All hail the potty-mouth police - NOT!

I don’t know if NASCAR will do anything to punish Tony Stewart for using an expletive that aired during a Saturday morning practice session from Kansas Speedway.

And, to be totally honest with you, I absolutely do not care. I know there will be people who get their knickers in a bunch over it. Plenty of folks sitting around me in the media center got all worked up, running to tattle to NASCAR after hearing about the four-letter word from their respective networks of nervous Nellys.

A couple of hours later, I saw a knot of about a dozen of them camped behind the NASCAR trailer, apparently waiting to see if some official was going to come out and say that Stewart would be drawn and quartered, or flogged in the courthouse square.

I know Dale Earnhardt Jr. got penalized 25 points three years ago when he used a four-letter word in a victory lane interview. And I know that earlier this year, Juan Pablo Montoya got in trouble for making a gesture toward a cameraman when he didn’t know the camera was being used to send out a live picture.

But I also understand that this whole thing has gotten so far out of hand it’s not even funny any more. What you have now are a bunch of people sitting around their TVs looking for things to call in about. It’s getting to be as bad as golf, where people with nothing better to do than research obscure rules decisions looking for a way to get somebody slapped with a two-shot penalty.

If a NASCAR driver is looking dead into a camera with a reporter standing alongside of him asking him questions, the driver should be smart enough to know that he’s being interviewed and that he should watch his mouth. I really don’t know if points penalties are appropriate for that, but that’s the standard that has been set.

Now, though, the potty-mouth police are trying to extend their jurisdiction. Let a driver say “hell” or “damn” during an interview and my email box fills up with people asking why that’s not worth 25 points, even though it never has been. There are also times when a driver or crew chief has no way of knowing what he’s saying is being broadcast, but some fans still think anything these competitors say should be punishable. I say…well…I say a word that would probably hack off those prigs.

You can argue that Stewart shouldn’t use words like the one he used Saturday morning at all, and that’s fine. But I don’t think you can argue that he should be responsible for figuring out when a camera that’s on him is going out live or not. I thought the penalty against Montoya earlier this year was a travesty, too, because it’s not up to the competitor to look for the little red light.

NASCAR doesn’t want its race broadcasts to be “R-rated,” and I understand that. By and large, its competitors get that. But that doesn’t mean they should be held responsible if a microphone picks up something the competitor said without fair warning that it was being broadcast.

What it comes down to these days is a silly little game of “gotcha.” I, for one, am just through playing it.