Who deserved a harsher punishment, Shawn Weimer or Anthony Federico?

Who deserved a harsher punishment, Shawn Weimer or Anthony Federico?

Weimer is the Michigan father who was too drunk to drive and had his 9-year-old daughter climb behind the wheel of his full-sized van. He bragged about her being his designated driver when they stopped at a service station. Surveillance cameras showed her getting back into the van and driving away.

Weimer was placed on probation for two years.

Federico was working for ESPN's on-line sports edition and wrote an insensitive headline about New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin. He was fired the next day.

How did we reach the point where violating political correctness is a more serious offense than letting a grade-school student drive a van at night with her intoxicated father in the passenger seat?

Baby Boomers who grew up watching "Hogan's Heroes," "Amos 'n' Andy" and "F Troop" have a hard time understanding the power of the PC police.

Federico deserved to be suspended. Maybe he should have been ordered to attend sensitivity training because that also is a big part of political correctness. But was his crime so harsh that he deserved to be fired?

Lin has a lot in common with Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog who is invisible one day and the center of attention the next. Lin became an overnight sensation and headline writers scrambled to describe "Linsanity" and tout his Lincredible scoring and passing feats.

Then Lin had a bad game and committed nine turnovers in a loss. Federico's headline was "A chink in the armor."

Since Lin is Asian-American, Federico was fired.

Maybe it was just an unfortunate choice of phrases. Federico claimed he had used it 100 times before, highly unlikely since he is just 28 years old. But was his headline, commonly used in sports jargon, so offensive that he should have been fired?

Turn back the clock to the 1950s when Elroy Hirsch was a halfback who ran like Forrest Gump in his leg braces. A sports writer nicknamed him Crazylegs and it stuck with Hirsch until the day he died.

The Detroit Tigers had a little pitcher named Frank Overmire. They nicknamed him Stubby. Nobody was offended, least of all Stubby.

Mordecai Brown didn't think anything was wrong with a small athlete being nicknamed Stubby. He also was a pitcher and they called him Three-Finger Brown because he only had three fingers on his throwing hand.

Quarterback Jack Thompson was called The Throwin' Samoan and running back Johnny Musso was The Italian Stallion long before Rocky Balboa resurrected the nickname.

The Baltimore Bullets had a logo that featured a speeding bullet. The franchise moved to Washington D.C. and eventually became the Washington Bullets. Then someone decided the nickname was offensive and the Bullets became the Wizards.

That was a long time ago, but it's only been a few years since another NBA guard dazzled the ESPN highlight shows with his flashy style. His name was Jason Williams and they called him White Chocolate because he didn't play like a white guy.

Nobody lost a job the first time they put White Chocolate in a headline.

Readers may e-mail Ron at rmontri@monroenews.com