodell is toast. I later nominated Amy Trask as his worthy successor.
GW Bush considered the presidency a stepping stone to the job he really wanted, and was qualified for– representing MLB owners interests as the game’s “commissioner”.
By 2008, MLB owners didn’t dare consider it. Not GW. He had discredited himself.
Certain interests are at this very minute itching for more war in the mideast. Probably most NFL owners. The question is how tone deaf and arrogant are they? Could they be so stupid as to turn to Condeleeza Rice to represent them, in their moment of need, even as the dogs of war are beginning to howl?
As a longtime, lifetime fan of the NFL, take my word for it– the answer is “yes”.
Heliopause
There are plenty of things to take issue with regarding Roger Goodell, but on what basis do you call him a “moron’s moron?” And what experience does Condi Rice have holding anybody accountable for anything?