ESPN has been tanking for years. Good.

Its programming has consistently allowed and encouraged left-leaning takes and opinions, with hosts and guests being unrestrained to express woke and leftist doggerel without consequence. Someone offering an opposite point of view will find a suspension waiting for them. For example, Sage Steele was reprimanded and removed from programming for expressing an opinion not in tune with leftist orthodoxy. She thought that people should have a choice about vaccines — that they shouldn’t be mandated. For that, she was vilified by nuts like Jamele Hill and Keith Olbermann.

“Around The Horn” is a daytime program hosted by Tony Raili. Questions are asked of sports journalists. Opinions are ‘graded’ good or bad by the host, with good ones being rewarded with plus points. Bad takes are ‘down’ graded. Whoever ends up with the most points is the winner. It’s generally mediocre programing, but interesting on occasion. When I was sports cartooning for the LA Times, I would watch for a fun or interesting take. I regarded it as “research.”

On Friday’s “Around the Horn,” J.A. Adande was one of the guests. Adande used to work for the LA Times and then ESPN. He’s now a professor at Northwestern, and teaches Sports Journalism.

Near the start of the show, Adande was asked about the obvious human rights abuser hosting, and specifically the hostage-like charade of the CCP slavers having a Uyghur carry an Olympic torch during the Opening Ceremony.

The host asked for Adande’s opinion. Adande said: (emphasis mine)

“I think it’s standard in sports right now, you have to have a cognitive dissonance…who are we to criticize China’s human rights record when we have ongoing attacks by agents of the state against unarmed citizens, and we have assaults on the voting rights of our people of color of various states in this countries (sic)”   

The host, perhaps a bit stunned by the answer, asked a follow-up:

 “I appreciate what you just said there… we’re talking about China here, we are talking about human rights, we are talking about genocide, and the ICO chose China, we will go there, all while maintaining they are for human rights and things of that nature and sports can conquer that – how do you view it.”

Adande’s response:

“Well again where can you choose [a country]  that, that is free… it’s very hard to find a country that isn’t problematic, when it comes to human right, including here (USA)”

The host, perhaps sensing that he was being pulled into a rabbit hole, didn’t award Adande any “points” but he did offer some support with his “Appreciate all that you’re saying” line.

.@jadande talks about reconciling watching the Beijing Winter Olympics amid China's human rights crisis pic.twitter.com/mqkOygjBXV

— Around The Horn (@AroundtheHorn) February 4, 2022

I don’t appreciate anyone comparing a genocidal authoritarian communist state that enslave people, brutally murders and “disappears” dissidents, and disappears athletes, with the United States. We are not even one day into the CCP Olympics, and Chinese goons are already roughing up journalists reporting on CCP abuses at the Olympics.

What Adande said isn’t just absurd on its face and ignorant; it’s an affront to common sense and objective fact. ESPN should be ashamed, but it’s not. How do I know that? The clip of Adande’s absurd comments was posted to Twitter. Apparently it’s something ESPN thinks worthy of highlighting.