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writing for godot

Battered CEO Syndrome: Did Roger Provoke His Beating?

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Written by Robert Douglas   
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 23:44
Where was Rosemary Woods when Commissioner Roger Goodell needed her – or someone like her – to erase the tape of Ray Rice punching his wife-to-be in a hotel elevator?

Woods was Richard Nixon’s loyal secretary who erased 18-and-a-half minutes of audiotape subpoenaed during the Watergate hearings that ultimately led to her boss resigning in disgrace.

If Goodell had had someone to erase the videotape of Rice before a TMZ copy went viral on the Internet and ESPN he might not have put himself into the spotlight of a domestic violence scandal that may lead to his resigning in disgrace.

Of course, the still-missing audiotape that Woods erased didn’t matter much in the end because there was enough other incriminating tape to show Nixon had done wrong. But as far as we know, there is only one smoking-gun videotape of Rice brutalizing his fiancée.

And if Goodell didn’t see it before giving Rice no more than a glancing bitch-slap of a two-game suspension, it’s because he didn’t want to see it. But the days of plausible deniability are over as a credible excuse for corporate executives and political leaders.

In the 1970s, Nixon’s complicity in illegal election campaign tactics hung on one question: “What did the president know and what did he know it?” He quit before he had to answer.

In 2014, the question is what did Goodell know about the severity of the the Rice attack and when did he know it, and his answers thus far sound as convincing as a midwife saying, “I don't know nothing “bout birthing babies.”

ABC News recently reported that 48 percent of violent crime arrests of NFL players involve domestic violence. The network also quotes ESPN columnist Jemele Hill saying that before the league — which has a 40 percent female fan base — drafts a player its officials do such meticulous homework that they know what cereal he eats. Given the depths to which the league goes to include such minutia, she questions how hard it tried to obtain the tape of prosecutors. “Are you going to tell me the NFL couldn’t exercise more influence than TMZ?

Goodell shouldn’t have had to see the Rice videotape to know there had been an assault. The truth is that leagues and teams, including those at universities, turn a blind eye to the misconduct of talented athletes from Rice to FSU’s own Jameis Winston. The only rule seems to be if they perform well on the field there are no media scandals too heinous to be contained.

In a perfect world, Rice should be in jail and his wife should be in treatment for battered woman syndrome, Goodell should be out of a job and fans should be turning off their TVs this weekend.

But in today’s America, despite all the debate over the Rice videotape, there’s only question that will evoke a positive response: “Are you ready for some football?”
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Robert Douglas is a former union official and former business editor for The Palm Beach Post and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , like him on RBDMedia.com on Facebook or follow RBDMediaDotCom on Twitter.
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