The Washington Post Sucks Off Kornheiser and Friends

by Rae Carruth's Trunk, My Brain Says Rage

I am a longtime Washington Post reader. Its my hometown newspaper and certainly better than the Washington Times, a bizarrely awful paper run by a cult leader. However, did the WaPo really need to devote space to blowing one of its own? Kornheiser is not much of a contributor to the Post anymore, but he was a writer there for dozens of years, runs a radio show on Washington Post radio during non-MNF time periods and with Michael Wilbon, is the face of the Washington Post sports page.

That's why I found it particularly bizarre to come back from vacation and see "long time friend and Post college" Len Shapiro writing a glowing review of ESPN's new MNF announcing crew. Len makes a few admissions which amounted to "I only watched half of the game." Let me make a few admissions of my own. I didn't watch the game and I already like Kornheiser in the booth, I also liked Theismann.

It was nice to have Kornheiser actually seem like one of the guys, as opposed to a third wheel. On Monday night, we got the same Mr. Tony who entertained all of his pals in The Washington Post sports department for years with that meshuganeh Long Island cynical shtick and the same broadcaster whose local radio show and Pardon The Interruption (with the mega-talent Mike Wilbon) have been runaway hits.

Jesus H. Christ, is that an article? I'm glad you are pals with him and also feel the need to tickle Wilbon's balls while deep throating Kornheiser, but calm down would you? Len then tries to back off at the end of this long oral treat by not swallowing at the end:

-- I know the announcers have a ton of research at their disposal. I wish Kornheiser would find a way to avoid sounding so much like a newspaper guy when he reads quotes verbatim from players or coaches. Maybe instead of saying "this is what Alex Smith said about that" he could adapt the old Howard Cosell approach"when I had breakfast with Alex Smith this morning, he told me¿." Just a little nitpick Kornheiser. It really is nice to see you back in full cynical shtick. It worked for me.

That's hardly even a nitpick, its like drinking a glass of $500 wine and complaining about the wine charm on the glass. Sports reporting has become an odd backslapping exercise where newspaper guys all pay tribute to the radio and TV guys in the hope that someday they will be invited on to talk. I would say looking at Len's fishlike head that he doesn't have a chance of getting on TV but then I look at Kornheiser, who basically looks like one of the trolls from the Maelstrom ride at EPCOT and Wilbon who looks like a Grouper fresh out of water.

It is a natural reaction, but one that hurts true reporting on sports and true reporting about the abysmal state of watching sports on TV. In the blog world, we do it as well, you will very rarely find a post deriding the top sports blogs because they send out links to our little blogs, pushing our readership higher. It's our version of getting the TV interview.

But I'd like to think that I'm not as shameless as Len Shapiro is in this article. Its fucking embarrassing to read in full. And the next time I write an article about how Deadspin is the greatest blog in the history of mankind, I'll make sure to wipe Will Leitch's load off my face before posting it.