Which athletes/coaches do you think get a free pass from the press?

Barack Obama got the biggest free pass ever for a candidate seeking the presidency. The whole damn press corps was like his personal cheering squad.

I said to someone on election night: wonder how the media will react if Obama loses the election? Never got to find out, of course, but the media fawned over this guy like no one since Elvis and The Beetles.

It will be interesting to see how long the honeymoon lasts under the intense spotlight of the most public job in the world.

 

Exactly. A friend who works in that area said most everything except press conferences is done by the assistants: gameplans, scouting, recruiting, practices, etc. Not really surprising. I expect that's true at most of the big BCS type schools.

 

If he had a free pass, then Bush had a golden ticket to the chocolate factory in the months prior to and the month following invading Iraq.

 

This isn't a political thread.

Good call on Danica Patrick.

I fell under Bowden's spell when I covered him for a week early in my career. Nicest big time coach I've ever dealt with. I was in there with very little notice to cover a very big game and he gave me about two hours for a one-on-one.

That just doesn't happen unless you're at SI or ESPN or a hell of a lot bigger time than I ever was.

 

The Beetles?

 

Kobe and Ray Lewis are two very interesting cases.

I covered the Super Bowl when the Ravens beat the Giants and anyone who said Lewis was getting a free pass would have been an idiot.

But as soon as he wasn't convicted, people acted like it never happened.

It's been kind of the same way with Kobe. As someone who knows way more about that case than I wish to, if you give him the benefit of every doubt, he cheated on his wife and beat the shit out of the girl afterwards... If you don't give him the benefit of the doubt, then he's a lot worse.

I'm amazed that both players are now readily accepted and even getting endorsements.

 

Mizz, I hate to say it, but if a court of law says it did not happen, then it might not have happened.

That said, I feel very few innocent people ever go to trial.

 

Kobe essentially paid off his accuser. I don't remember the specifics of Lewis' situation, but I think someone changed their testimony or something like that and he struck a sweetheart plea deal.

 

That's Bootsian logic...

 

Yeah, I don't think a court is saying "it didn't happen" if the accuser refuses to help the prosecution, which was the case with Kobe.

 

Didn't Kobe say something about how he can see how someone could have mistaken what happened for rape? That pretty much sounds like a confession.

 

Having had the misfortune of seeing a couple photos from the police file in the Kobe case he either raped her, beat the shit out of her, or she was into being donkey punched. She had two black eyes and a busted lip in the photo I saw.