Can I be on Hank Williams Jr.'s side while completely disagreeing with him?
Nutshell: last week while appearing on "Fox & Friends," Williams made some comments that appeared to compare President Obama with Adolf Hitler, saying that Rep. John Boehner shouldn't have played golf with him. ESPN then removed Williams' singing intro from its "Monday Night Football" broadcast. Williams has now responded by re-recording his song "Keep the Change" (which he first wrote following Obama's inauguration), adding a verse specifically calling out "Fox & Friends" and ESPN.
The original song, while being unapologetic conservative propaganda that described some socialist hell that doesn't resemble actual reality, was at least kind of catchy. The extra verse could be more artful, but that's what happens when you write angry.
For the record, I thought Williams' statement was kind of naive and uninformed - regardless of what you think of either of them, if the president and the Speaker of the House aren't on speaking terms, not a lot gets done. Yes, there was a tinge of "let them eat cake" to that golf game when our country was on the verge of default, but that's politics. And comparing Obama to the guy who murdered six million people is just dumb.
That said, I am not a fan of this recent trend where some public figure says something boneheaded, and the only way his/her employer can think to distance themselves is to fire that person. (Because what our country needs right now is more unemployed people.) When I first read about what Williams said, I didn't think to myself "OMG, I'm never watching 'Monday Night Football" again!!!" because frankly, the presence of Jon Gruden's voice is way more off-putting than the political opinions of the guy who sings the intro song.
It's a free country. There's a big difference between actual government censorship and a private company trying to get rid of a potential PR headache, so I'm not saying Williams is some 1st Amendment martyr... but I don't think what happened to him is fair.
Corporations like ESPN need to either take the step of restricting what their employees can say on external programs, or build a thicker skin and a more nimble PR strategy.
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