My critical post on Muhammad Ali drew a fair amount of commentary over at the Forum. Most visitors agreed with my take on the former champ. Miss Kitty summed up a good portion of visitor sentiment with this:

Ali was what our culture made of Cassius Clay. He was the beginning of the end of sportsmanship and the birth of cocky showmanship and hype.. A direct line can be drawn from him to the “street thug” persona of todays NBA and NFL; what Maha Rushie refers to as “Crips and Bloods without the guns.” He was a willing and voracious participant in his transformation, and the counterculture pressure made it hard to utter our real feelings about him. He lost me completely when he called Joe Frazier an “Uncle Tom.” People thought it was cool to love Ali. But, like so many things we thought were cool, it really wasn’t. Great boxer? Yes. Great person? Gimme a drink outta your glass.

Bienvenu recalled an account by Oriana Fallaci (with which I was unfamiliar) of Ali's ghastly behavior when she tried to interview him during the height of his Black Muslim phase. One hopes that this was Ali on his worst day.

However, SJshooter wrote of my post, "More proof that Power Line should stay away from sports." That's kind of scary, since I probably know more about sports than virtually anything else I write about.