The woking-dead this week discovered Barstool Sports, described by its founder as “sports/smut.”  And like the Visigoths they tried to sack the super popular enclave of traditional masculinity and failed. Badly. 

Do comments posted in response to an article define the writer’s viewpoint - or the viewpoint of the site that allows people to comment on articles? According to a very strange piece about the "persistence of traditional masculinity in sports culture" published last weekend by NBC writer Shannon Ho, they do.

Barstool Sports does publish articles about… sports. Sports are a form of entertainment. Many of these are played by men. The site published an article about rape allegations leveled at former New England Patriots wide receiver Antonio Brown.

This being a news and entertainment site about sports, "progressive discourse." There's NBC "news" for that.

The Barstool article itself aroused no indignation -- but the comments which followed aroused the ire of NBC's arbiters of the acceptable.

Barstool still allows what most mainstream media sites -- including, notably, NBC (and American Thinker) -- have long-since done away with: a free-for-all comments section where anyone can say whatever they like about the article.

Or anything else. NBC didn't like what some of the readers had to say - and went after Barstool for allowing them to say it, imputing a “conservative ideology” to Barstool’s policy of not suppressing comments. Not suppressing speech. 

This diversity of opinion is, of course, intolerable to the arbiters of permissible speech. NBC, et al, used to allow free-for-all commentary online but have either eliminated or heavily censored their comments section, to create the impression of uniform opinion.

A uniform left-progressive-woke opinion. The real problem with Barstool, then was what was said by the hoi polloi -- people not employed as credentialed press.

When they allowed people to comment on their sites, NBC, et al, were often hugely embarrassed when readers pointed out errors. The fact that Barstool still allows free speech makes NBC look bad. 

Since NBC can’t demonetize or de-platform Barstool Sports, a hugely popular site that claimed 8.1 million unique individual readers a month in 2016, it demonizes the site as a den of alt-right toxic masculinity.

Which is both hilarious and sad, given that NBC employed and shielded serial predators like Matt Lauer, who had a rape button under his desk at NBC, as noted by Barstool editor-on-chief Kmarko, who also noted the irony of Ho's inclusion of an additional harangue directed at the web site by a dean at Penn State, the home for decades of serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky.

But grease-painting your team's colors on your face, drinking beer and cheering a 70-yard breakaway run to the end zone are so much worse.

Cue the Jazz Hands.

Ho also quotes someone by the name of Soyaya Chemaly, the author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.  Soya says that guys who like to watch football aren't just sports fans - they're really crypto-conservatives and probable Nazis whose interest in the game is a “reactionary response to women’s increasing prominence and equality.”

Ho -- supposedly a journalist -- lets this sail by like a Hail Mary pass on fourth and long.  Had she done even a little fact-checking, she would have discovered the very inconvenient truth that the NFL and NBA (as well as collegiate sports played by men) are hugely popular with women.

In fact, male-dominated sports such as pro and collegiate football and basketball have never been more popular with women, who often watch the game with their brothers, boyfriends, husbands and just friends.

Women also cover sports. Many of them even -- egads! -- work for Barstool. 

The site’s founder, David Portnoy, who I believe is an iconoclastic genius, notes that the site “(has) a primarily female leadership team, not because they are women but because they are the most qualified.” Never mind those facts, when there's an agenda to pursue. 

Ho is unrelenting. She says, “Conservative ideology appears to be a core part of Barstool Sports -- especially its portrayal of gender roles, with hypermasculine, sports-loving men and hypersexualized submissive women.”

Too bad she never asked any.

What's next? Will buying a Corvette rather than a Prius be taken as evidence of toxic masculinity and crypto-fascism? What happens when a woman buys a Corvette instead of a Prius?

Never mind. Are women allowed to drive pickup trucks? I can hear heads exploding. 

“We will not bow down to the winds of PC culture, whichever way they may blow,” he said.

In other words, Barstool’s policy is to let the readers make up their own minds - and express them. Imagine that. 

If that hurts the feelings of the Woke Kool-Aid kids, so be it., because Portnoy will always get the last laugh. 

A.J. Rice is CEO of Publius PR, a premiere millennial-owned communications firm in Washington D.C. Rice is a brand manager, star-whisperer and auteur media influencer, who has produced or promoted Laura Ingraham, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Monica Crowley, Charles Krauthammer, Steve Hilton, Roger L. Simon, Victor Davis Hanson, and many others. Find out more at publiuspr.com.