ESPN's Jemele Hill, a reporter from whom the network is expecting big things, has been the center of a firestorm since her recent tweets describing President Donald Trump as a racist:
"Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists," she wrote, and hell broke loose.
Hill and the network issued apologies, but that was not enough for those whose delicate sensibilities were hurt. From her perch as chief spokeswoman for the White House, Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared that what Hill tweeted was "a fireable offense."
Fox News Network, which has considered Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election to be a non-news story has spearheaded the self-righteous outrage against Hill, with Fox and Friends and Tucker Carlson leading the charge.
And then there's Sean Hannity.
Schilling claims Jamele Hill, Bomani Jones are racists
Hannity's show, the last remaining bastion of Fox News' once unstoppable prime time lineup, had former ESPN analyst and long-time all-star pitcher Curt Schilling on to show the perceived liberal bias of the sports network and its parent company, Disney.
Schilling told Hannity, "Jemele Hill has always been a racist - the things she says, the things that she does - I don't have a problem with the fact that Jemele Hill is racist, that Bomani Jones (another ESPN host/reporter is racist and that Colin Kaepernick knelt for a lie and that Disney and ESPN, which they own, support liberal racism."
ESPN fired Schilling after he tweeted remarks about transgender bathrooms, saying that men should only use men's restrooms, which it said was a violation of its policy against employees making public political statements.
At the time of Schilling's firing, conservative critics accused ESPN of excessive political correctness. After Hill's charged political tweet, the African American reporter remains employed, bringing calls of anti-conservative and reverse racial bias.
Of course, those who were leveling the accusations failed to mention that network officials warned Schilling numerous times about his political statements.
What also has not been mentioned is that Schilling should have been fired long before the trigger was finally pulled.
Hill is a professional, Schilling wore a bloody sock
Another good reason for ESPN not to bow to conservative pressure and sack Jemele Hill is that it has devalued its news value so much recently when it laid off a number of veteran reporters and has become so overloaded with former jocks who offer their "insights," though some of them don't bother to back up those insights with anything other than fading memories from their glory years.
For Schilling, those golden years were symbolized by the bloody sock he wore while pitching through an ankle injury to win a game for the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 World Series. Schilling undeniably had a spectacular major league baseball career. His sportscasting career was not quite as stellar. As an analyst on Sunday Night Baseball, Schilling rarely offered insight into why things were happening on the field or background information that might provide baseball fans a better understanding of the game. He made trite comments that most viewers could have made from their living room sofas and cracked jokes. Schilling and his fellow analyst John Kruk were enough to make a viewer pray for a rainout to put them out of their misery.
Hill, on the other hand, worked her way to the top, beginning as a print journalist with the Detroit Free Press and Raleigh News & Observer. She reached the top of the heap the old fashioned way- she worked hard and pounced on the opportunities when they presented themselves.
Another difference - Hill apologized for her tweets, recognizing that while she has every right to think Donald Trump is a white supremacist when she is representing ESPN, which is how people who see her Twitter feed will interpret it, she has to follow company policy.
To this day, Schilling has remained unapologetic. He had every right to have an opinion on transgender bathrooms. He can express it to his friends, but not as a public face of ESPN.
Especially not after he had been warned of the consequences.
So let Sean Hannity and the others who are seeking a distraction from the merry-go-round that the White House has become continue their call for ESPN to rid itself of Jemele Hill as if it is some issue of national importance. Let them bring Curt Schilling out of the conservative wilderness to malign his former employers and show his own prejudices in the process. For a company whose officials have made one questionable decision after another, the decisions to fire Curt Schilling and to keep Jemele Hill on the payroll do not fit into that category.
ESPN was right on both counts.