Pat Sajak is feeling the heat...

[cmjb13]

I find it surprising that anyone cares what Pat Sajak thinks in 2014.

[Bobby B.]

I think this nicely demonstrates who can take a joke and have a good laugh, and who chafes at it.
/bigger controversy is return of Bet on Your Baby.

This.  Those words are thrown around all the time by both sides of the political spectrum and Pat was just poking a little fun at that.

[Tim L]

I also scratched my head at what Sajak said.  And I consider myself pretty conservative. 

Which is why I discuss politics and religion very little as a general rule on Facebook, for two main reasons.  I find over the years that people that have a certain viewpoint on either side are very unlikely to change that viewpoint.  Also, many of my FB Friends are in the animation,  entertainment, TV or news industry, and some of them tend toward being liberal, and frankly their politics or religion are not why I am FB friends with them.  I just read over some of their viewpoints.  I told myself I'd never defriend someone purely because of their political leanings.  Another thing..As conservative as I am, I can't stand Rush Limbaugh or most of that crowd on the radio talk shows..

[Vahan_Nisanian]

Another thing..As conservative as I am, I can't stand Rush Limbaugh or most of that crowd on the radio talk shows..

I remember when Donna Summer died (which has been 2 years since), Rush Limbaugh said that "she was a right-wing conservative, one of us". He seemed to have based that on the fact that she became a born-again Christian, thinking there is no such thing as a liberal christian.

[irwinsjournal.com]

Stay tuned for the following hashtags to trend...

#cancelwheel
#shutupandhost
#bringbackBenirschke

/now removing tongue from cheek

[J.R.]

#bringbackBenirschke

I'll get right on it. :-P

[clemon79]

I told myself I'd never defriend someone purely because of their political leanings.

I absolutely have, and I'd do it again. Why should I just sit there and let someone shit all over my news feed because I "friended" them once? Why do I owe it to them to read their crap?

Nope, if your content is repeatedly subtracting from my Facebook experience, you're gone and I'll feel no remorse about it.

[carlisle96]

I think this nicely demonstrates who can take a joke and have a good laugh, and who chafes at it.
/bigger controversy is return of Bet on Your Baby.

This.  Those words are thrown around all the time by both sides of the political spectrum and Pat was just poking a little fun at that.

Where's the fun? Where's the joke?

[TLEberle]

I absolutely have, and I'd do it again. Why should I just sit there and let someone shit all over my news feed because I "friended" them once? Why do I owe it to them to read their crap?

Nope, if your content is repeatedly subtracting from my Facebook experience, you're gone and I'll feel no remorse about it.

I've done it with people I agree with because they're so one-note about it.

I'll put up with a whole lot if the person is interesting or entertaining.  I've also made extensive use of unsubscribe and "don't want to see" and the like, for people whose contributions seem to be limited to image macros and social game updates.

One of the challenging things is to be sufficiently interesting or clever on a regular enough basis to find things to post about that I think a quorum of people will care about. And I'm not quite sure I make that hurdle.

[irwinsjournal.com]

I've also found 'block' to be useful on FB in cases where I'm in a group and non-friends post content that is value-subtracted.

[BrandonFG]

It takes a lot for me to defriend you, and if you usually offer something else that I'm okay with, then I might Unsubscribe. However, me disagreeing with you politically isn't enough to push me to that point. If I merely disagree with you, I can just scroll past. It's when I find your posts repetitive or offensive that I use Unsubscribe.

[Joe Mello]

I remember Pat did a WOF-themed schtick on Twitter when Health Care Exchange started.  That was actually kinda funny.

[The Ol' Guy]

This may be a stretch, but it could be possible that "racist" entered the taunt because of a classic philosophy used by people who don't want to listen to any more of an exchange of ideas. Certain words are almost always debate stoppers, changing to arguments or angry silence on both sides. "Are you losing the debate? Shout "racist"!" Or "bigot". Or "homophobe". Or "Nazi." Having worked in a radio building that included an urban station, once someone didn't like you or your ideas and decided to call you "racist", even if the issue at hand had nothing to do with race, it was just a way of getting you to shut up because they were done listening. Both extreme sides of the climate issue have their minds set in cement and will not be open to different ideas. Pat may have just been using a variation of the tool he's probably been told when he disagrees with a zealot. After all, it wasn't that long ago that an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology suggested those who push and finance anti-climate change philosophies should be imprisoned. That's the only was I could see Pat's comment making any sense. Otherwise, he just may be a few letters short of a full alphabet. 

[PYLdude]

I don't find that a valid excuse at all. Words Have Meanings.

My brother's girlfriend was killed in an accident three and a half years ago. Around that time one guy on a forum who doesn't get along with me (and is largely psycho) got into a heated discussion with me and because he didn't like my response, he called it an atrocity and a tragedy. I went off on him for using those words like they don't mean anything and specifically brought up the actual tragedy. Never used those words out of context again.

If you're gonna toss words like those around you better be damn sure those are intended properly.

[peiboy91]

Pat has tweeted and issued a statement saying "Of course I was joking. Just mocking the name-calling that is directed at global warming skeptics within and without the scientific community.”

So BrandonFG was right in calling this a poorly executed trolljob. As someone who agrees with Pat politically, I even found the tweet to be uncharacteristically brash. His political tweets are usually more subtle and feature his trademark dry wit. But this one wasn't obvious that it was satire, especially to anyone who doesn't know Pat's sense of humor.