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@@@ Doing the right thing is hard. Acting from a well-orchestrated script is easy. That is the world NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been living in for ages, and now it’s finally catching up with him.Goodell loves to talk tough, loves to follow the carefully crafted spin that makes him come off like the Judge Dredd of the American sports world. He is always huffing and puffing about protecting the NFL’s precious shield, as if the most important thing in the world is the preservation of the pro football institution. From concussions to performance-enhancing drugs, from marijuana to domestic abuse, it just feels like everything he does, every punishment he doles out, every tough-guy proclamation he utters, everything with his fingerprints on it somehow feels disingenuous, contrived and without even the slightest sense of righteousness.Well, now he’s been busted.His wishy-washy, half-hearted handling of Ray Rice’s domestic violence case is taking on the air of an unflattering Nixonian mess.Now that TMZ has taken on the most unlikely role of the social conscience of American sports by exposing the true and despicable nature of Rice’s brutal assault of his wife, Goodell has been put in an uncomfortable circumstance he absolutely deserves: OK, Roger, what did you know and when did you know it?The amount of skepticism that must be overcome to believe that the most <a href=http://capstone.edu.sg/clreplicashoes.php>Christian Louboutin Outlet</a> powerful man in pro sports did not see the Rice video until Monday morning along with the rest of us when it hit the TMZ website is overwhelming. Two of the the top NFL reporters in the country — Sports Illustrated’s Peter King and ESPN’s Chris Mortensen — have been maintaining for a while that the NFL knew of the existence of this video that showed Rice punching Janay Palmer in the face and knocking her to the ground. NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter, an NFL analyst with ESPN, said he saw the video a while ago.No one in the NFL ever disputed these claims. But now they want you to believe that the NFL couldn’t get a copy of this video from the Atlantic City police? The league employs an extensive investigative force <a href=http://capstone.edu.sg/images/gucciusaonlineoutlet.php> cheap gucci</a> for moments such as this. There are former FBI agents, Secret Service officers and former career police officers on the league’s security staff, and if they couldn’t get a copy of this video and TMZ could, then a lot of people at the NFL should be getting fired as we speak.I don’t buy it. I don’t believe for one minute that Goodell or the Ravens never saw this video until Monday.They are now trying to make us believe that things changed dramatically Monday. In his less-than-informative news conference Monday evening, Ravens coach John Harbaugh refused to discuss exactly what it was that changed.So now Rice is suspended indefinitely from the league, and he’s toxic to the Ravens, and we’re all scratching our heads wondering what sort of game they’re playing with us.So what do they know now that they didn’t know 24 hours ago?That’s easy. They know that their little secret — that there was a video showing Rice coldly punched out a woman he supposedly loved and left her unconscious on the floor of the elevator — is no longer a secret.So now Goodell gets tough. So now the Ravens think Rice is a pox on their house.If this video never was made public, Rice would still be playing for the Ravens, and Goodell would still be sitting around behaving as if he had sufficiently protected the almighty NFL shield.Ray Rice is a casualty not because he committed a heinous and inexcusable crime of domestic violence. It’s because the NFL can’t make this <a href=http://www.museosangennaro.com/Public/wdluk.php>Louboutin Shoes UK</a> story go away because there is all this graphic video evidence out there that they can’t pretend doesn’t exist.If Goodell was truly a champion against domestic violence, then please explain why Carolina Panthers defensive tackle Greg Hardy is still earning a living in the NFL after being convicted of an equally disturbing crime during the summer.In case you aren’t aware, what Hardy did in the domestic abuse of his girl friend Nicole Holder is just as frightening as what we know about the Rice case. The only difference is there’s no damning video being blasted on TMZ, which means there’s no public-relations compulsion for Goodell to pull off a grandstanding punishment of Hardy. But Holder’s testimony during this trial was so disturbing, it makes you wonder why Goodell isn’t playing Judge Dredd with Hardy. According to Holder, Hardy “looked me in my eyes and he told me he was going to kill me. I was so scared I wanted to die. When he loosened his grip slightly, I said, ‘Just do it. Kill me.’”According to the court testimony, Hardy a 6-foot-4, 275-pound giant, basically threw her around like a rag doll. He threw her into a bathtub, slammed a toilet seat cover onto her arm, dragged her by her hair and tried to strangle her. Even though he was convicted in a court of law, he was on the field for Sunday’s regular-season opener against Tampa Bay.Goodell has revealed himself to be an insincere, PR-motivated tough guy. The Rice video is the latest evidence that there is good reason to question his motives in everything he does, everything he says. The way things are going now, if he says water’s wet, I’m looking for a drought.