Colin Cowherd and What's Wrong With Politics

Colin Cowherd isn't a politician, but he could be. He's got one part down pat. He lives in a black and white world.

Colin Cowherd, if you have the fortune of not knowing, is a sports radio and television personality. He has a radio show and a television show on ESPN. Last week he made some waves for slamming rookie point guard John Wall for dancing before a game. His comments were ridiculous, baseless, and from out of left field. I have read some good criticisms of his tirade, like this one: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/11/colin_cowherd_rants_on_john_wa.html.

I am not interested in critiquing Cowherd's comments. I am only interested in commenting on his critique. The essence of his critique of John Wall is he is like Stephon Marbury rather than Magic Johnson (who by the way recently did the same dance). Cowherd's whole tirade assumed that there are really only two possibilities for point guards. They either end up being Magic Johnson or Stephon Marbury.

The world, of course, is not really this black and white. There are a lot of Derek Fishers, Ron Harpers, and Jason Williams out there. There is also more than one interpretation of John Wall's dance. John Wall himself can not be summed up by a dance and a misread box score. The world is a nuanced and complex place.

Colin Cowherd has made a career of reducing the world to extremes. Either Boise State is getting jobbed by the system or Auburn is. It can't possibley be both. If someone disagrees with him, it is because he is a loser in every other facet of his life. He often talks of the world as a place populated by people who get it and people who don't; people who are successes and those who will never amount to anything and are the butt of jokes at their office watercooler. Colin Cowherd's ignorance is of very little importance, as long as he sticks to sports. If he choses to join some of his likeminded brethren in politics, then he would become more important, in a negative way.

There is still plenty to worry about as it is, however, because there are plenty of folks who see the world in black and white and are involved in politics. These are the folks who call people socialists if they disagree with them on health care. These are the people who pledge never to raise taxes. These are the folks who want to ban all abortions without giving a single thought to why people get abortions. These are the people who talk of an axis of evil, and of Muslims as if they are all a part of it. These are the folks who call America a Christian nation. These are the people who take these simplistic black and white pictures of the world, and sell them to the American public along with a portion of hate and a heaping of fear.

The bottom line is that John Wall won't be either Magic Johnson or Stephon Marbury. He will be John Wall. If we care to know who that is, we will have to do more than watch him dance and read a few lines from a box score. Similarly, in order to understand health care we will have to know more than our own party affiliation and how to type or say "obamacare." The world is not in black and white, and if we see it that way we are missing something.