Here we go again...

When were the stupid pills passed out?

In a time when the political rhetoric has been ratcheted up to unprecedented levels, yet another public figure has stepped in it with a wild comparison that in no way hits the mark.

On the heels of HBO's Bryant Gumbel likening NBA commissioner David Stern to a "modern day plantation owner" in one of the dumbest comparisons in recorded history, now Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) says the NCAA is "just one of the most vicious, most ruthless organizations ever created by mankind."

Never mind the Nazi Party, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, Bosnian Serb Army, Irish Republican Army, Hamas, Hezbollah or Abu Nidal. Forget them, because according to Rush, the NCAA apparently is worse.

OK, maybe Rush slipped up and didn't really mean that. After all, politicians sometimes speak without thinking and maybe it was just an off-hand utterance that is being blown out of proportion.

Nope. He wasn't finished with his idiocy.

"I think you would compare the NCAA to Al Capone and to the Mafia," Rush continued while speaking at a congressional forum on college sports on Tuesday. "It's a systemic, ongoing, prolonged abuse of thousands and thousands of innocent young men and women who are only trying to make a life for themselves and live the American dream."

Look, the NCAA has its problems. The way that rules are enforced is subject to the whims of the way the wind blows, and in the case of the abhorrently hypocritical Paul Dee, have been administered by someone who should have a permanent imprint of his rear end in a chair on the other side of the table.

But it's not the Mafia.

Student-athletes bemoan their plight whenever they ask for more. Last week, the NCAA approved allowing conferences to allow up to $2,000 in spending money as the "cost of attendance" per student-athlete, per year.

This is on top of the full tuition, books, and room and board. No one has really made much of a stink about the $2,000 because it really is not that big of a deal. If you think that two grand is going to stop the hundred dollar handshakes from boosters to players I've got some land in southern Florida I'd like to sell you. But it makes the schools feel just a little bit less guilty about the millions they reap off of the labors of the kids they pay lip service to educating.

Again, the NCAA is far from perfect. But here's the thing: everyone knows the deal well before they sign on the bottom line. There are no surprises – or at least there shouldn't be.

The deal is pretty cut and dried. In exchange for the opportunity to get an education, you help us make money by packing the seats full of fannies. If you, as the student-athlete, fail to get an education, that's not on us because the opportunity was there.

This is the deal. Take it or leave it. If you think it is unfair to you or your child, don't sign up for it.

Is that fair? Perhaps not, but playing sports isn't a right, nor is getting a college education. There is a social responsibility that coaches and administrators have to medically take care of their student-athletes if they get hurt while participating in the sport they are, in essence, getting paid for. However, that responsibility does not extend in perpetuity.

Is the NCAA guilty of corruption? In some cases, probably. But they don't take you into the woods and cap you in the back of the head when you don't see it coming.

That is apparently what Congressman Rush would have you believe by comparing the NCAA to the Mafia.

Predictably, the NCAA fired back, saying via e-mail from spokesman Bob Williams, "Congressman Rush obviously doesn't know the NCAA. The NCAA and its member institutions provide over $2 billion per year in scholarships, financial assistance and academic support to student-athletes ... second only to the federal government. Student-athlete success is our mission."

Of course, we have come to take any of the self-serving pap the NCAA spews as their own version of the truth, as convoluted as it may be. The truth of the final sentence of Williams' statement should read "Student-athlete success on our terms is our mission."

But it's not the Mafia.

The NCAA is not in the business of heroin trafficking; the initiation ritual does not include murder. If you turn state's evidence your sister won't wake up with a horse's severed head in the bed next to her. That's the Mafia.

As is the case with Gumbel's idiotic statements in his closing monologue on the most recent "Real Sports" episode in regards to Stern, one has to wonder where the ideas for supposedly educated grown men making ridiculous utterances has its origins.

Just as the political mudslinging everywhere, but especially here in Wisconsin, has never been more vicious, the admonition of President Obama to dial down the political rhetoric "in a way that heals, not a way that wounds" has been ignored by everyone, including the President himself.

The political silliness of the moment has seen conservatives liken the President to Adolf Hitler; likewise, liberals in Madison have done the same to Gov. Walker.

It is perhaps with these equally disgusting characterizations that others, no matter the political viewpoint, have taken to baiting the masses with the most objectionable comparisons they can conjure up simply to grab headlines.

While I appreciate the earnestness of Congressman Rush's intentions – to be an advocate for many of the economically disadvantaged young men and women that inhabit his mostly poor district, his choice of words is just another example of foot-in-mouth syndrome that is running rampant in society today.

The harm is that words have consequences. They put the very institutions that they are trying to affect change with on the defensive. Such inflammatory discourse only makes the problem worse, not better. What good has come from Gumbel's comments about Stern? What good has come from the mudslinging in Madison or Washington?

Ironically, the only way to combat grown men from making half-witted commentary is to hearken back to childhood when your mother taught you one of the most important lessons in life.

Think before you speak.