Catching up with Bryant Gumbel from a couple of weeks ago, on the April edition of his Real Sports
show on HBO, the NBC News and CBS News veteran came to the defense of
Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen, who caused outrage amongst
Cuban-Americans when he declared “I love Fidel Castro.” In an end of the
program commentary, Gumbel couldn’t resist taking a jab at
conservatives, charging:
Whipping up a frenzy over slights real and imagined is a play straight
out of a far right handbook and Florida’s electoral cloud has often
given Fidel’s critics far more leverage than their arguments merit.
Gumbel contended that ever since the Bay of Pigs failure, “exploiting
anti-communist fears to portray Castro as a monstrous boogeyman, has
been a cottage industry in Florida and Washington.” Those upset with
Guillen, Gumbel maintained, “simply hate” Castro because “he overthrew
their dictator, Fulgencio Batista, whose corrupt government helped
enriched privileged Cubans and American interests at the expense of the
country’s poorest people.”
Audio: MP3 clip
Offering an innocuous paraphrasing of Guillen’s words, Gumbel asserted
Guillen “said that he essentially admired Fidel for his longevity.” The
actual words from the interview with Time magazine:
“I love Fidel Castro...I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of
people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that
motherfucker is still here.”
Flashback to 2006: “Gumbel: Lack of Blacks Makes Winter Olympics ‘Look Like GOP Convention’”
Gumbel’s commentary at the end of the Real Sports which first ran on Tuesday night, April 17 on HBO. (It will re-air on Monday, April 30 and 9:30 AM and 6:30 PM EDT and PDT):
Finally it’s worth noting that tonight marks the 51st anniversary of the Bay of Pigs
invasion. That, of course, has nothing to do with sports, but it has
lots to do with the rhetoric that followed the heavily publicized
comments of Marlin’s manager Ozzie Guillen. Back in 1961, the ill-fated
invasion was fueled by Cuban exiles who had convinced two U.S.
administrations to help them launch an attack on their former homeland
-- an attack that was easily repelled by the forces of Fidel Castro and
the Cuban masses who the invaders had mistakenly hoped would rise up and
help them.
Ever since that failure, exploiting anti-communist fears to portray
Castro as a monstrous boogeyman, has been a cottage industry in Florida
and Washington. While many have certainly assailed Fidel and still do
for very legitimate reasons, others simply hate that he overthrew their
dictator, Fulgencio Batista, whose corrupt government helped enriched
privileged Cubans and American interests at the expense of the country’s
poorest people.
Given
that backdrop, when the manager of the Miami Marlins recently said that
he essentially admired Fidel for his longevity, it wasn’t surprising
that a number of Castro’s critics demanded not just Guillen’s job, but
his head to boot. And while there is no way to defend Ozzie or the
blatant insensitivity of his remarks, lets not pretend there’s no
politics at work in some of those calls for his ouster.
Whipping up a frenzy over slights real and imagined is a play straight
out of a far right handbook and Florida’s electoral cloud has often
given Fidel’s critics far more leverage than their arguments merit. If
the Marlins start winning, the furor will most likely die. But for many,
I doubt Ozzie’s words will ever be forgotten. Cuba may have been a
foreign battlefield 51 years ago tonight, but it’s a domestic minefield
now and, for a variety of complex reason’s, it’s still a very dangerous
subject on which to tread.
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.
