When is enough ... enough?

Stanley Woodward was a well-known sports editor in New York in the 1950s and 1960s who once grumbled his writers were spending too much time "godding up the athletes" and not enough time doing actual reporting.

I found myself wondering what Woodward, Red Smith and the rest of the old gang would be saying today. The news out of New York is a fellow named Plaxico Burress, a very good wide receiver for the New York football Giants, is in a load of trouble. Seems the fellow, who was supposed to be nursing an injury, went to one of the city's nightclubs and somehow ended up shooting himself in the leg with a gun he had in his pocket. That would be bad enough but, since this fellow is a well-known athlete, a lot of people started running interference to keep the information from the police and everybody else.

The police, naturally, took a dim view of this. New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg sensed a media opening and poured through with a series of loud complaints that is making the local media giddy.

Bloomberg may be grandstanding a bit when he complains about the Giants and the NFL working overtime to keep the issue quiet (what did he think they would do?) but his main point is a solid one: now that we know what the guy did, he shouldn't avoid paying the same penalty you and I would for such an infraction.

But that is not how we do things in this country. The Big Three automakers run their businesses into the ground and Congress gives them all the money they want to stay afloat. A celebrity gets into legal trouble and ends up on probation for something that would send you and I to the clink.

We spend so much time godding up athletes, movie stars and CEOs that we have forgotten a basic fact: take away their money, fame and good looks and they are no different than us. In fact, when the time comes to head to the next life, there is not a damn thing a Donald Trump can do about it. Eventually, he will end up looking like me.

Eventually, enough will be enough. Mr. Burress may be doing society a favor that is long overdue. He may provide the impetus needed for us to respect celebs and CEOs for their accomplishments while still treating them like anybody else. If so, his shot in the leg is a welcome shot in the arm at a time when this country needed one.