Steelers lost Super Bowl; now Mendenhall tweets on bin Laden

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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.