What do Donald Trump and Bengals' Vontaze Burfict have in common?
What do GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict have in common?
According to House Speaker Paul Ryan, both committed "flagrant violations" of the rules and needed to be penalized. Burfict on a football field. Trump on the field of conservative ideas. Therefore, flags had to be thrown.
In Burfict's case, the flag thrown was for unnecessary roughness and the penalty began the unraveling of the Bengals Super Bowl hopes. In Trump's case it was, according to Ryan, calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States.
Ryan memorably denounced Trump's proposal mere hours after it surfaced, arguing it was "not conservatism" -- adding "this is not who we are as a party or a country."
In a pre-State of the Union conversation with reporters in his ornate Speaker's office, Ryan revisited Trump's proposal and compared it to Burfict's savage hit on wide receiver Antonio Brown in the waning moments of the Bengals' Wild Card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
"When you see what that guy on the Bengals did," Ryan said, referring to Burfict, "you gotta throw the flag. I don't see myself as the referee. I'm me. And I'm going to speak my mind when I see flagrant violations of conservative principles."
Trump has run against political correctness and even lately warned the NFL it had grown "soft" with a penchant for calling penalties on hits he said would be celebrated in an earlier era.
"Football has become soft like our country has become soft," Trump said in at a rally Sunday in Reno, Nevada. "It's true. It's true. The outcomes of games have been changed by what used to be phenomenal, phenomenal stuff. It's become weak. I don't even watch it as much anymore. The referees, they want to all throw flags so their wives will see them at home."
Ryan said his motivation was simpler, more deeply rooted in classic conservatism and fidelity to the First Amendment.
"I'm going to be completely neutral, but when somebody says something that's so out there I feel like we have to stand up for conservatism," Ryan said. "Because putting religious tests on people is antithetical to conservatism."
Ryan, a Roman Catholic, referred to his invitation to a representative of the Little Sisters of the Poor to sit in the Speaker's box for tonight's speech. The Little Sisters have filed suit to block elements of Obamacare from affecting their ministry to the elderly.
"My own church is suing the federal government over religious freedom, over our conscience rights," Ryan said. "It's the First Amendment to the Constitution. That to me is just standing up for conservatism. If somebody goes off so far away from what is truly what we believe and think is important, you have to say something."
Ryan called his criticism of Trump on the Muslim ban "the exception to the rule." He vowed to support the GOP nominee no matter who it is and offered this compliment about Trump's lead in the national polls.
"We're a big tent party," Ryan said. "It's even bigger now. He's bringing people into the party that weren't coming
before. You got to give him credit for that."
Flagrant fouls and all.