ESPN's Double Standard

The Big Lead is reporting that in yesterday's chat with Paul Shirley, that the basketball vagabond Shirley called Kobe Bryant a douche. A reader wrote to TBL and said it went up and then ESPN censored the comment. ESPN can censor if it wants, but the question remains whether "douche" is really a bad word. And, after some quick research it seems that the WWL hasn't thought so in the past.

I found this Bill Simmons Mailbag where the word douche was used in a reader email. However, in ESPN's defense Simmons, in a basketball blog entry only uses "d-bag", which is obviously the polite form of douchebag.

I know I've heard the word used on broadcast television during primetime, and, I must admit, this has always struck me as odd. It is a fairly descriptive word and seems somewhat vulgar, although not one of the big seven. I just know, it is not a word my parents would have let me use when I was a teenager. However, I might liken it to the use of bitch, jerk, ass or some other word that describes an unpleasant person that is frequently heard on the airwaves.