“We’re becoming a nation of wussies,” Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said the other day after the Vikings-Eagles game in Philadelphia was postponed due to bad weather.
On this point even many Republicans agreed with the Democrat. Same with apolitical football fans, wise guys on sports talk radio, and a popular YouTube regular who calls himself “drinkingwithbob.”
“I’m sick of the wussification of this frickin’ country!” d-bob screams in this week’s red-faced rant.
Yeah, well, I wasn’t in Philly over the weekend. So I don’t know if the NFL was right to push Sunday’s game to Tuesday night. I would note that, back East, they’re still digging out from the Christmas weekend blizzard that Philadelphia narrowly escaped the worst of by receiving a mere foot of snow.
But even if Rendell’s correct about the “wussification of America” — and I don’t think he is — it was a wussy thing for him to say.
What? Rendell and other like-minded complainers can’t hack a bit of schedule shuffling done in the interest of public safety?
Poor babies. Which is wussier? The NFL looking out for the safety of football fans, cops and others by being perhaps overly cautious as a predicted blizzard approached? Or those who whined after their Sunday evening entertainment plans were disrupted?
And while you’re pondering that, have you noticed that, generally speaking, the tough guys who smirk and complain about the weaklings all around them usually have it pretty easy?
Had the game been played in the storm, and Rendell chosen to attend, he would have been chauffeured there by a state trooper. And he would have had the option of sitting in some contributor’s luxury box, rather than shivering in a snowdrift with the hoi polloi.
But as Rendell suggested, this goes beyond playing football in snowstorms. There’s a belief out there that America has gone soft in general.
As I told you before Christmas, you hear it in criticism of the long-term unemployed. It’s said that the jobless should face the fact they may never be hired to a position as high-paying as the one they lost. So stop being wusses and find any kind of steady work. You can bet the folks spouting that line are either collecting a pension or haven’t been in the job market lately.
Sure, you can make the case that Americans have gone soft in some ways.
Black coffee from a Styrofoam cup? What, no vente latte? Oh, the horrors!
But the last couple of years have been a reminder of how tough Americans can be.
No, Governor Rendell, I’m sure that the recession has wrung the wussiness out of most of us. Do me a favor and let drinkingwithbob in on the news.
