Racist or stupid, Part Demise

 So remember the other day, when the Blob said it was willing to give Jon Gruden the benefit of the doubt about a 10-year-old racist e-mail, and that it was just possible he could actually have been stupid enough to realize just how racist it was?

Absent additional evidence, the Blob wasn't quite prepared to declare Gruden a bigoted jackass.

Well ... additional evidence has emerged.

And, yes, Gruden is a bigoted jackass. Also every bit of That Stupid as the Blob suspected.

He's out, expelled, finished at Faber after the New York Times released additional e-mails in which Gruden revealed himself to be an all-purpose bigot for whom the sort of language he used to describe NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith was not merely nuclear stupid, but part of a bigot's mentality.

 Not only is Gruden a racist, apparently, but he's what frequently comes along with that: A  homophobe, a misogynist, the whole bigotry cavalcade.

In the e-mails released by the Times, for instance, he calls commissioner Roger Goodell a homophobic slur (the "f"-word, and I think we all know what that is). He said "queers" like gay linebacker Michael Sam shouldn't have been drafted, and that Goodell shouldn't have "pressured" then-Rams coach Jeff Fisher into doing so. 

He also said women have no place on an NFL officiating team, and slurred sundry owners, coaches and media members who cover the league.

Not even the occasionally blockheaded Mark Davis, the owner of the  Raiders, could fail to see what he had to do, after that. He called in Gruden and fired/let him resign before the ink barely had dried on the Times piece.

And, regular as sunrise, there will no doubt now be the ceremonial raising of the Freedom O' Speech flag in Gruden's defense in various lunatic fringe precincts. Or maybe not. Maybe this is too open-and-shut even for them. 

Because, listen, the NFL is all about image, like any corporate monolith. Even if that image frequently is revealed to be little more than performance art, it must be protected. And so Gruden had to go. 

Calling the commissioner of the league of which you're part a homophobic slur was just the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of a particularly noxious sundae.

Gruden's last game on the Raiders' sideline was a listless 20-9 home loss to a Bears team that is pretty "meh" itself. It happened a couple of days after the original e-mail about DeMaurice Smith came out, with its crude and ancient racist trope about black men's lips. Which makes you wonder if Gruden had lost his locker room even before the Times piece came out.

OK. So it makes me wonder, then.