The Lindsey Jacobellis Pile-on

This blogger captures my feelings about the coverage of the lovely Lindsey Jacobellis's Silver Medal (Congratulations, Lindsey!) and of the Olympics in general:

If, as I did, you found it utterly distasteful the lengths to which the mainstream media went in lampooning and, in some quarters, villifying Vice President Dick Cheney over the past week for accidentally shooting his hunting partner a week ago today during a quail hunt in south Texas, then you must share with me the revulsion in seeing what the MSM (led by NBC Sports) is doing to 20-year-old Lindsey Jacobellis for failing to win the gold medal for the U.S. in the inaugural women's snowboardcross race in the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Apparently the media looks askance at silver and bronze medals when the gold is so clearly in sight, as it was for Jacobellis until she fell after the penultimate jump owing to what many in the media are terming a "botched stunt" -- i.e., a little showboating before the cameras.

NBC Sports, in its coverage of the race, couldn't resist comparing Lindsey Jacobellis to the Dallas Cowboys' Leon Lett (for celebrating too soon) and even had a video vignette of one of PGA golfer Gregg Norman's famous meltdowns during The Masters at Augusta (to emphasize how Lindsey had choked in the face of sure victory). NBC was ruthlessly mean-spirited and showed no compunction in turning her winning of the silver medal for her country into something akin to a funeral wake. Bob Costas' interview of Jacobellis was particularly distasteful, as a barely audible "Congratulations" followed only after a lengthy probing of why the young woman blew the race. I guess it is lost on NBC that it is blowing the Olympics' coverage and doesn't hold a candle to ABC's long, award-winning tenure.

To be sure, I would liked to have seen Lindsey win the gold, just as I would loved to have seen Apolo Anton Ohno advance to the finals of the 1500 Short Track Speed Skating. But anything can happen in athletic competition and such vagaries lend drama to the sport and add an air of uncertainty to the chill air of the Winter Olympics' venue. Nothing is so certain as uncertainty in life.

But Jacobellis won a silver medal in her event and that should not be lost on Americans. And to my way of thinking she won a gold medal as well for her honesty and poise under fire from NBC Sports and much of the MSM, which thinks nothing of dismembering a 20-year-old woman and burying her in the snow of northen Italy.

Congratulations, Lindsey! I mean that from the heart.


FOLLOW-UP: Speaking of NBC Sports' hom-hum coverage of the Winter Olympics, do read this post by The Anchoress.

FOLLOW-UP II: Here's another example of the tar and feathering of a 20-year-old in her first Olympics by the MSM; and another; and another.