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Joe Buck Says He and Troy Aikman Weren't Really Ripping Military Flyovers and He'll Soon Find Out Who Leaked the Video

Two days ago I posted about this hot mic video of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman seeming to tool on the military flyover before the Rams at 49ers game. 

BUCK: Welcome to Big Noon Saturday!
AIKMAN: That’s a lot of jet fuel just to do a little flyover.
BUCK: That’s your hard-earned money and your tax dollars at work!
AIKMAN: That stuff ain’t happening with a Kamala-Biden ticket. I’ll tell you that right now, partner.

But also the over-reaction of outraged people on social media, indignantly demanding their jobs for this unforgivable insult to our way of life. And I snark at such people speaking as someone who loves flyovers. Who sees them as a time honored show of patriotism as old as military aviation itself, going back as far as the 1918 World Series. And who admits I shed manly tears just about any time a squadron flying in the "Missing Man" formation hits their mark at the end of the National Anthem. 

But the idea of anyone losing their jobs for expressing the sentiments Buck and Aikman seemed to is just asinine. Worse, it's unAmerican. And now, to hear Buck tell it, those aren't even the sentiments they were trying to express. And there's a manhunt underway for whichever Fox staff member released the tape to make it sound like they were.

Extra Mustard - Buck talked about the issue at length on the latest episode of his Daddy Issues podcast, which came out Thursday morning.

Buck explained the remarks he and Aikman made in the clip were actually said by people on their crew at a dinner the night before. Buck and Aikman were mocking those people, not the military.

Buck was asked by his Daddy Issues cohost, Oliver Hudson, whether Fox is trying to find out who leaked the audio clip. Here is Buck's answer to that question and his explanation for what happened, how it happened and why it happened:

"That person will get found out because that specific shot of that flyover, which I personally thought was old and a tape that they were running out of our truck as furthering our conversation that we were having internally, I thought that was on tape,  but it was actually live, but it wasn’t a Fox shot. They know whose shot that was and therefore they kind of know where our audio was going at that moment. It wasn’t going on TV. It was well before our game.

"So I see this, and Troy in the microphone is repeating something that he heard the night before from an unnamed person on our crew. This person happens to be very far left and said, 'Well, under Biden-Harris, you know that's not going to happen,' and Troy was repeating that watching the flyover. 

So they clipped that as if he's saying that and as if he’s a Harris-Biden fan. But he’s repeating something that somebody said the night before, which is unbelievable.

"If you know Troy at all, he was being 100 percent sarcastic. Repeating for the person in the truck to hear, like 'Ha, ha, ha.'

"And then I go into a 1950s voice, like, 'There’s your hard-earned tax dollars at work,' or whatever. 

"Again, repeating parts of conversations to our crew and they clipped that and then run a headline that Troy Aikman and Joe Buck bash flyovers, which it had nothing to do with any of that.

"It was a political conversation amongst our group that somebody clipped and sold for the exact reason that we’re doing this. And it stirs people up. And words get weaponized. And then people have to weigh in. 'Oh, well, screw those guys. They don’t like the military.' WHAT?!" …

"And the frustrating part is if that was a 10-second window into my soul, that would be unfortunate. But when it’s not actually representing what actually happened, that makes it doubly frustrating because people are getting something totally out of context."

In between, Buck talked about his family's military history and how his father Joe was awarded a Purple Heart in the European Theater in WWII. And I see no reason to think he and Aikman are lying just to save their combined asses. Nor should they have to. Even if those words were reflective of their actual thoughts on the matter. 

But that is where we are now. Not only are there those among us - on both ends of the political spectrum - trying to cancel people for their opinions, they're trying to cancel them using sarcasm to mock the opposite of their actual opinions. On the basis of a private 10 second conversation. Taken completely out of context. Without waiting to hear their side of the story. That's how unhinged the culture has become. It's a modern kind of Red Scare, and once again the ones carrying the torches and pitchforks aren't interested in whether or not you actually think the things they believe you do. 

But I'm burying the lede. The real story is that Fox's number one NFL broadcast team has a rat in their ranks who tried to get the network's biggest stars fired. And sooner or later they'll figure out to that is. That's going to be a thousand times more interesting a story than somebody wanting to save government funds. Stay tuned.