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The liberal blogger hired by the Washington football team to defend its controversial team name didn’t last a month on the job before he announced on Twitter last night that he would be resigning from the newly created post.
I don’t want to be a distraction to the team as the political attacks have shifted towards being personal towards me.
— Ben Tribbett (@notlarrysabato) July 8, 2014
So I’m going to send in my resignation to the Redskins. Hopefully that allows debate to move back to where it should be. — Ben Tribbett (@notlarrysabato) July 8, 2014
PS- Hail to the Redskins! — Ben Tribbett (@notlarrysabato) July 8, 2014
The team hired Tribbett right after the U.S. Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled the team’s federal trademark because it is considered to be disparaging to Native Americans.
Tribbett ran the now-shuttered Not Larry Sabato blog and made a name for himself when he broke the story of former Virginia Sen. George Allen calling an Indian-American man affiliated with his opponent’s campaign “macaca,” a slur meaning monkey.
Since the Washington football team hired Tribbett, the blogger has come under fire from the liberal blogosphere for his stance on the team name, which is largely at odds with the Democratic Party. (Fifty Democratic senators wrote a letter to the NFL Commissioner urging him to get the team to change its name. President Barack Obama also came out against the name.)
So we see who the REAL victim here is: the guy @NotLarrySabato who called “Redskins” a slur but now defends it, and slurred natives
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) July 8, 2014
After Tribbett took the job with the team, he shut down his blog, which now provides dramatic weight loss tips.
The Oneida Indian Nation—-the tribe that has been at the forefront of the campaign to get the team to change its name—-issued a statement today in response to news of Tribbett’s resignation.
“In trying to continue profiting off of a racial slur, Washington team officials have attempted to assemble a political attack machine, but that has only underscored their insensitivity,” the statement read. “Dan Snyder selected a person who financially harmed Native Americans to run a foundation to defend his team’s name. Then Snyder hired a blogger to defend the name, even though that person previously publicly insulted Native Americans and also admitted the team’s name is a racial slur. The fundamental lesson in each of those humiliating episodes should be obvious: there is simply no way to justify promoting, marketing and profiting off of a dictionary-defined racial slur.”
Illustration by Carey Jordan.