I never figured I’d be coming to the defense of Hank Williams Jr., whose music and lifestyle both leave me cold. But it bugs me that Hank has become the latest victim of “gotcha” journalism.

Hank lost his gig as singer of the theme song of ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecasts because he used the name of Adolf Hitler in the same context as the names of the president of the United States, the speaker of the U.S. House and the prime minister of Israel.

The most striking thing about the incident to me was the fact that Hank apparently knew who Benjamin Netanyahu is, and that pro football fans gave a rip about him, given the lack of an NFL franchise in Jerusalem.

It happened during an interview on Fox News, that peerless purveyor of spin-free information. Hank was talking politics, a topic with which he seems to be as comfortable as he is with sobriety and chastity. The subject of a round of golf between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner came up. The two men have been at loggerheads over ways to deal with the national deficit and the economic slump.

Obama and Boehner played a round of golf, presumably to feel each other out on the tough issues.

Hank figured that was a mistake for Boehner.

“That would be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu,” Hank opined.

The national media immediately hollered “gotcha!” ESPN, demonstrating all the sensitivity of a linebacker nailing a running back, announced that it would no longer use Hank’s song, “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” to introduce its NFL telecasts.

“Hank Williams Jr. compares Obama to Hitler, Gets Pulled from Monday Night Football,” headlined the Huffington Post, the new darling of Internet journalism.

Can’t they read? Hank made no such comparison. He compared a golf match between Boehner and Obama to a match between Hitler and Netanyahu. It was an analogy — maybe not a spot-on analogy, but certainly one that anyone capable of distinguishing a lateral from a screen pass should be able to understand.

Hank himself explained it pretty well: “My analogy was extreme, but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was.”

I can’t imagine anyone as far apart philosophically as Hitler and the Israeli prime minister. Hank seemed to be implying that the president and House speaker were similarly far apart philosophically. It’s a stretcher to say that Boehner and Obama are as different as Hitler and Netanyahu, but then hyperbole is a legitimate and often-used rhetorical device. Does anyone literally strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Does anyone go around with a rafter in his eye that needs removal? Has anyone ever moved a mountain with faith the size of a mustard grain? Exaggerated analogies all, yet employed by a man of impeccable repute.

The reaction of Hank’s critics reminds me of the reaction of school kids when I was in the primary grades:

“Teacher, Tommy said a bad word!”

“What did he say?”

“He said he would kick my butt.”

Sometimes Tommy had to stay in for using such foul language. At other times the teacher, if she was a sensible soul, would simply say, “Butt’s in a book.” In those days, if a word made it into print, it was presumed to be acceptable in polite conversation.

Not any more. Remember the stink raised by the media and their easily offended coterie when John McCain used the word “tar baby” in an analogy? What he said was that when you get into certain questions about divorce cases, you’re “getting into a tar baby of enormous proportions.”

Although the fable of Bre’r Rabbit and the tar baby is firmly embedded in American literature and folklore, the “gotcha” folks hollered “racial epithet,” and McCain had to apologize for using a perfectly apt analogy. In Joel Chandler Harris’ famous story, no racial aspersions were cast and no racial characteristics were assigned to the tar baby. Bre’r Fox simply covered a doll with sticky tar and used it to trap Bre’r Rabbit, who had been trespassing on his property.

Adolf Hitler is perhaps the world's most infamous villain. He is the personification of evil. But when you use his name in a context with more virtuous figures, you’re not necessarily comparing them. Winston Churchill famously declared, “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” I doubt that Winnie’s constituents raised a big stink about his softness on Satan who is, one could argue, a notch or two more evil that der Fuehrer. English author Samuel Butler did not forfeit his place in literature when he wrote, “An apology for the devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”

Hank Williams Jr. is not a Samuel Butler and certainly no Winston Churchill. I like his daddy’s singing better, and his son, Hank III, sounds more like the original Hank. Hank Jr. has done a lot of devilish things in his life, but don’t skewer him for making a clumsy but not outlandish analogy.

I doubt that ESPN’s snub will hurt Hank Jr. with his rowdy friends, who expect him to be a little rough around the edges. As Bocephus himself puts it in another song: “It’s a family tradition.”

Readers may write Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or email him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.