March 29, 2013

"I don't know why you guys ask me, I'm just here to bring diversity to this set, give kind of the white man's perspective."

Doug Gottlieb on CBS before Marquette-Miami game last night.

Later in the evening, having noticed the criticisms on Twitter, his co-commentator Charles Barkley said:
"I know this has nothing to do with the game. I wanna say something about Doug Gottlieb. He made a joke earlier tonight. All those people on Twitter who are going crazy, which I would never ever do, listen me Kenny, Greg Anthony, and Greg Gumbel didn’t take that personally so all you people at home who've got no life who are talking bad about Doug Gottlieb get a life. It's no big deal."
Big deal or not, Gottlieb apologized — "It was not a smart thing to say and I apologize" — which I take it is kind of the white man's perspective.

64 comments:

DADvocate said...

Greg Anthony and Mark May don't know what it's like being a white man in today's world. They have no right to be offended. Gottlieb didn't say anything denigrating about blacks or any other minority or majority (women).

ndspinelli said...

Charles Barkley has been a breath of fresh air on tv for about a decade now. If you've ever seen him interviewed you will know he is intelligent, funny, brutally honest and detests politcal correctness. He is also a degenerate gambler which he speaks about w/ candor. His daughter attends Princeton.

edutcher said...

After Imus got the Full Court Alinsky, white men in broadcasting live in fear.

Sorun said...

Too many black men are not emotionally mature enough to deal with racial banter from a white man, no matter how bland. And this was pretty whitebread, er, I mean, milktoast.

DADvocate said...

Charles Barkley has been a breath of fresh air on tv for about a decade now.

Amen. I love that guy.

Nomennovum said...

We live in a nation of scolds -- nasty, humorless prigs who cannot take a joke. I am tired of these witch-burners. They can all go to hell.

They will likely get their pound of flesh, however.

edutcher said...

Nomennovum said...

We live in a nation of scolds -- nasty, humorless prigs who cannot take a joke.

In other words, Leftists.

virgil xenophon said...

Sadly, nomennovum & edutcher are both right..

And yes, I DO luv me some Sir Charles!

Calypso Facto said...

And this was pretty whitebread, er, I mean, milktoast.

Vanilla even.

After Imus got the Full Court Alinsky, white men in broadcasting live in fear.
A joke that is simultaneous about a black and a woman is bait for fauxtrage squared.

TosaGuy said...

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Gottlieb -- his complete dismissal of Marquette before the game being the primary reason -- but these comments are not one of them.

Barkley has it exactly right.

Anonymous said...

Charles Barkley for president!

dreams said...

It wasn't smart given our current politically correct world but he is an edgy forceful analyst who occasionally says cringe worthy things, its part of his personality.

I like him and I'm sure he wishes that in this case he had a better filter.

Known Unknown said...

Has anyone ever seen Gottlieb dance? Ha ha.
I mean, he's also pretty slow, and can't jump.

And I've heard he has a small penis.

YoungHegelian said...

@EMD,

But, I'll bet that Gottlieb can handle the cold, because, you know, those people are built for it.

SteveR said...

What would we do without all the insightful "sports" traffic on Twiiter? Perhaps we would think.

Tim said...

"Big deal or not, Gottlieb apologized — "It was not a smart thing to say and I apologize" — which I take it is kind of the white man's perspective."

Actually, more likely the perspective of his employer, which has proven little tolerance for racial comments, no matter how innocuous they may be.

ESPN may produce content for sports fans, but their corporate leadership is all aboard the PC train.

So, either Gottlieb was told to apologize, or, being a smart guy, figured he better do so before the ESPN corporate schmucks whacked him hard.

It's a pity either way.

Calypso Facto said...

those people are built for it.
As a white guy he's probably also "good at tapping into money" (Reggie White quote)

SteveR said...

@Tim Gottlieb is with CBS now, not that your point isn't as valid

TosaGuy said...

" Families have changed, the Internet, Twitter, guys that take have no journalistic experience that have none of the skill that you guys have that portray themselves as if they’re Roger (journalist who asked a question), as if they’re Pat [Forde of Yahoo!], and they’re garbage, but yet in Twitter-verse they get the same swag that you guys get."

Marquette Coach Buzz Williams in the post-Butler game press conference

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In the Freedom versus Equality game... Equality is winning.

Freeman Hunt said...

A very mild, amusing joke. People need to lighten up.

Aridog said...

The Full Charles Barkley ... is hard not to like.

Freeman Hunt said...

Doh! I didn't mean "lighten up" racially. You should know I had no dark intentions in my heart.

Freeman Hunt said...

Gah! That was racial either. Don't let it be a black mark on my commenting.

dreams said...

"And I've heard he has a small penis."

That won't prevent him from providing the white perspective, to the contrary, only enhances.

SteveR said...

Freeman are you trying to color our opinions of you?

Freeman Hunt said...

Yipe! I will now issue an official apology matching the apology I think Gottlieb should have issued:

I feel sorry for anyone who was offended.

Freeman Hunt said...

Gottlieb's actual apology could translate to, "I feel sorry for me being made to feel sorry for your feeling sorry."

dreams said...

"Gah! That was racial either. Don't let it be a black mark on my commenting."

You're going to be black and blue if you don't stop beating yourself up.

Freeman Hunt said...

"It was not a smart thing to say," is one of the more amusing apologies I've heard.

William said...

Calypso facto coins the useful word fauxtrage. This word should be used more widely.

Anonymous said...

Speaking "truth to power" is seldom smart, especially from the mouth of a token.

ricpic said...

So Barkley in effect gave Gottlieb permission to make a joke with a racial element in it. Big whoop. But what if Barkley were white and had said "C'mon guys, no big deal?" Well, that simply wouldn't do!

President-Mom-Jeans said...

Oh come on, it doesn't matter that Sir Charles gave dispensation about what Gottlieb said.

Everyone knows that can only come from the Emperor of Black People, Jesse Jackson.

Tim said...

SteveR said...

"@Tim Gottlieb is with CBS now, not that your point isn't as valid."

Oh. Damn. I see I confused him with Mike Greenberg, of ESPN's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" radio show.

All those Jewish guys sound alike to me anyway, lol...

And yeah, if anything, CBS is likely to be worse on the PC front than ESPN.

SteveR said...

If Mikew Greenburg's main fault was being PC on ESPN, it would be far better that is actually is. He thinks people care about his stupid and deliberately outrageous predictions and he has horrible taste in music

rhhardin said...

Tripwires are sacred.

Learn to set them up.

Tim said...

I love it when Golic smacks Greenberg down.

Best part of the show.

Anonymous said...

"Doh! I didn't mean "lighten up" racially. You should know I had no dark intentions in my heart."

3/29/13, 11:14 AM

LOL! Now that's funny:)

machine said...

I didn't even know he was a republican...badumpbump

Henry said...

I used to listen to Gottlieb when he started out on ESPN radio. He is very good.

Perhaps another thing Gottlieb brings to sports commentary is failure. Gottlieb was a star point guard for Oklahoma State but he couldn't hit free throws. One night on the radio he began talking about it -- it may have been in context of Chuck Knolbauch's throwing problems -- with incredible candor and insight.

Given how race intersects with sport I'm kind of surprised that every sports commentator doesn't say something superficially offensive every broadcast. There are a lot of minutes to fill.

Sorun said...

ESPN got rid of a black guy for the "cornball brother" remark, and another guy for a "chink in the armor" gaffe about Jeremy Lin. They're pretty sensitive over there.

bagoh20 said...

"... which I take it is kind of the white man's perspective."

That's pretty funny, Althouse. You should do sports commentary. I might actually watch sports to see that. You, Robert Wright and Charles Barkley in the box... with a box of wine. That's entertainment!

tiger said...

It sounds like he was pandering and belittling his opinion.

'Well I'm just a white guy among all you blacks and I know that you're so much more culturally relevant when it comes to basketball but from the white guy's perspective this is how I see it...'

Yeah maybe I'm over thinking it but I doubt that.

Nathan Alexander said...

I was thinking about that this morning.

Consider an office with (in no particular order):
a white female
a black male
a white male
a black female

Put a * next to everyone who can make a sexual joke without fear of losing their job.
Put a - next to everyone who will be fired for making a sexual comment
Put a * next to everyone who can make a comment based on race without getting in trouble.
Put a - next to everyone who has to preview almost everything they say to make sure s/he doesn't say something that can even be misconstrued as having a racial component.
Put a * next to anyone who can get someone else fired by using an accusation without any witnesses or proof.
Put a - next to someone who always has to consider who is within earshot no matter what they say.


If you do it right, the white male will have nothing but -s, and the *s will be distributed among the rest, with the black female having the most *s.

So who ends up working in a hostile work environment, really?

bgates said...

I, for one, am outraged to hear this Jew trying to pass himself off as a "white man".

No? That's not what everybody's upset about? I have to admit I'm having trouble following this one.

Would it have been better if he said "white boy"?

bagoh20 said...

I love that Nathan, and it's been true, still is, but slowly getting better, or at least more equal. The black guy is starting take some shit now too. Soon we may all be equally repressed, controlled, and equally needing billable hours.

Anonymous said...

President-Mom-Jeans said...
"Everyone knows that can only come from the Emperor of Black People, Jesse Jackson."

The Emperor was deposed after he negotiated a free-his-son deal with King Louis.

Shanna said...

"It was not a smart thing to say and I apologize"

That's a pretty great non-apology apology.

MadisonMan said...

The perpetually outraged find something to tweet about.

n.n said...

Exploiting differentials and gradients is political, economically, and socially profitable until it's not. It's a product of a selective ideology where standards are malleable and constructed for convenience in time and space.

Bob said...

This is just bad form; sorta like at Thanksgiving dinner. When your brother blurts out an embarrassing truth about Mom or Dad and there is a pregnant pause and "I can't believe you said that" looks all around.

Anonymous said...

There's been a long history of joking about white men's incompetence at basketball. It shouldn't bother anyone.

Peter

Elliott A said...

He looked in the monitor and had the same reaction everyone else watching the show had. They just didn't have a big audience to tell.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

This is just silly. I can't believe we have come this far with this stupid fake outrage crap. If the races were reversed, everybody would have thought the black guy was funny and disarming. It was self-deprecating. All this proves is that we are less free, and more hung up than before. We are regressing. PC is a scourge that punishes decent people for being innocently honest in public. God, I hate it!

dreams said...

I'm looking forward to my Louisville Cardinals' game tonight, this team is Louisville's best chance in many years to win it all.

Methadras said...

DADvocate said...

Charles Barkley has been a breath of fresh air on tv for about a decade now.

Amen. I love that guy.


Same here.

dreams said...

I like Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Greg Anthony and it doesn't bother me that they are pro basketball guys, they played and know college basketball too.

exhelodrvr1 said...

I would like to report DADAdvocate for saying "denigrate".

n.n said...

exhelodrvr1:

This is fun, isn't it. You can visit the Urban Dictionary and share in the dysfunction, or contribute to its convergence by manufacturing words and meanings to suit your needs as they happen to become convenient and expedient.

Phil 314 said...

White guy on the court

Howard said...

Please excuse racial sensitivity. You hysterical feminized chickenhawks need to think white and get serious. We Vikings rule the planet. We can afford to be Magnanimous with folks that do not have the enlightenment and the industrial revolution in their genetic heritage. Suck it up, it's what we are supposed to do.

LL said...

I hate Gottlieb. When he played ball in college (He started out at Notre Dame) and during his freshman year, he stole someone's credit card and charged up around $900 worth of stuff. He got caught and was kick out of Notre Dame. I think he then played for University of Oklahoma.

I never liked him on ESPN and I can't stand him on CBS.