Ozzie Guillen and the three dreaded words

Imagine, for a minute, that your job is to have opinions about sports. (Who knows? Maybe this blog has drawn the attention of someone whose job it is to have opinions about sports.)

Your job is to follow the news of the day, learn about it, talk to people who can increase your understanding of it, all in preparation for the time when you have to provide your views on a big story ... something like Ozzie Guillen saying he "loves" Fidel Castro.

But as you're getting ready, three words keep crossing your mind.

No, not "I love Castro."

I don't know.

You don't know if what he said merits firing or not. Pretty much everyone knows that praising Hitler is an absolute no-no (and it should be), but does Castro fall into that category? What Guillen said was stupid, profoundly stupid, and if he didn't mean it that way, he should have been more careful about his words, but if he didn't work in Miami, would we all care? After all, he said something like this before, along with a few other things.

Yet even as you struggle with your indecision, Steve Rushin's words rattle around your brain.

It is a guiding principle of most columns, presidential debates, political ads, bumper stickers, comment sections and cable news punditry that the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill. So say what's on your mind, even if your mind has nothing to say. This makes your mouth a ventriloquist's dummy for your brain, but so what? It will also make your call-in radio show -- or your call to a call-in radio show -- sing.

I haven't written anything about Guillen because I don't know what to think beyond that saying anything nice about Castro isn't a good idea, especially in Miami. But I have the luxury of this blog being a hobby. I don't have to post about anything and everything. I can post when I feel like I have something to say.

My gut tells me Ozzie shouldn't go, that the suspension is enough, especially if he really tries to change his ways and was sincere in his apology. But then again, I'm not Cuban, and since I don't claim any particular nationality (I'm your basic boring white guy of generic European heritage), there's nothing anyone can say about it that offends me.

However, even though I basically don't think Ozzie should be fired, I did think Don Imus should have been fired over what he said about the Rutgers women's basketball team a few years ago. I wondered why it took so long, given his history, but my wife has been wondering why Ozzie basically got a slap on the wrist for what he said about Jay Mariotti. 

It's a good point, actually.

At the end of the day, there aren't too many rules about how we should react to situations like this, other than, again, no praising Hitler, and racism probably isn't a good idea, either. As for sexism and homophobia ... ahhh, it depends. (I'm against both, but in a lot of circles, the go-to insult is to call a man a woman or a woman a man ... or both at the same time.)

Is it as simple as whether we like or dislike someone? After all, remember the founding principle of this blog.

Not everyone agrees on the rules, but everyone has to have an opinion, even though ...

We don't know.