BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

They fall for it every time. Those in the media who decide what is and what isn’t news can’t help themselves.

Anything that has anything to do with the gay community has to immediately become a national issue.

So, of course, this stupid bill in Arizona had the feel of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Will we go to Def Con 4? Will she sign or veto the bill?

This isn’t exactly war and peace here my friends.

Jack Burkman, the lobbyist provocateur, understands this dynamic.

I don’t know Jack Burkman, personally. I have watched him on the local Fox News Affiliate, spouting off on all kinds of political issues. Burkman plays a right-wing nut-case conservative on television.

He doesn’t look like he really believes anything he says. But he mouths the lamest of quotes because he wants to play the role.

Burkman announced to the media that he is preparing to introduce legislation to ban football players from playing in the NFL.

Of course, that is all ridiculous. Private citizens can’t introduce their own pieces of legislation in the House or the Senate.

That’s the job of members of Congress and of the Senate.

Burkman assures the media that he has plenty of members of both the House and the Senate to introduce the anti-gay NFL Act (or whatever he calls it) on his behalf, but he just can’t quite share their names yet.

You know why he won’t tell us who is introducing the Burkman Act? Because he doesn’t have anybody to introduce the Burkman Act! It’s all a scam.

The media, of course, falls for it, hook-line-and-sinker.

Because too many folks in the media are complete idiots. Burkman gets to be famous and he is laughing all the way to the bank.

Apparently, he wants to be a talk radio host. I don’t think he will be hired by ESPN (or A&E, for that matter). But there is plenty of space in the talk radio universe for scam artists.

Jack Burkman is known around town as the guy who signs up a lot of lobbying clients. I am in the business of getting that lobbying business and I know how hard it can be.

I don’t know Burkman’s business model, but my guess is that he takes an un-traditional approach. My guess is that he uses the same tactics that he used to fool those titans of the media.

It’s called a scam.

Because he is using his latest PR stunt to play off the announcement that Michael Sam will be the first openly gay Member of the NFL, let’s just call it a Sam-Scam.

It’s alarming how easy it is for someone like Jack Burkman to manipulate the news to get himself famous.

His next stop?  I would say “Celebrity Apprentice.”  After all, he’s a celebrity now.

Editor’s Note: John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. Feehery is president of Quinn Gillespie Communications. He is a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com.