Outrage Over SuperBowl Flub

Mike & Friends Blog

Dan Rackley

Dan Rackley is a US Naval veteran living in Philadelphia and a contributor to "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?"

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February 8th, 2011 9:45 AM

This Is What Everyone's Upset About?

By Dan Rackley

So everyone, it’s Tuesday already. Like normal, I woke up and got my son ready for school. After I got back I started scanning the news to report on the latest collective civil outrage in our country. So what’s the one thing so far this week that is gripping everyone’s emotions and sending them into a fever pitch? I’ll give you all a few moments to take a deep breath and try to guess what it is. Sorry, it’s not Egypt. I know that seemed like the obvious go to guess, but unfortunately that’s not what is sending people into an uproar. Not gun control either. Yeah, I figured that would be it too. Let me see here, what else? Is it a story about a particularly grisly murder? Nope! There’s something far more important on everyone’s minds. If it’s not on yours and you aren’t busy making your protest sign at this very moment; you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

You see, the main focus of national outrage this week seems to be directed at Christina Aguilera for messing up the national anthem before the SuperBowl this past Sunday. Now, I did not see the performance live until after the fact. I at the time of this incident was risking life and limb for my family trying to pick up a pizza ten minutes before game time. By the time I got back, my wife had mentioned nothing to me and nothing was mentioned the rest of the game. So we’re watching the news and they reported on this as if it was just some inadvertent sports blooper. Everyone has seen tons of clips of people messing up the national anthem at some point or another. No big deal right? Wrong! This time it was different.

She messed it up during the SuperBowl! Don’t you see, the SuperBowl is now a national holiday. Right next to Arbor Day and Johnny Appleseed Day. So if you do anything at all to desecrate anything on this most sacred of days, you will instantly become a national pariah. Take what happened to Christina Aguilera. Everyone up and down the line is publicly calling for everything from a public apology to having her drawn and quartered. Now folks, think back to any time in your life you had to give a speech at a meeting or banquet. You rehearsed that speech day in and day out for what seemed like forever. Think of the pressure you were under to get everything right. The big day comes and you go and give your speech in front of the few dozen people in attendance. Then about halfway through you drop your note cards or you forget something and you totally blow the speech. The only difference here is that she did it in front of a billion people on live television. It’s not like she stopped halfway through or something. She just repeated line or something like that. This is what is making everyone so upset. She kinda sorta made a mistake.

Before everyone starts getting their pitchforks and torches ready; I want to tell you a little story. In 2003, I had just recently come back from Iraq. I was in a bar with a good friend of mine. In the next room of the bar was a man who was obviously inebriated butchering the national anthem like nothing I have ever seen. Not one word was sung correctly, and he had the benefit of having every word of it on a screen. Nobody said a single thing to him during or after, and everyone probably thought it was a big joke that the drunk sang the Star Spangled Banner so horribly. This woman had to do it without help, inside a packed stadium with the whole world watching. Everyone needs to calm down and think for a second. If you wouldn’t say anything in the private confines of a bar, why would you think it such a great act to jump on the bandwagon and get oh so upset at something that only a few people could do and the ones that can sometimes mess up? This wasn’t like what happened with Roseanne years ago when she totally made a joke out of the thing. It was one simple mistake. Like when Robert Goulet was asked to sing Oh Canada at a Wrestlemania event years ago. He was so nervous he asked them to put the words on one of the giant screens in the arena in case something went wrong and nobody ever said a thing. We’re so scared to do something without help in this country that we will run the risk of becoming national pariahs. But then again, if Christina Aguilera asked that they put the words up on the JumboTron; people would probably accused her of being unpatriotic for not having the song memorized. In a country where so many of our citizens don’t know the song itself. Just watch Leno one night when he does that JayWalking bit; you’ll see. Calm down people, there’s far more important things to worry about. Not some singer messing up during a live performance.

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