Comparing world affairs to professional sports is never a good idea. Football is a huge part of many of our lives, which can make it easy to get carried away when discussing issues involving the game. Drew Brees gave us an example of that on Monday night.
On Monday morning, the NFLPA made the evidence against the Saints from the bounty scandal public. While the ledger that supposedly details the bounty payments was not revealed, some other disturbing documents were. Apparently Brees thought it was all nothing, and he expressed himself with a pretty dumb comment on his Twitter account.
If NFL fans were told there were “weapons of mass destruction” enough times, they’d believe it. But what happens when you don’t find any????
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) June 19, 2012
Not smart. Brees, of course, is referencing how the Bush Administration eventually convinced enough people that Saddam Hussein was holding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To this day, there is still no sign of those WMDs Bush insisted were an immediate threat to other nations. Now do you see the connection between an NFL scandal and one of the most signifcant foreign relations nightmares in our nation’s history? Yeah, neither do I.
Whether Brees feels that the bounty evidence is bogus or not, his decision to compare it to weapons of mass destruction is regrettable. Football is a game. Wartime is not.
UPDATE: Brees clarified his analogy and apologized for it.
My WMD comment has nothing to do with politics or our brave military. Merely an analogy to show how media influences public perception
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) June 19, 2012
I apologize if the WMD comment offended anyone. Especially our military. There is no one I respect more than our service men and women
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) June 19, 2012
Photo credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE
