Peter King vs. Emmitt Smith

Peter King and Emmitt Smith are at it again. Last weekend, Emmitt Smith was interviewed about the Michael "Ookie" Vick dog-fighting charges and he said some things that just didn't come out right.

Here are a few snippets of what he said:

"He's the biggest fish in the whole doggone pond right now so they're putting the squeeze on him to get to everyone else," Smith said Saturday.

and

"Now, granted he might have been to a dogfight a time or two, maybe five times, maybe 20 times, may have bet some money, but he's not the one you're after. He's not the one you're after, he's just the one whose going to take the fall -- publicly."

Peter King's response was harsh.

"It should be noted that these two have fought before. Apparently, Smith said King wrote an article to create controversy. It sounds very much like Smith empathizes with Vick's plight and doesn't find it very objectionable that Vick might have put a few bucks down on dogfights...I have a bad feeling about Smith's tenure at ESPN, and it hasn't even started. His comments on Vick are so idiotic and inappropriate that a few people at the Worldwide Leader have to be thinking, "Uh-oh. What if we've gone and hired someone who's very famous but not very smart?''

It should be noted that Peter King is a tool. King and Smith have argued once before.

In August 2003, King interviewed Smith and asked him what it felt like playing for a woeful Cowboys team in 2002. Smith said "It felt like being a diamond surrounded by trash.


The following day, Smith told the AP that he's "got a tremendous amount of respect for some of the players down there, especially Mr. [Jerry] Jones and his family, so it's not anything like that. He [King] had to write whatever he had to write just to create controversy."

King went on a tirade on his Weblog, instead of just letting it die. King's ego was hurt and he had to bandage himself up. Here's a snippet of his 2003 Weblog:

First of all, did Smith say he was misquoted? Anywhere? No. And so let me ask all of you practicing and non-practicing journalists a question: If you were doing an interview with a man who was throwing daggers at his former team, with an annoyed edge in his voice, and he said the "diamond surrounded by trash" line, would you write it? I think you would. Would it create controversy? Yes, it would. But it wouldn't be you who created the controversy. It would be the player, with his own words.Monday morning, Cardinals PR man Paul Jensen told me Smith didn't mean me when he was saying a writer was trying to stir up controversy. He was referring to a Dallas columnist who was commenting on this story. Whatever. I like Emmitt. He's always been good and fair with me. But I remember him telling me something I didn't write, about how Troy Hambrick got used and abused by the press last year for saying he thought it was his time to play. Smith blames the press for driving a wedge between him and Hambrick. That isn't the way it works, Emmitt. When you say something, and it's hurtful to some people, it's not our job to soft-pedal it. It's our job to report it. Which is what I did this week.