I'm outraged at the outrage!"

I have not weighed in on the Ron Artest imbroglio that occurred a couple of weeks ago in a game between Artest's Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. I thought it was a typical, "what's wrong with the NBA?" media feeding frenzy. Yes, I thought Artest -- a player already suspended multiple times -- has some issues and should definitely not be going into the stands. But I also thought that the officials at the Palace, where the Pistons play, were the true guilty parties in not shutting down the situation as soon as it developed (at Yankee Stadium, they bring out the riot police if a fan throws a bag of peanuts on the field). And Stern's suspension of Artest for the season a bit much (was anybody really injured in the melee?), and as noted on Will Carroll's always astute site the suspension of Artest and O'neal pretty much ruined the chances of a team that could be competing for the NBA championship...against the Detroit Pistons.

But when I see Howie ("the 'putz') Kurtz get into the "where's the outrage," then my head explodes.

Not only does Ailes (the good one) rightly point out the lack of outrage when a GOP operative runs afoul of the law, but I would also note the lack of outrage when it involves a good, clean, non-hip hop sport, like football. The brawl I watched at the end of the South Carolina game the day after the Pacers/Pistons fight was far more serious than anything I've seen on a basketball court. Guys were kicking players in the head, for chrissakes.

Like James Inhofe who put it so delicately in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, I'm "outraged at the outrage."

Oh, and if Scott Long is correct, than I think Howie is lying when he says he "happened to be watching the game."

The only professional sport I’m fanatical about is baseball. I might watch 5 full NBA games a year. It just happened that I watched the last 5 minutes of the Pacers/Pistons game and I can tell you there is a huge difference between my feelings watching it live versus watching the video highlights, afterwards.

If you are not aware, after the brawl, ESPN’s NBA crew were all talking about how horrible the fans were and host John Saunders was as irate as I can ever recall a broadcaster behaving, calling the Detroit fans “punks”. Tim Legler stated that the saddest part of the whole melee is that the players are going to take the brunt of the heat from the incident. (paraphrasing) The whole panel all were of the position that the fans were the biggest culprits in the incident, but after David Stern hands down his edict, Stephen A. Smith sings a different tune from his initial judgements and completely buys into Stern’s pronouncements.

Like most every other bloviator on this subject, the only thing Kurtz saw was the highlight reel after the game which was carefully edited to make Artest look like a stark raving maniac.