May 3, 2011 | 10:46 am

Steelers lost Super Bowl; now Mendenhall tweets on bin Laden

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow JewishJournal.com on

Via Wikimedia Commons

Another from the Maybe Athletes Shouldn’t Use Twitter file.

Steelers’ running back Rashard Mendenhall has caused a stir over a series of tweets yesterday concerning the death of Osama bin Laden. First, I should point out that, I agree with Mendenhall on this:

“For those of you who said you want to see Bin Laden burn in hell and piss on his ashes, I ask how would God feel about your heart?”

And this:

“I believe in God. I believe we’re ALL his children. And I believe HE is the ONE and ONLY judge.”

Absolutely true, and, as I mentioned last night, a lot of religious folks have been disturbed by the sporting-even nature of some of the “U-S-A!” celebrations of bin Laden’s assassination.

Under international law and a nation’s ability to defend itself against its enemies, bin Laden definitely had it coming. But from a religious perspective, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” At the very least, bin Laden’s death should probably be greeted with a bit more measure.

Anyway, there is not the same able for debate over another Mendenhall tweet:

“What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”

After that, he mentioned how we don’t really know what happened on 9/11. I’m not going to touch that—“South Park” did it!—and there’s more at ESPN.com.

But I am going to take issue with the premises of the above statement.

Osama bin Laden’s bad public image was not the case of one-sided news reporting in which one man was bad-mouthed without a chance to respond. First, there was a time when bin Laden gave interviews. Second, and more important, bin Laden took credit for 9/11 and released numerous tapes and videos declaring war on the United States.

End of story.