BillLawrenceOnline

By Chris Freind

 

Dear Little League International:

Welcome to the party!

By stripping Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West team of its title, you confirmed the sad but obvious fact that cheating is everywhere, including Little League baseball.

Many successful teams have come under fire by coaches and parents, usually in private, for allegedly breaking the rules. Sour grapes aside, it is startling that, when pressed for more detail, virtually every coach follows his accusation the same way:

Everybody does it.

One doesn’t have to be a baseball aficionado to understand that, if that’s true, you must either crack down hard on every violation, or change the rules. But retaining the status quo will only fuel people’s perception that Little League is not the wholesome organization it once was.

America’s game, and more importantly, the integrity of our children — our future — is at stake.

Regards,

The American Public

The Little League revelation should come as no surprise, except to those who deliberately keep their eyes wide shut.

Corruption and hypocrisy have become part of the American fabric, woven into every strand of society. And since young people mimic who and what they see — the good, and even more, the bad — it’s no wonder that trend is skyrocketing.

Why would a youth baseball team cheat? Why wouldn’t they?

After all, even children are aware that cheaters prosper, since society conveniently looks the other way when their “heroes” break the rules. Given the lack of negative consequences, why wouldn’t our children want to emulate them?

* * *
Tom Brady and the New England Patriots allegedly deflated some footballs, making them easier to throw and catch.

So what if “someone” deflated a few balls below the league’s mandated pressure minimum? Big deal. Does any rational person really believe the NFL will penalize the Patriots by stripping them of their incredible last-second Super Bowl victory?

Of course not. And why?

Because few actually care about DeflateGate. Oh, many feign surprise with “how-could-that-happen?” self-righteous indignation. But the truth is, Americans have come to overlook such things so long as there’s a perceived benefit.

In DeflateGate, the benefit was seeing if Brady, love him or hate him, could become part of NFL immortality by winning his fourth Super Bowl, and if the Patriots could regain their swagger by denying the Seattle Seahawks back-to-back championships. Now that both achievements are in the books, the NFL’s “internal investigation” will likely go right into the garbage.

Lesson: It doesn’t matter if you bend the rules or deflate them altogether, so long as you win.

What about the tacit approval by Major League Baseball and its fans of banned drugs during the “steroid era?” Let’s be honest. The league and fans knew steroid use was rampant just by looking at players’ “miraculous” physical transformations, not to mention their superhuman accomplishments that smashed decades-old records with ease.

And guess what? No one cared, at least not enough to force a change. As the famous saying goes, “chicks dig the long ball.” So long as home runs and high-scoring games were guaranteed, fans were fine with steroid use. And so was a league that watched billions flow through its doors, particularly important since baseball had been in danger of going under after the 1994 strike.

Lesson to kids: Take steroids to get better, and people will look the other way.

The problem, of course, is that it’s not OK. It should not be acceptable to look the other way or break the rules whenever convenient. Doing so creates a slippery slope where it’s no longer just footballs and baseballs, but criminal acts and societal breakdown.

When corruption and hypocrisy pervade every level of society, trust is eroded to the point where citizens lose faith in government, business, sports and even themselves. And at that point, America becomes like every other second- and third-world nation that eschews personal responsibility in favor of a “do-whatever-you-have-to-do” to get ahead attitude, including running roughshod over people and rules to get there.

It’s clearly not just sports where we see the line between right and wrong getting obliterated. Consider:

–The media: Among many examples, we have $10 million a year network news anchor Brian Williams, who admitted to fabricating (and progressively embellishing) a major news story, and whose veracity on other stories continues to be questioned. Despite having lost all credibility, however, his punishment is a mere six-month suspension.

Lesson: Lying is OK, even after you get caught.

–Religion: A widespread pedophilia sex scandal rocks the Catholic church to the highest levels, but we’re told that they were just isolated cases, that there was no wink-wink code between priests, both those involved in the acts and those looking the other way to protect their fellow clergymen and their own careers. Ditto for the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal. Why did the investigation drag on for so long, permitting the predator to remain free?

–Business: Wall Street corruption is rampant, from shady accounting techniques to investment banks using inside information to bet against their own clients. Yet, time and again, the only penalty is a timid slap on the wrist while the millionaires get richer, the average Joe gets shafted, the rules barely change, and the firms “too big to fail” continue to cozy up to the very regulators who are supposed to be keeping them in check.

Lesson: If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.

–Entertainment: It’s the height of hypocrisy when the same people who rail so adamantly against pornography and exploitation of women fawn over “50 Shades Of Grey,” which, putting it kindly, is pornographic by its nature. And many of those protesting child abuse and violence are huge fans of “The Hunger Games,” which glorifies kids killing kids. The point here is not to censor Hollywood — they need to do that themselves — but to illustrate yet another example of massive inconsistency.

— Individuals: Employees account for more retail theft than shoplifters, corporate stealing continues to grow, and fraud in workers’ compensation claims and other government programs is at an all-time high, all part of the entitlement “let-me-get-mine” mentality. Too many justify their actions in the belief that any entity with deep pockets won’t miss whatever is stolen, and “no one gets hurt.”

Except that we do. Not just because we, as a society, end up paying the bill, but that we lose more of our soul every time we convince ourselves that cheating and hypocrisy are acceptable. Or worse, when we know something is wrong, yet sit back and do nothing.

Let’s hope the silent majority finds its moral compass and starts speaking up, or America’s promise of “liberty and justice for all” will soon be completely deflated.

Corruption Everywhere Says Freind

By Chris Freind

Don’t look now, but the latest installment of “Dumb and Dumber” just came out on the small screen. Only this time, we have to add “Dumbest.”

Dumb: The only way to describe NBC evening news anchor Brian Williams, who lied on God knows how many stories in his “storied” career, including the now infamous “recollection” of how his helicopter was forced down in Iraq by enemy fire. In fact, no such thing occurred.

Dumber: His ridiculous non-apology for committing the mortal sin of journalism, and thinking that taking himself off the air for a few days will make everything OK.

Dumbest: NBC, for A. allowing Williams himself to issue the statement saying he, as anchor and managing editor, had made the leave-of-absence decision, and B. for not jumping in front of the story by immediately firing Williams.

The questionable behavior of both parties couldn’t be scripted any better if it were a soap opera.

But it’s not. It’s real life, and the damage, not just to NBC and Williams, but the entire media, is growing by the day.

Last night, NBC announced Williams was being suspended for six months without pay.

Let’s break down this controversy, free of the ever-present psycho-babble so many use to explain such things:

1. Question: Why did Brian Williams lie? Answer: Who cares? Totally irrelevant. If he wants to talk about his “mistake in recalling the events” — a convenient, smartly wordsmithed way of saying he lied — perhaps he should see a shrink. But such an egregious error has no place in journalism, especially for one who sits behind a national anchor desk.

2. The magnitude of this firestorm is partly of our own making. Clearly, lying is never acceptable in the media, from the cub reporter to a seasoned anchor. But this is such a huge story because, somewhere along the way, we transformed national television journalists into mega-celebrities with 10-figure salaries, people who just as often “become the news” as much as they report it.

3. Perception is reality. And since the growing perception is that Williams cannot be trusted, he must go, for that type of trust can never — ever — be regained. Williams can certainly be successful in another line of work, and has as much right to be forgiven as anyone. But the fact remains that in journalism, credibility isn’t an important thing, it’s the only thing.

Brian Williams is now suffering the snowball effect. So long as he is still officially an anchor, every story that he has ever filed is fair game for its veracity. More and more reports are calling into question Williams’ ability to tell the truth, from being in an Israeli helicopter where he claimed enemy rockets were flying below him, to seeing floating bodies and contracting dysentery while covering Hurricane Katrina.

Is Williams a pathological liar or part-time deceiver? Or was the Iraq helicopter story a one-and-done deal? Who knows? But the digging and additional accusations — true or not — won’t cease until NBC does what it should have done on Day One.

4. Brian Williams didn’t embellish the story. He made it up. Getting hit by enemy fire is something that would literally be burned into your memory forever, such as witnessing your child’s birth or knowing exactly where you were on 9/11. To say you were hit, when you weren’t remotely close to taking fire, is total fabrication.

So why hasn’t NBC pulled the plug and said, “Anchor aweigh?” It owes nothing to Williams, since he broke his end of the bargain. Keeping him in limbo is getting the network the worst of both worlds: The digging will continue, more negative stories reflecting on the network will surface, and they will end up cutting ties anyway. So why wait?

This isn’t a court of law where innocent until proven guilty applies; it is the court of public opinion, on which rests hundreds of millions in advertising money. And since Williams has already admitted fault, giving him his walking papers would not be a raw deal.

The network also made a colossal mistake in allowing Williams to take himself off the air. Doing so implied that he was in charge — the fox guarding the henhouse — answering to no one. Now, many questions are being raised on how effectively the network is managed, which can only lead to more trouble — the last thing it needs while trying to fix its broken image. Crisis management experts, the NBC executives are not.

Bottom line: If Brian Williams is permanently removed, there is no reason to keep digging through his past. Problem solved. NBC should cut its losses. Immediately.

6. How can anyone, especially Brian Williams’ media colleagues, defend him, as some have, claiming this whole episode is being blown out of proportion? And that firing him would be a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime?

Prior to this firestorm, the media’s credibility was already impugned. Keeping Brian Williams in the anchor seat is destroying whatever integrity remains. There is a time to circle the wagons when a friend is in trouble, but this isn’t it. The best advice anyone could give Williams would be to step down now, on his terms before they fire him, and try to salvage whatever dignity he has left.

And incredibly, many of Williams’ apologists are invoking a perceived double-standard, where politicians can lie but reporters can’t, asking if it’s right to hold journalists to a higher standard.

If you’re in the media, and you actually ask that question with a straight face, you need to find another profession. Enough said.

We should give Brian Williams the benefit of the doubt that he is sorry. But if he truly respects the anchor desk, NBC News, and most important, the integrity of journalism itself, he should do the right thing and make himself, and this story, go away.

Loyalty above all. Except Honor.

(Note: NBC Tuesday night suspended Brian Williams for six months.)

Brian Williams Shows NBC Cares Not