Jack Todd is a columnist for the Montreal Gazette. He likes to stir the post with caustic commentary. Some readers enjoy this. Many leave comments on this very site asking "why would you ever link to a Jack Todd column?"
As Ryan Lambert pointed out this morning in his Minus of the Weekend, Todd recently took on Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins and his decision not to visit the White House as President Obama celebrated the Stanley Cup champions. Here's his take in his "Monday Morning Quarterback" piece:
Just to review the ideological game of Twister Jack Todd is playing here: Tim Thomas "buys the garbage pumped out by Glenn Beck" (right foot, red) yet he would have attended an event at the Clinton White House (right hand, blue) even though Glenn Beck was fond of calling Clinton "a slime ball [whose] only mark he's going to be remembered leaving is the one on a tarp of a cocktail dress" (left hand, red).
Which means Jack Todd can insert foot in mouth.
Perhaps sensing outright accusations of racism aren't the stuff of quality journalism, the Gazette scrubbed the racism line from the column; coming up, their sports editor explains why.
Here's the edited column:
The original version is still available here. More from NESN and Barstool.
We reached out to Gazette Sports Editor Stu Cowen, and he issued this response:
"Jack Todd is a freelancer. He used to be a full-time employee at The Gazette, but took a voluntary buyout package a few years ago and now writes his weekly Monday Morning QB column. He files his stories by email to the sports desk and online desk.
"Story was posted online before I saw it. I made the call to take out the line — 'Truth is, he felt free to dis Barack Obama, because Obama is black' — before it went to print because while it was Jack's opinion as a columnist, he didn't back it up.
"We also ran the following note online when we re-posted edited column last night: Note: The Gazette apologizes for previously posting an unedited version of this column."
We asked Cowen if there would be any discipline of Todd, a question which he did not address.
s/t Mike McLaren