The Mystics President and Her Mock-aca Video
Sheila Johnson has jumped in some hot water that she can't swim out of.
The Washington Mystics have been rotten throughout Johnson's run as team president, having finished in the bottom half of the WNBA's Eastern Conference all five seasons under her, and not winning even a single playoff game.
But Johnson has gotten a pretty free ride through all the on-court suckitude. She's hailed by the gay community for not pretending the grandstands ain't laden with lesbians, and, not coincidentally, she brought the Mystics back to the top of the league in attendance.
Perhaps the lack of criticism in the face of such lousiness let Johnson feel empowered to mock Creigh Deeds, the Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, as a stutterer during a fundraising appearance for Republican opponent Bob McDonnell. But she's finding out she's not bulletproof after all.
The incident was weeks ago, but she's still being compared all over to George Allen when he called that kid "Macaca" during a Senatorial campaign a few years ago, even though stutterers don't have enough advocates to make the noise that followed the Allen slur. The Washington Post wrote about it today.
Surely the legs of the story have something to do with the novelty of Johnson, a black Democrat, supporting a white Republican, McDonnell, in one of only two gubernatorial races in the country this year.
But there's also the youtube clip of Johnson's fake stutter, and that shows her to be every bit the naive, heartless jerk that Allen looked like. It's the kind of moment that ain't really worth apologizing for, unless you can come up with a way to apologize for being a naive, heartless jerk.
But Johnson, who hangs out with the Virginia horsey set, has now given one of those non-apology apologies, issuing a statement that she's sorry only "for any offense he, or others, may have taken.” That's a tack Allen, and countless naive, heartless jerks before him, already tried. It never works. So now the Mystics management, like the management of a lot of local teams in recent years, is gonna be hard to root for.
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1:01 pm
Disgusting and disgraceful.
3:31 pm
I get that it's not right to make fun of people, but I still don't get the macaca comparison. Johnson is not running for office and she did not insult someone because of their race or ethnicity. Clearly, she's not particularly thoughtful, but I don't think her behavior was as bad as Allen's.
And quite frankly, does anyone care what she thinks? She's just another wealthy person who's throwing her weight behind a politician.
Did Bob Johnson help with Hillary Clinton? Hell no. So who cares?
3:47 pm
Huh: johnson's failure to mock Deeds' "race or ethnicity" is irrelevant. That clip makes her look like a cad all the way to her core, same as Allen's clip did for him. in the end, however, i think johnson's Mock-aca Moment will benefit mcdonnell, because it publicizes her support, which can only help him in some demographics he polled poorly with: women and blacks. and his numbers with Stutterer Haters United have got to be through the roof.
5:41 pm
Dave, I just don't see it. She's not the one running for public office. So she looks bad. So what? And if she looks bad, then how will this benefit McDonnell with women and blacks?
I really think that voters probably care more about McDonnell's idiotic writing and his Neanderthal-like view of women than this.