et tu, espn?

At first I was surprised to read at Daily Kos that ESPN inserts fake cheers when Republicans are introduced at sporting events, and fake boos when Democrats appear on screen. The most recent example was when Papa Bush was at the Super Dome last Monday for the first NFL game in New Orleans since Katrina. When you remember among other things Barbara Bush's assertion that Katrina refugees at the Astrodome had it pretty good, the torrent of boos that became apparent when ESPN had to switch from its feed to that from the official presiding over the coin toss makes even more sense.

Then I remembered ESPN is owned by Disney -- the media company that had Mel "Passion of the Christ/I hate Jews" Gibson working on a miniseries about the Holocaust. And ESPN in turn is owned by ABC, which aired the GOP's propaganda piece, "The Path to 9/11" completely whitewashing the Bushies and making it clear that it was all Bill Clinton's fault.

And I remembered that ESPN had hired Rush Limbaugh as a sports analyst. And that ABC had hired once-funny comedian turned right-winger Dennis Miller for Monday Night Football. You'll recall that after 9/11, Miller became a paranoid lunatic willing to give up all of our civil liberties to make us all safe from terrorists.

And I wasn't surprised any more. We can't avoid the right-wing noise machine even when watching baseball or football.