Collier: Running against the grain
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There are all kinds of clowns in the public square, sad clowns, mad clowns, bad clowns, all looking for a reaction from people who should know better.
That isn't news.
Still, some of these recent public comments have exceeded the usual quotidian idiocy, have they not? They're beyond stupid, beyond ignorant, beyond misinformed and even beyond irresponsible.
But enough about Donald Trump.
We're talking today, as people who should know better, about future former Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall, who knows very little beyond how to push our buttons. Mendenhall was back on Twitter the other day with some mind-bending observations about the death of Osama bin Laden. This was barely six weeks after he was all over Twitter in support of Adrian Peterson's unfortunate observations linking slavery to the National Football League.
By now you're familiar with his comments, calling to mind the timeless admonishment that, were Mark Twain alive to deliver it today, would go, "It's better to remain silent and thought a fool than to tweet and remove all doubt."
That kind of wisdom and that direct quote has alternately been attributed to Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Groucho Marx, Samuel Johnson, Silvan Engel, George Eliot and ultimately to scripture, all of 'em to pretty smart people who failed to get the sentiment through many post-modern skulls.
By 11 a.m. Tuesday, Steelers president Art Rooney II was himself tweeting that he found Mendenhall's comments fairly incomprehensible.
"I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments," Rooney tweeted. "The entire Steelers' organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon."
Turns out, though, that Art can relax.
Mendenhall was a sports management major at Illinois. He knows what he's doing. He wouldn't tarnish the Steelers brand by mocking the burst of pride and relief that swept America over the demise of the most viciously incorrigible terrorist on the planet. He knows better than that, doesn't he?
Previously, Mendenhall's intellectual field had been difficult to identify. He was obviously not a history major, as proven by the slavery comments. "Adrian Peterson is correct in his anology (sic) of this game," he tweeted March 17. "It is a lot deeper than most people understand (no kiddin'). Anyone with a knowledge of the slave trade and the NFL could see that these two parallel each other."
First Published May 4, 2011 12:00 am
