[INJoker]

Just to clarify:

The point I was (and am) trying to make is not that Bob Costas should not be allowed to have an opinion, but rather that he showed incredibly poor taste in leveraging his celebrity status, his time on-air on national television, and the fact that he had a de facto "captive audience," to capitalize upon a tragedy and score cheap political points by reading the statement.

(Yes, I realize we are not a "captive audience" and can change the channel, but he did it so quickly and without prior warning that nobody in the middle of it would have realistically had time to turn to another station. Thus, "de facto.")

Had Bob Costas held a press conference outside his home this morning and read that same piece of paper, I would disagree with him and still think of him as a nincompoop, but I wouldn't have reacted to it the same way.

This is not a Free Speech issue. He can say what he feels and we can agree, disagree, or even argue with him using that same First Amendment right.

My problem is only that he used his position to capitalize upon a tragedy and repeat a bunch of asinine drivel fed to him by the anti-gun crowd without a second thought.