Hank Williams Jr.: Why ESPN Made the Right Move by Firing the Singer

"They get on me wanna know Hank

"Why do you drink?

"Hank why do you roll smoke?

"Why must you live out the songs that you wrote,

"Over and over

"Everybody make my prediction

"So if I get stoned

"I'm just carryin' on

"An old family tradition"

       --- Family Tradition, Hank Williams Jr.

If you know Hank Williams Jr., or at least have followed his career, his life's story, you shouldn't find it the least bit surprising that ESPN bid adios on Thursday to Hank and all his rowdy friends who have long provided the opening theme song for the NFL's Monday Night Football.

It was a good gig for Hank Jr., while it lasted. And it lasted two decades. It kept him relevant although it's been a long time since he's been relevant in the world of country music.

Hank's gone, and by now you've probably read over the conversation he had when he was a bit miffed by a particular golf outing that featured President Obama, VP Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner.

You know by now that Hank referred to the trio as "the Three Stooges" and he really screwed the pooch when he compared Obama to Adolf Hitler.

If you will now pull out your corporate flow chart, you will notice that ESPN is owned by the Walt Disney Companies.

Nothing says "fire him" faster in the Disney realm than comparing the sitting American president to one of the world's worst-ever infamous dictators.

This one didn't involve a lot of discussion up there in Bristol. Mickey Mouse doesn't do Adolf Hitler.

For those of you unfamiliar with the young Hank Jr., he's simply been a rabble-rousing, drinking, partying son-of-a-gun, and in his case the "gun" was his daddy, Hank Sr., who was a rabble-rousing, hard-drinking, hard-partying, legendary country music star.

So if drunkenness and hell-raising was your gig, then Hank Jr. was your guy, and he was the guy for a lot of us during our misguided youth.

If you want politically correct, Hank Jr. is not your guy.

Here's a singer who has a song called "If the South woulda won." And there he has been for 20 years singing the opening number for a league that has close to 60 percent African-American players.

Yeah, this one was a no-brainer in Bristol.

Rush Limbaugh got the ESPN boot when he made a controversial remark about Donovan McNabb.

This time, Hank Jr. simply painted ESPN into a corner.

There was no way out except to show Hank Jr. the door.