The Celebrity Protest

You can tell that a sports story has taken that next leap to "actual" news story when it last for more than three days. You see, sports stories never hang around that long because there is always another game to play, another coach getting fired or another player switching teams to distract the media. Nothing stays important for very long when it comes to sports, so the fact that it is Thursday and people still want to talk about Tim Thomas shows that this particular story seems to have moved to that next level. For those of you unfamiliar, on Monday the Boston Bruins made the traditional champions trip to the White House. The only player still on the Bruins who opted out was Thomas, one of only two Americans on the team and the MVP of the Finals. At the time the Bruins tried to act as though it was no big deal and said they would address it later. Thomas later released a statement through his Facebook page saying that it was nothing personal and had nothing to do with party lines, but he feels as though government as a whole is getting out of hand and this was just him standing up for what he believes in. It's his right, but I gotta tell you, he didn't handle this particularly well.

Now, I don't care about Thomas's politics, because I don't care about any celebrity's political leanings. In fact, I hate when celebrities involve themselves in politics. If you plan to vote for someone because a celebrity told you to then, frankly, I would rather you stay home on election day. Honestly, musicians and actors are usually some of the least-educated people on the planet. They have a lot of other talents, but most of them barely finished high school while pursuing that career, so if it is all the same to you I'd rather do my own research and form my own opinion. (I'll just say this - I do find it rather convenient that the people who often seem to be the most politically active are also the ones who have the most well-off financially. It's really easy to be political when you have nothing to do most days.) Look, the bottom line is that the rest of the world is just too busy trying to make money and pay the bills to kick off for the day to make signs and go to a rally. I would love to care, but I have an actual life to lead.

All that being said, I don't believe Thomas for a second when he says he doesn't lean either way politically. He once said his favorite show is Glenn Beck, so something tells me if a Republican was in office he would be there. I think it is a very sad state of affairs when people don't even feel as though they can stand to be in the same room as people they don't agree with, but I'll still respect you more if you just come right out and are at least honest about your reasons. The unfortunate part is I think Thomas was the only one who really got hurt, because how often does he think he's going to get this chance? Even if you don't like the guy, I bet it would be really cool to meet the President of the United States. I mean, it is not like President Obama was asking Thomas to sign any kind of legal document saying he would vote for him in the next election, he just wanted to celebrate the Bruins victory. It should also be noted that my feelings aren't exclusive to Thomas in this case - that is how I would feel if someone who was a Democrat didn't want to visit the White House because a Republican was in office. It's a stupid, dickish, empty gesture, but one everyone is entitled to make.

What makes me happy is that it seems like most people in Boston agree with me. Sure, the talking heads on local sports talk radio are up in arms, but they get paid to be up in arms and it's a slow news cycle with the Super Bowl not for another week and a half - they will jump on any controversy they can find. And of course other politicians are going to be annoyed, because they have such an inflated ego they think people give a crap if they get stood-up. After all, I believe it was former President Clinton who famously compared sports and politics by saying, "in both you have to be smart enough to know the rules and dumb enough to think they matter." Not to mention, Thomas is hardly the only Boston athlete to skip a White House visit. Manny Ramirez didn't go after the Red Sox won in 2007 and Larry Bird famously skipped a visit when the Celtics won the title years ago. Therefore, the rest of the city seems perfectly content to let Thomas go on his little one-man protest.

Where Thomas messed up in a lot of people's eyes was in releasing his statement. Allegedly the Bruins asked Thomas to hold off until after their visit to release his reasons so they wouldn't be asked about it all day long. What Thomas did instead was release a statement saying he would be releasing a statement, meaning that everyone now wanted to know if the team knew what the statement was going to be. Reports are that this really bothered a lot of his teammates, who wanted this day to be about one last hurrah for their Stanley Cup run and instead had to talk about Thomas's political leanings. Considering half of them weren't born here and probably can't vote, I can imagine how annoying that would be. Now, most hockey players that I have interacted with seem very non-political so I doubt this will divide the Bruins locker room, but it won't help. And with Thomas about to be a free agent, getting up there in age and the Bruins already looking to the future with 24 year-old Tuukka Rask, this could be just the kind of thing that makes transitioning Thomas out the door that much easier.

I always say that when it comes to athletes, at some point any off-field distractions will start to out-weigh the on-field contributions. You have to wonder if Thomas just sped up his own exit from the team. I mean, we're already getting "anonymous sources" saying how annoying his actions on Monday were to the team. Thomas had already begun the beginning of his end with the Bruins, but I have to say if pissing off your teammates by refusing to go to a party leads him out the door, it will be one of the stranger exits in sports history. Still, there is no quicker way to alienate yourself from a crowd than to bring politics into a non-political environment. It's not like it was an effective protest, either. Considering what I'm sure the President normally deals with this was probably the least-insulting that that happened to him that day. All Thomas did was hijack what was supposed to be a day about what he and his teammates accomplished and made it about himself. To me, that was far more damaging than any political statement he could have made.