peterson

Sometimes, I wonder how certain columns get published. Sometimes, they are just so offensive or off topic or misinformed that we have to wonder who allows these affronts to humanity to be available to the general public. The NY Post's Phil Mushnick has written something that trancends all stupidity and reaches a new low, even by his standards. Mushnick is, for reasons beyond comprehension, using the death of Adrian Peterson's son to prove some sort of character flaw. Mind boggling. 

Mushnick writes:

Of course, we all have to operate from are our own set of values, our personal sense of right from wrong. Perhaps, given current standards among NFL players — mostly college men, no less — Peterson qualifies as a man of good character.
 
Still, I’m stuck with what I’ve got. And it’s sickening the NFL’s latest MVP, hours after his son died — allegedly murdered — declared he was “ready to roll,” ready to play football.
 
Me? I’d be fighting for breath, my knees weak with grief, demanding to know why, who, how. Then, I suspect, I’d seethe with rage, swearing retribution. I even think I’d take off a day or two from work. Maybe a week.
 
The suspect in the beating murder of Peterson’s 2-year-old is the boyfriend of Peterson’s “baby mama” — now the casual, flippant, detestable and common buzz-phrase for absentee, wham-bam fatherhood.

Okay. I don't even know where to start. First of all, I seem to recall Brett Favre playing in a game right after his father died, throwing four touchdown passes, and being heralded as brave and heroic and all that. So that can't apply to Peterson? Second of all, the whole idea that just because Peterson was not with his son's mother or living with them somehow means he doesn't care is a gross generalization backed up by NOTHING. Not one single thing. 

You would think it couldn't get worse, but it does:

With his resources, how could Peterson, the NFL’s MVP, have allowed his son to remain in such an environment? Did he not know, or not care? Or not care to know? Or not know to care?
 
Peterson couldn’t have provided his son a better life, a longer life?
 
Money can’t buy love, but having signed a $96 million deal, he could not have provided his child — apparently his second from a “baby mama” — a safe home?
 
But given Peterson’s father did hard time for drug money laundering, and his half-brother was murdered, maybe we’re both stuck with the values in which we were born, raised.
 
On Friday, Peterson said he was “focused” on football. On Sunday, he played. But it’s not as if murder doesn’t now regularly afflict the NFL.
 
Maybe Peterson’s son is just one more stands-to-reason murder victim, just another child born to just another “baby mama,” one more kid who never had a shot, anyway. Maybe, by now, even if we can’t accept it, we can expect it.

How can Mushnick say ANY of this? He has no idea what the situation was, what Peterson did or didn't know, and furthermore, erasing everything else, using the death of a child to provide commentary on Peterson's character is sickening. Tying past arrest to a child's death is irrelevant. Using mistakes to say, "hey this guy's kid died and he's a bad person," is not a valid argument.

Sure, we all have the tendency to glorify athletes, but this is not about Peterson the athlete, or his character. This is about a parent losing a child, and to try and make it about anything else, especially advancing some kind of sick, twisted, demented agenda for pageviews, is disgusting. For the Post to publish it and endorse it is arguably even worse.

[NY Post]

About Reva Friedel

Reva is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and the AP Party. She lives in Orange County and roots for zero California teams.

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