Arenas' misconduct in later pointing his fingers at his teammates in Cleveland and saying "Bang," said the President, has forced the head of the Stern Gang, King David, to blow up. King David declared that this act of pointing fingers and going "Bang" makes Arenas "not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game." Such declaration was exactly correct, said the President, "because Stern is running a league populated by girl scouts." As evidence, the President pointed to the incident in which Latrell Sprewell had choked his coach, P.J. Carlesimo. The player's union, pointed out O'Bomber, had "properly defended Sprewell's action, on a successful appeal to an arbitration panel, as an act of peaceful protest. But the union will not touch Arenas' case with a fork," said the President, "because his guns were unloaded.
It is far worse to have unloaded guns than to choke your coach," declared President O'Bomber, "since what kind of a protest is it to have un loaded guns? Or to simply get on your knees, point your fingers and say "Bang"? Nobody pays attention to that kind of so-called protest. As we are proving every day, the only kind of protest people understand is the kind we are using in Iraq and Afghanistan, when we are using loaded guns that go bang. The CIA, however, completely missed this sure-fire sign that the whole Arenas deal was a put-up job manufactured by the Stern Gang in its battle with the UrGUN for control of American basketball."
The President completely dismissed Arenas' defense that he intended to load the weapons for possible use on defense in a forthcoming one on one game he had scheduled against Kermit Washington. Or was it Ron Artest? "Anybody can claim anything," said the President. "The only actual facts on the ground were that the guns were un loaded, and, in the exact words of the statute, it is a crime to "transport or stash' un loaded weapons in Washington, D.C. It is little wonder that Javaris Crittenton threatened to shoot Arenas in his previously devastated, surgically repaired knee."
"If I have any bone to pick with David Stern," said the President, "it is that the punishment of suspension, with a loss in pay of about $147,000 or $148,000 per game, was too light. What Stern should have done instead of suspending Arenas with a loss of pay is to make him play without being paid. Now that would hurt. This is evidenced by the fact that bankers, insurance executives, hedge fund managers and other Wall Street types beloved by Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Robert Rubin are complaining bitterly that we are making them work without 25 million dollar annual bonuses and 10 million dollar salaries. Stern should have thought of Arenas as simply another Washington/New York-axis financial power player and treated him accordingly -- after all, under his contract he was scheduled to make about $111 million in just six years. Even Lloyd Blankfein or Larry Summers wouldn't necessarily sneeze at that."
The President also dismissed the statement by Ernie Gunfeld, nee Grunfeld, the President of Arenas' team, that Arenas' conduct and the conduct of some of his teammates was unacceptable. "Gunfeld's statement is of a piece with Stern's press release, all political statements, all corporate statements, and my personal press releases and statements," said O'Bomber in a burst of near British candour. "It is complete bovine defecation designed to sound good, but actually completely meaningless, the kind of statement which it has for decades been customary to put out in the belief, which everyone knows is wrong, that it will fool the public. But then, as Lincoln said, you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time. And it gives the mass media something to talk about."
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