…and not merely a the usual pattern of ignorance infused with arrogance, either. Noting that newly honored National League MVP Ryan Braun was previously written off by WFAN’s Mike Francesa as “nothing special, not even among the majors’ top two-way outfielders,” New York Post sports media critic Phil Mushnick suggests, “Braun simply may be ineligible to win the NL MVP by Francesa’s reckoning because he’s half-Jewish, thus he may be a disloyal American.” Y’know, it’s this kind of talk that might cost WFAN their endless stream of advertisements from the Israel Ministry Of Tourism?
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, in a long, on-air simplistic, facts-barren and bigoted spew that seemed taken from the Josef Goebbels How-To Handbook, Francesa not only laid the mass murders at the feet of Israel and on the heads of Jews, he strongly suggested that Jews are unpatriotic Americans, thus make suspect U.S. citizens.
WFAN still has been unable to find the tape from that day — what a coincidence! — and Francesa has denied saying any such things. But he’s a liar. As did many others, I heard him, and wrote about it then. And if I’m wrong, if I made this story up then had it published here, that would be highly actionable, a slam-dunk, can’t-lose libel suit. So then sue me.
More recently, when I again raised this issue here, Francesa again, on the air, denied it, this time adding that a Jewish watchdog agency had even given him, in this matter, clearance.
Really? Which agency? Who, where, when? Tell us. Show us. If the tape is missing, or was erased, or eliminated, or just disappeared or it’s being subjugated, how could any group have issued him such a thumbs-up, declaring that he never spoke such things?