Let's get one thing straight.
This is not about sports.
Or the Eagles.
Or their fans.
This is about culture wars. It is what President Donald Trump does. He glombs on to these made-up issues and then serves them up as red meat to his conservative base.
Yesterday the White House held a celebration on the grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was supposed to be the traditional meeting when the president honors the Super Bowl champions.
But Trump has been involved in a running feud with NFL players over protests during the playing of the National Anthem. He referred to many of those taking a knee to shine a light on racial injustice in the country as "sons of bitches" and urged NFL owners to fire them.
He has wrapped this latest conflagration in the flag, claiming the players were not patriotic and were disrespecting the military.
When the White House received word that very few Eagles would be attending Tuesday's event, they cancelled it.
That was bad enough.
But yesterday, aside from the patriotic show they used to substitute for the real thing, Trump and his team decided to double-down on this particular culture war.
How blind is Trump to the world the rest of us live in? He tried to drive a wedge between the Eagles and their team.
Press spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders reviewed the problems the White House had with the team, noting they waited until the last minute to notify the White House that almost no players were going to show up. I'll give them that. It's understandable that the White House would not be pleased.
But what they did next is unforgivable.
Sanders blamed the team for pulling some kind of "political stunt" and suggested the Eagles were abandoning their fans.
For more than six decades, I have lived and died with this team. I was a longtime season ticket holder.
I have cursed them. I have railed against their play. I have mocked their personnel moves. I have second-guessed the coaches.
Not once have I ever felt they abandoned me.
Actually, that's not correct.
There was one time.
Take notes, Mr. President. You had the wrong decade.
The only time I felt abandoned by the Eagles was back in 1984 when owner Leonard Tose, trying desperately to get from under an avalanche of gambling debts, flirted with the idea of moving the team to Phoenix, Arizona.
This isn't about the Eagles and their fans.
It's about a president who sees nothing but himself. Who is mortally wounded at every perceived slight. Who must lash out at anyone who strays from blind allegiance to him.
It doesn't matter if it's a head of state, the FBI director, special prosecutor, a player exercising his First Amendment rights, or a fan whose face has been painted green, and who waited patiently for 52 years for his team to win the Super Bowl.
Guess what, when we woke up this morning, we were still Super Bowl champions, a snub from the White House not withstanding.
Culture wars be damned.
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