NFL team president voices support for Supreme Court nominee, gets trashed by media
Arizona Cardinals team president Michael Bidwill came out in support of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh through a letter penned alongside his fellow Georgetown Prep alumni.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was a HS classmate of Cardinals’ owner Michael Bidwill at Georgetown Prep, class of '83. Bidwill organized their classmates for a letter of support that will be sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The letter: pic.twitter.com/3m6gmXAN4J
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 10, 2018
“The purpose of the letter is to talk about Brett as a person,” Bidwill said in an interview with the Cardinals team site. “We have known him and known what a brilliant mind he has. He’s eminently qualified.”
Bidwill was promptly raked over the coals for reasons that are still not abundantly clear, though “abject hatred of anything involving Trump” seems to be the likeliest culprit.
The senseless attacks on Bidwill’s character all echoed the same sentiment, that sports and politics shouldn’t mix.
Owners to players: Stay out of politics. It’s hurting the bottom line.
Also owners: https://t.co/VSZHKEpwse
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) July 10, 2018
The problem with that take is that sports and politics aren’t really mixing.
If Bidwill held any other job, he would just be a very wealthy man advocating for a former high school classmate to one of the most prominent government positions in the United States. This would be a non-story.
But because Bidwill is an NFL team president, people immediately drew a parallel between his support of Kavanaugh and the NFL’s battle to get rid of national anthem protests.
Reminder that Michael Bidwell was one of the NFL team owners who stood in front of us saying how good the new anthem policy was for everyone
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) July 10, 2018
The two couldn’t be further apart.
It also brings into question if any of Bidwill’s critics actually read the letter or if they just glanced at the headlines. Comb through the text of the letter and not once are politics ever mentioned. The only thing the letter did was advocate for Kavanaugh’s credentials and character.
It’s not as if Bidwill was doing an Irish jig about the fate of Roe v. Wade in his letter. Is it now blasphemous to commend someone for hard work?
“I think now that he’s been selected by the President, he will go through a thorough vetting process and as they go through that process they will learn about the great person we know. He is a man of high character, high intelligence, excellence and independence. We want to speak up and show our support as former classmates and long-time friends,” Bidwill said.
There isn’t much overtly political about supporting “former classmates and long-time friends.” But why let facts get in the way of an unhinged rant?
National Football League’s Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Boswell literally used the team’s website and social media to endorse Brett Kavanaugh as the next United States Supreme Court Justice.
— 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐞 (@exavierpope) July 10, 2018
Never mind that Bidwill’s name is misspelled, or that he’s not actually the Cardinals owner, or that he didn’t use either the team website and social media (the offending letter was penned directly to Sen. Mitch McConnell). Bidwill’s comments simply aren’t the political statement that people make it out to be.
Would this outrage exist if Bidwill had endorsed a Supreme Court nomination from Hillary Clinton? Doubtful.
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