Steve Kerr and the Killers
No criticism of terrorists and their pro-Hamas supporters at the DNC.
By Lloyd Billingsley
Fresh off his gold medal at the Paris Olympics, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, showed up at the Democratic National Convention to plug the Democrats’ Harris-Walz ticket. “I believe in a certain kind of leadership,” Kerr said, “I believe that leaders must display dignity. I believe that leaders must tell the truth.”
The appearance drew a response from Donald Trump, who charged that Kerr had failed to criticize human rights violations in China. Back in 2019, fans might recall, China declined to air two NBA games after Houston Rockets official Daryl Morey spoke out in favor of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Kerr called it a “really bizarre international story,” but like NBA commissioner Adam Silver and San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich, failed to offer any criticism of China’s Communist dictatorship. In effect, Silver, Kerr and Popovich were playing by China’s rules.
While Kerr addressed the DNC, pro-Hamas mobs ramped up hatred and violence outside the United Center. “They have a point,” said Joe Biden, but Steve Kerr has cause to wonder.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1965, Steve is the son of Malcolm Kerr, who resigned his professorship at UCLA to become president of the American University of Beirut. In 1984, as ESPN’s Ian O’Connor noted, “two Islamic terrorists ambushed Malcolm outside his university office and shot him in the back of the head for the crime of being an American.” The gunmen were members of Hezbollah, and “following Iranian orders.”
At the time, Steve Kerr was 18 and a freshman at the University of Arizona. Four years later, before a game people began chanting “PLO! PLO! . . your father’s history,” and “why don’t you join the Marines and go back to Beirut?” Kerr told reporters it was “pretty disgusting,” that the chanters were “the scum of the earth” and wondered “how the minds of fools works.”
That is rather mild criticism of thugs who would taunt a man over the murder of his father and cheer Islamic terrorists. When it comes to Islamic terrorism, Steve Kerr tends to hold back.
It’s hard to find any statement from the NBA star following the massive terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, whose 3,000 casualties surely included many fathers. Hard to find any condemnation from Kerr about Islamic terrorists crashing airliners into buildings. By all indications, Nidal Hasan’s mass murder of 14 Americans at Fort Hood in 2009 drew no public condemnation from Steve Kerr. In similar style, a search reveals no statement from Kerr after Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down 14 Americans in San Bernardino in 2015, and the same goes for Omar Mateen’s murder of 49 in Orlando the following year.
In 2018 Kerr said the 9/11 attack “spurred a strong military dynamic” that remained in U.S. sporting events. Soldiers who fought for their country, appearing before a game, made Kerr feel “like we’re being patronized.” No criticism of the terrorists from the NBA star. Iran’s Qasssem Soleimani got a rise out of Kerr, but not for the many American lives he had claimed.
The Trump administration took out the Iranian master terrorist in January of 2020. Kerr accused vice president Mike Pence of lying about the involvement of Soleimani, and Iran, in the 9/11 attacks. According to the State Department, Soleimani allowed 12 of the 19 terrorists to transit through Iranian territory.” So Steve Kerr’s wrath was misplaced.
In 2022, a mass shooting in Texas prompted a statement from Kerr on gun control, but no condemnation of the shooter. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists launched an attack on Israel that claimed 1200 lives, with 32 Americans killed and at least 10 taken hostage. One would think that an American whose on father was killed by Islamic terrorists in Beirut would have something to say about the death toll and the hostages. An internet search turns up no statement from Steve Kerr.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the NBA star said, was “yet another example of not only our political division but also gun culture.” Steve Kerr had apparently forgotten that “guns” all by themselves had not killed his father. Islamic terrorists under orders from Iran killed Malcolm Kerr by shooting him twice in the head.
Steve Kerr won five NBA championships as a player and four as a coach. He feels uneasy about military veterans at games but does not hesitate to exploit his fame in partisan fashion at the Democratic National Convention. “Leaders must tell the truth,” he said, but nothing on Biden’s lies about son Hunter, or proclaiming the Afghanistan withdrawal “an extraordinary success.”
Steve Kerr was a deadly three-point shooter, but when it comes to Communist China he throws up an air-ball. With Islamic terrorists like the ones who killed his father, and those who celebrate them, Steve Kerr won’t even put up a shot.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons