ESPN Boots Hank Williams Jr. Off Monday Night Football After Obama-Hitler Analogy

Sanders will narrate a brief introductory segment following a game preview when the Detroit Lions host the Chicago Bears for this week’s Monday Night Football game. Sanders revealed his role yesterday via Twitter.

Even with a new intro in place, don’t expect Hank Williams Jr. to disappear so easily from the airwaves. The deadly combination of 24-hour cable news and a presidential primary will keep this debate going long after the rest of America has found something disagreeable about the new intro segment.

ESPN released a statement on Thursday announcing they were parting ways with Hank Williams Jr., whose “Are You Ready For Some Football?” has been the opening sequence to Monday Night Football for 23 seasons. This comes after some controversial comments from Williams Jr. on President Barack Obama.

Around the same time ESPN released a statement that they were parting ways with him, Williams Jr. announced on his website that he quit.

ESPN has decided to pull the plug on Hank Williams Jr. for good after he made waves with political statements regarding President Barack Obama. ESPN previously took his now-famous “Are You Ready For Some Football?” opening song to Monday Night Football off the air but in a statement released on Thursday ESPN announced that they are parting ways with Williams.

Here’s the statement from ESPN:

And of course it all comes back to Hank Williams Jr. and that pesky little golf analogy.

Video after the jump.

Okay, this has been bothering me for a while, and it might not bother you, but I need to get if off my chest. Somewhere during the middle of the Colts and Bucs game on ESPN Monday night, maybe a few minutes after reading Hank Williams Jr. compare Obama to Hitler, it became obvious: Monday Night Football’s as washed up and depressing as Hank Williams Jr.

The Monday Night game used to be an Event each week. It felt special. The best teams in football, the biggest games, all on national TV with the whole country watching. From 1970 to 2005, there was something special about being on Monday Night, and it gave football fans something to look forward to every week. Then the game shifted from ABC to ESPN, and it just hasn’t been the same.

On Monday morning, Hank Williams, Jr. compared Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler during an interview on FOX News’ “Fox & Friends” morning show. Not surprisingly, the comments sparked a mini-controversy, prompting ESPN to pull the country music star’s traditional opening sequence from Monday Night Football.

Williams has now issued a statement of his own attempting to clarify his point of view:

Hank Williams, Jr. will not be inquiring about your readiness for Monday Night Football tonight after ESPN decided to pull the country music star’s traditional opening sequence, the result of controversial comments Williams made this morning about Pres. Barack Obama.

Williams, a Republican who helped campaign for Bush-Cheney in 2000 and McCain-Palin in 2008, called the golf game “one of the biggest political mistakes ever.” When asked to elaborate, Williams said, “That turned a lot of people off. You know, watching, you know, it just didn’t go over.” He then stated, “It would be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu, OK?,” adding that Obama and Biden are “the enemy.”