Barkley adds another forum for his opinions By DAVID BARRON Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle The purported kings of synergy were out-synergized Thursday afternoon. A few minutes after ABC and ESPN introduced Brad Nessler and Bill Walton as their lead NBA announce team, AOL Time Warner trumped the mice by extending Charles Barkley's contract to appear on TNT's expanded Inside the NBA and announcing that Barkley will make weekly appearances beginning this fall on CNN's TalkBack Live. In his first appearance, Barkley promptly weighed in on the death penalty for accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui (he's for it), sexual abuse by Catholic priests (he's against it), the Pope (he likes him), Michael Jordan (he should retire) and the Ted Williams freezing controversy ("I thought it was only my black relatives who were crazy"). Truth be told, Barkley got in better lines during the conference call announcing his new contract. "Drug dealers go to jail when they get busted," he said. "Rich guys get congressional hearings, and I'm sick of that. The next time one of those guys gets up and pleads the Fifth, they should jump and start beating the hell out of him. They steal people's money, and then they have the audacity to go before Congress and plead the Fifth. That's absurd. "People don't care about being a Republican or a Democrat. They just want life to be better," he said. "They want a good job and want their kid to go to a good school. And then you've got people who have lost their life's savings and people who are really rich getting millions in severance packages and leading a good, happy life while the people who are protecting us, like the government, aren't doing their jobs." Citizen Chuckster, by the way, also will hold forth on basketball topics more frequently this season. As TNT moves to weekly Thursday night doubleheaders, it will expand pre-game and halftime programs to offer more from Barkley, Kenny Smith and studio host Ernie Johnson.
What's wrong with that quote? Good to see Charles getting a forum, he's one of the few sports personalities that tells it like it is instean of defending friends and following the corporate guideline to the point where they're afraid to give their own opinion.
Barkley's just being Barkley. You can't bash him for making "black" jokes. We wouldn't have Bernie Mac or any other black comedian for that matter, if we jumped Barkley for this joke. Or am I reading your anger incorrectly? I often don't agree with him but I like his comment on "good jobs, good schools, rich crooks" etc. Agree or disagree with him, I'm glad he'll still be around on the TV set. If they can hire Tolbert and Walton (one of these: ), then they can hire Sir Charles. Any news on Kenny the Jet "Please Shut Up"-on-Draft-Night Smith?
Well . . . . By and large Barkley's 'jokes' toward black folx are a bit more mean spirited and degrading . . . . . sort of as me and my friends say . . he cracking but he ain't joking. Barkley seems to legitimately have a problem with black folx. . . and i will leave it at that Rocket River
I love the Chuckster and I'm glad he's gonna get to talk more. I'm gonna start watching Talk Back Live again if Barkley will be there. He's definately more enjoyable than the usual people who are on that show. I want to see Barkley argue with a pundit, that would be great.
Say what you want too, I like Charles on the tnt show. His so called black jokes are pretty much what many black people think. I was thinking the same thing about The Williams family. I thought uncle willie from my moms family was a little off, but this williams thing is a whole new class.
Barkley is entertaining and usually has a meaning behind what he says. That's a pretty good combonation.
Barkley has always been the man. I rooted for Sir Charles everywhere he went. It just so happens that the Rocks were the last team he played for, thus now I'm a loyal Rockets fan even without him. I think I'd still be rooting for the Suns now if that was his last team (good thing he left Phoenix, hehe). With the arrival of Yao Ming, now I have more reason to cheer for the Rockets (cuz I'm Chinese, too). Wow. 7 posts. That's all I get after some 4 or 5 years lurking here. But I just had to put down my 2 Yuan here about Barkley,
i'm happy for him. Lots of pople like him, at the same time pople hate him. And thats why he gets tv time.
very funny man, but i doesn't work like that. I'm black and i get flamed and bashed for saying what i want want.
It doesn't matter whether people agree with him or not. Barkley is entertaining. And that's what TV is for. I like hearing him as a commentator even when he is way off. But I hated him when he was a Rocket. Getting Barkley was one of the worst moves the Rox have done. He could not replace the combined value of Horry and Ellie. He was not complementing Hakeem. And he was probably the reason why Drexler prematurely retired.
