While watching Monday Night Football a couple of weeks ago,I was shocked and relieved to not hear the usual introductory song by Hank Williams, Jr, “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight.”  I have honestly been sick of the song for the last few years.  I mean, it was fine atone time, but after 22 fricking years I am sick and tired of it.  I was praying for ESPN to feel the same and give us a new song. I had no idea that Hank would do it to himself. 

What bothers me is all the moaning and complaining that Williams is doing now.  He’s even written a new song, “Keep the Change”, that puts down Fox and friends and ESPN.  One verse says: “So Fox and Friends wanna put me down, ask for my opinion and twist it all around.”  Actually, Hank, they didn’t twist anything around.  You’re quote comparing Obama playing golf with John Boehner was like Hitler playing with Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted verbatim.   

Also in the song are these quotes:  the US is “going down the drain”; that the US is becoming the “United Socialist States of America”; and he mentions keeping“Fox and Friends and ESPN” out of our homes.

And you still don’t get it, do you, Hank?  If we think back to the horrors of 9/11, we think of the nearly 3,000 innocent people that lost their lives.  Compare that to 6 million Jewish deaths that occurred in the Holocaust.  This just in,Mr. Williams: NEVER use Hitler for any analogy except if you talking about the most evil and sinister people that have ever walked the face of the Earth.

So now he is trumpeting his cause on shows like “The View”and Sean Hannity’s show, “Hannity.”  Hey,Hank, isn’t Hannity on Fox???  Don’t I have to keep that out of my home?  Who’s twisting words now, Hank?  He apologized one day and took it back the next.  He called Mickey Mouse a “mean mouse” (Disney owns ESPN). He claimed he didn’t call Obama Hitler, but when co-hostess Gretchen Carlson replied to him after his comment that “you used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president”, he responded, “Well, that is true, but I’m telling you like it is.”  When we quote you, Hank, it isn’t considered twisting your words around.

So what gives with this guy? I read a column the other day on the net, and totally agree with it. Hank had become famous only for Monday Night Football.  As a musician, he peaked back in the late80’s.  This had put him back on the front burner, and he’s running with it.  Just go to his website if you don’t believe me. He is selling T-shirts that say, “Hank Jr for President” and “Keep the Change”.

And please don’t use freedom of speech in any of this argument about who is right.  Freedom of speech is about the government not being able to regulate our speech, but it doesn’t carry over into the private sector.  People have been fired over what they say all the time. 

You don’t agree? Well, I am a teacher.  What if I used the F-bomb every day in class?  Do you think I would still be teaching?  No,you say?  What about my freedom of speech?  Just like the classic example of not yelling fire in a crowded theater, we all know that our speech has its limitations.

The bottom line now is I don’t have to listen to that tiring, 22 year old song anymore.  And I applaud ESPN for having the fortitude to get rid of him based on what he said about our president.  And now that Hank is gone, I’m really ready for some football!