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Media pretty excited about Patriots players skipping White House visit because they don't like Trump



Just to bring you the very latest, it's now six! I don't want you to miss any updates. Not that you would, with NBC, the Washington Post, NESN and the New York Times all breathlessly covering this story in the past few days. If you're a New England Patriot and you don't want to go to the White House because you hate Trump, you're very big news. Here's the report the nation needs to fend off the fall of the republic, courtesy of The Hill:
A fifth New England Patriots player says he won’t visit President Trump’s White House following the team's historic Super Bowl win on Sunday. Running back LeGarrette Blount on Thursday said he wouldn't visit the White House, telling reporters: "I just don't feel welcome into that house. I'm just gonna leave it at that." LeGarrete joins defensive end Chris Long, who tweeted Thursday that he "planned on skipping" the event, sharing an article from the New York Daily News, which had asked him to join other teammates by not attending. Three other Patriots players — linebacker Dont’a Hightower, defensive back Devin McCourty and tight end Martellus Bennett — announced their plans to skip the traditional event at the White House celebrating the championship team. “I’m not going to the White House," McCourty told Time magazine. "Basic reason for me is I don't feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won't."

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Bennett has expressed his discontent with Trump on Twitter in the past and said he does not support the president. “I don’t support the guy that’s in the house,” Bennett said. Last month, he tweeted, “America was built on inclusiveness not exclusiveness.”
I'm trying to remember if there was ever a player during the Obama years who pulled this for political reasons. I can't think of one, but that's mainly because I don't pay much attention to this ritual (I'm not the biggest fan of it), and also because, if it did happen, the player who did it didn't get hero's coverage from the media. If anything, they would have subjected him to scrutiny for suspected racism or something. The whole thing from McCourty about "I don't feel accepted in the White House" is an awfully curious thing for a guy to say, considering he's being invited to the White House. Who sends an invitation to someone and hopes the person won't show up?

As for Bennett's refusal to go because "I don't support the guy that's in the house," can someone explain how that squares with his insistent on "inclusiveness over exclusiveness"? As far as I can say, Trump is happy to have them, irrespective of the fact that neither supports him politically. They're the ones refusing the invitation based on politics. Who's practicing exclusiveness here, exactly? I don't know if these guys mean to imply that Trump is anti-black, and that this is why they don't "feel accepted," but if that's the case it's the cheapest of cheap tactics. Trump has absolutely no history of saying or doing anything that suggests he has a problem with black people. That's because he doesn't. For certain individuals to claim they feel discriminated against is a way of implying that Trump must obviously hold some sort of discriminatory attitude against them, even though there is nothing on Trump's own record to suggest that's true. You can feel it all you want. That doesn't mean it exists. But that hardly matters when the media are falling all over themselves to give voice to every one of these guys, as if this stupid White House visit is the slightest bit important, and as if someone's partisan boycott of it means a damn thing. I've told you before that there is nothing the media love more than racial animus, and they're happy to imply its presence by making a hero of one person who feels he's being subjected to racism, even if no one can really demonstrate the source of the supposed racism is actually emitting any. As far as I know, no White House invitation has even been extended to the Patriots, so it's a little early to be writing stories about guys who plan on refusing to go. Then again, any time is a bad time to be writing these stories, because they're not newsworthy.
Dan's new novel, BACKSTOP, is a story of spiritual warfare and baseball. Download it from Amazon here


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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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