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The evolution – or regression – of Michael Wilbon has been interesting but appalling to watch.

Perhaps the fault is with this viewer ie Wilbon matriculated at the Washington Post and was never going to wash the swamp scum off his shoes entirely.

But Wilbon’s appeal has always been as a foil for East and West Coast swells who imagine that flyover country is unworthy. He delights in mocking media’s fixation on any team within an hour’s drive of the I-95 corridor.

His schtick in print and on the airwaves has been to be the Chicago Guy: the 1500-sq-ft house common man who managed to get into Northwestern and become a journalist. He spoke often of his father and especially his grandfather who was a no-nonsense person typical of his generation.

For years, Wilbon gave the impression that he cared less about skin color and pedigree and more about common sense. He decried the fussiness of sports leagues, especially their vainglorious officials and commissioners. He valued hardworking and understated players who took the game but not themselves seriously.

But somewhere along the way Wilbon ate the fruit from The Tree Of Militancy. It seems to have coincided with ESPN’s acquisition of NBA TV rights. Suddenly Wilbon was a near-constant presence on the network as they hyped the games and players incessantly. Long hours were devoted to minutiae eg player tweets and off-court drama that really wasn’t drama at all.

The hepcat, the smooth operator who played golf and drank Scotch with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson suddenly became just another Angry Black Man. He mimicked Harry Edwards, the shameless race-baiter and apologist for violence and illegitimacy who hides behind his sociology professorship. Wilbon bridled at any criticism, no matter how deserved, directed at black athletes but especially NBA players. He would issue the warning ‘There are cultural issues there we don’t want to get into.’ But why not? These are athletes whose stated goal is to spend one year or even no time at all on a college campus. They have nothing but contempt for education. Why are they exempt from an examination of their beliefs vis-à-vis their knowledge of the world outside a gym?

Wilbon has become what he so often decried: a cliché. A two-dimensional cutout of someone wagging his finger at anyone and everyone lest they question leftist dogma, particularly Political Correctness which has been accurately defined as A War On Noticing Things.

Has he changed or merely reverted to type? It may not be worth the effort to find out now that he’s just another shouty, hectoring voice added to the babble at the terminally left-wing ESPN.