Pretend, for a moment, that you are a world class bolt-turner. That you have a shoving match with your assistant manager. That you publicly deride his manager. That you're suspended for embarrassing the company with your antics. As you quit that job, you sneer, on television, that your former co-worker is gay, making him deny it again and again for reporters. You get a new job. Your new contract pays you seven million a year for seven years. You're delighted with it. Then you're again shown fighting on TV, screaming at your latest co-worker. After nine months, you decide that you're not so delighted with your contract after all, so you stop honoring it. You don't report to work. Your complaining about the contract you just signed becomes a fixture on the news. You bash the company. You bash your co-worker, who is widely regarded as the heart of the organization. When you finally relent and report to work, you say you're not going to work very hard. Soon after, you tell your assistant manager not to speak to you unless you speak to him first. You tell his manager to shut up. And you seek out the cameras again to trash your beloved co-worker, and this time you add that the company has no class and integrity because they didn't throw a party to celebrate your turning your 100th bolt. And the company, who put into your contract a clause protecting them from your badmouthing them, cuts you loose. They suspend you for the contractually allotted time, a month, and they say that after that, they don't want you coming back, ever, so they'll pay you to stay at home.
Perhaps it's the last provision that struck Jesse Jackson as unfair. He's taken to the airwaves, decrying Terrell Owens' mistreatment. Yes, mistreatment. If Microsoft fired me for badmouthing them in this space—with pay, yet—would Jesse be on Face the Nation calling me a victim and defending my right to work? No. As he shouldn't be. I asked for it. I submit that if you publicly and repeatedly trash your employer, if you double-dog dare them to fire you, you waive all claims of victimhood when they do. But not on Planet Jesse.
Meanwhile, Ralph "You're welcome" Nader says T.O.'s suspension is a vital consumer issue. We bought tickets, the logic goes, on the assumption that the team would feature T.O. An interesting argument, but odd that it wasn't made a half-century ago. Coaches rest healthy stars all of the time, especially at the end of the regular season. How is that any less a consumer issue, Ralph? What about those players who are listed as "questionable" and could play but are held out in a precautionary manner?
Shouldn't these guys be opposing a war or a Supreme Court nominee or something? To my many international readers who've wondered how we ever elected W twice, I give you my answer: the camera-whoring ditzy left.