CaneFan79
Senior
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
- Messages
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"Leonard Shapiro, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser on Sean Taylor (2007)
Washington Post sportswriters Leonard Shapiro, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser were quick to blame the victim after Sean Taylor was murdered in ’07.
After Taylor was murdered in his home in late 2007, Shapiro, Wilbon and Kornheiser went out of their way to pat themselves on the back for not being surprised. Shapiro: “Could anyone honestly say they never saw this coming? … Clearly, [Taylor] seemed to embrace the thug image on and off the field, and the fact that he rarely spoke to members of the media only enhanced his reputation as a moody, enigmatic athlete we hardly ever got to know” (msnbc.com, 11/27/07). If you “hardly ever” got to know him, then how exactly can you be ‘not surprised’ at his fate?
In a chat done after Taylor was shot, but before he died, Wilbon wrote that “There’s a ton of speculation about the details of his condition and the details of the incident, but this isn’t a blog and we’re not going to get into wild guessing and speculating here” (Washington Post, 11/26/07). He apparently forgot what he had just written, considering he then proceeded to condemn Taylor despite (admittedly) not knowing what he was talking about. Wilbon: “[T]his latest news isn’t surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn’t random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. … We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later” (Washington Post, 11/26/07).
On Pardon the Interruption the night of Taylor’s death, Kornheiser brought up how his daughter teared up following the news of Taylor’s death, and lamented not being able to feel the same way. Kornheiser: “[Y]ou and I are cynical, and we’re cynical by trade. And we know that in the coming weeks, there’s going to be reporting in the Washington Post, and reporting in the Miami Herald, that’s going to peel away all the layers of this, and some of it is going to get very dicey.”
Overall, all three began speculating wildly about a player none of them knew. As it turns out, Taylor’s death was not the result of his lifestyle catching up with him."
Yeah, I will watch PTI when it is like one of those World of Tanks Super Bowl commercials...Love to see a M-4 Sherman tank blow through the set, it's hull mounted machine cutting them to ribbons, then watching its treads ground them into piles of goo...
