Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN talk-show host who manages to sound dismissive and angry even when he's admitting he doesn't know the answer to a question, is apparently tired of himself. Sure, he's ostensibly writing about Jesse Jackson butting into the Duke lacrosse scandal, but Gelf isn't fooled.

Here's Stephen, in his Philadelphia Inquirer column Tuesday:

Some people just need to go away. If not forever, then at least for a little while.

I'm talking about the kind of people who have had their time. The kind of people whose substance has dwindled. The kind of people who have contaminated their own good deeds with bullying tactics and manipulation—all in the desperate pursuit of nothing but airtime.

Still don't believe this is a thinly veiled cry for help? Read Deadspin's harrowing account of its field trip to Smith's ESPN show, "Quite Frankly."