Where do you get your news?

We like ESPN.

At least, we like them when they do what they're good at.

Sports.

For the most part, ESPN provides us with good coverage of all the breaking news in the world of sports, and ESPN.com is our number source for all things sports. When it comes to sports, ESPN are experts.

So stick to what you know. Please. Keep up with your 24-7 over-the-top sports commentary and analysis, but leave the political punditry to the folks who have actually studied things other than a play book and sports almanac.

More and more, we seem to find ESPN writers commenting on things other than sports, or worse, using a sports related story to advance a political perspective.

Consider this story from ESPN.com, where Pat Forde uses a story about Rick Majerus as a back-door promotion of stem-cell research, abortion, and (maybe?) even Hillary Clinton. Think its just a coincidence that Majerus' pro-choice views were highlighted during the week of the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade? We doubt it.

That's not all:

• There was the article (and Sportscenter segment) on the firing of the Univ. of Missouri lacrosse coach, which was unapologetically pro-gay in its emotive reporting.
• Speaking of lacrosse, how can we forget their coverage of the Duke lacrosse scandal? ESPN often seemed less concerned with the lacrosse team and more interested in exploiting the racial tension in Durham and pointing a finger at the white, middle class lacrosse players at an expensive private university
  
• Or this story about a kid athlete from Atlanta, in jail for having oral sex with a 10th grader. A moving story, no doubt. Nevermind that he broke the law -- ESPN finds it necessary to write this story using the oft-used political template of a "backwards South" with "archaic laws" that just can seem to catch up with the modern progressive society that ESPN lives in.
  

We thought ESPN had decided that sports and politics just don't mix. Isn't that why they fired Rush Limbaugh from Sunday NFL Countdown?

Yet it doesn't get much more political than this. When ESPN commentator Ivan Maisel reported on the alleged sexual improprieties recently surrounding (now former) Arkansas football coach, he wrote this:

A self-described supporter of Arkansas athletics acquired Nutt's cell phone records through a Freedom of Information Act request. Media members across the nation, including this one, received pdf files detailing Nutt's communications.

The innuendo came at no extra charge. Nutt's detractors have put him in the impossible position of proving a negative--he must have cheated on his wife because there is no proof that he did not.

It is a maneuver borrowed from national politics, Rovian in style and execution. Karl Rove, the chief political advisor to President George W. Bush, made his career on attacking an opponent's strength. In the 2004 presidential election, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth eviscerated Sen. John Kerry's stature as a war hero. Kerry's candidacy never recovered.

Rove had no visible affiliation with the Swift Boat Veterans, except that a tactic he made famous benefited his candidate.

Three years later, the tactic has been imported to Arkansas and used against Nutt.

Really, Ivan? We thought the openly biased anti-Bush reporting was something only the New York Times did.

Guess we were wrong.

Guess ESPN is no longer just an Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.