Boss Hog
Well, frumps, nothing has lifted my spirits quite as much, in a long time, as watching Rush Limbaugh reap what he sowed. In case you’ve been too busy to notice, or your mind goes on “mute” whenever you hear the word “Limbaugh,” sometime around the beginning of August, Rush decided he’d make a great NFL Team owner. He set his sights on the dreadful St. Louis Rams (maybe because he’s from Missouri?) and joined Dave Checketts (owner of St. Louis Blues) in a bid for the team.
As it turns out, the Big Giant Head is a huge (no pun) sports fan and, according to Rush, it’s always been his dream to own a pro football franchise. Which just goes to show – even hate-spewing, bigoted trolls have dreams.
Alas, the Limbaugh dream is not to be . . . no owners box, no Rams cheerleaders to bounce on his knee, no mantle of All-Americanism for Rush. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter to the NFL how much money you have if your day job is filling America’s airwaves with racist, bigoted, hate-mongering ultra-conservative codswallop. Who knew?
There’s Some History Here
Actually, the NFL’s position shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise to Limbaugh. After all, back in 2003, he’d already tested the sports world’s tolerance for broadcast racism in his short-lived career as an ESPN Sunday Night Football commentator. That time out, Rush decided to share with ESPN’s audience what he thought of the “gratuitous” proliferation of black quarterbacks in the NFL. His firing offence was this little gem about my beloved Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback, Donovan McNabb being over-rated:
“I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”
Classy, eh?
What Could He Possibly Be Thinking?
Limbaugh seems to have the classic sociopath’s blind-spot when it comes to cause and effect, but the world of sports didn’t forget Limbaugh and, in short order made it clear that they were having none of it. It started with a murmur but built to a roar in record time.
It started last week with a few stand-up NFL players making statements to the effect that they would have nothing to do with a team owned by Limbaugh:
Per the New York Daily News:
“Mathias Kiwanuka loves his former defensive coordinator, but the Giants’ defensive end says he will never play for Spagnuolo’s Rams if Rush Limbaugh purchases the team. Kiwanuka and the New York Jets’ Bart Scott made it clear Thursday that they would never play for the Rams or any team owned by the controversial conservative radio host.”
“I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment,” said Kiwanuka. “But when it is time after time after time and there’s a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can’t respect him as a man.”
Well said, Mathias! In all, seven players made similar statements.
And then:
Colts owner Jim Irsay vowed to vote against him:
“I, myself, couldn’t even consider voting for him,” Irsay said at an owners meetings. “When there are comments that have been made that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive … our words do damage, and it’s something that we don’t need.”
Commissioner Roger Goodell said the conservative commentator’s “divisive” comments would not be tolerated from any NFL insider.
And then:
NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith wrote:
“I’ve spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.”
Even Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton weighed in on the matter.
Never Surrender, Never Say Die
Limbaugh’s reaction to all of the negative reaction was predictable:
On his Wednesday broadcast he said that he had been inundated with e-mails from listeners who supported him in the bid.
“I’m not even thinking of caving,” he said. “I am not a caver. Pioneers take the arrows. We are pioneers. It’s a sad thing that our country, over 200 years old now, needs pioneers all over again, but we do.”
And also:
“This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me.” This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.”
“Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”
Rush also had a few words for his media critics:
“They are the ones with prejudice and bigotry coursing through their vanes [sic], through their hearts, and through their souls. They are consumed with jealousy and rage. They are all liberals–and make no mistake: That’s what this is about. It is about ideology. It isn’t about race. It’s about their being jealous and attempting to discredit me, and they’ve now sunk to the low of repeating fabricated quotes that they cannot source…. These people are scum.”
During his protracted fit of pique, Rush also fired off an e-mail to AP News Service explaining how terribly misunderstood he is:
Limbaugh said he was forced to respond because “the totally made-up and fabricated quotes attributed to me in recent media reports are outrageous and slanderous.”
“I am happy to be involved in an effort to keep the Rams in St. Louis. I love the National Football League, I eagerly discuss it and promote it and I greatly admire the men who play in the league. They are the best at what they do,” he wrote. “It is regrettable that something I have dreamed about for years has taken this course. But the fight is worth it to me. I love the National Football League.”
Just For the Record
In case any of you out there think Rush might be getting a raw deal on this, let me assure you that nobody but Limbaugh could make this stuff up. It has his trademark pseudo-intellectual, pedantic glop all over it. Some of the “liberal scum” over at Media Matters did a great job of rounding up a sampling of Limbaugh’s (fairly recent) on the record racism and, keep in mind, he’s been at this for twenty years. You ought to go check out the whole collection but here are a few of the “sports-themed” pearls from their list:
From Limbaugh’s own web archive:
“The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips.”
and
Limbaugh declares basketball “the favorite sport of gangs.”
Say It Isn’t So
In the end, Dave Checketts saved El Rushbo from “caving” by dumping him from the deal. And even in that embarrassing moment, Limbaugh managed to steal the show in a classic Cable TV News moment of melodrama. You’re probably not going to believe this without proof, so I’m posting the video clip – CNN actually ran a “Breaking News” interruption of a discussion on Afghanistan to spread the word that Limbaugh had been jilted!
Here it is:
In addition, the usual suspects are screaming foul on Limbaugh’s behalf (as if he couldn’t handle it himself). Andy McCarthy of National Review Online treated himself to a lament on how we should just all get over racism and then proceeds to accuse Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of “serial racism”:
“Why do Sharpton and Jackson have careers? Why aren’t they shown the door for serial racism and dishonesty? Why does anyone give a damn what they say? Why does the press treat them like they matter when they’re a walking, talking parodies?”
After that we’re treated to the little parable of McCarthy’s multi-cultural, utopian high school in the Bronx, in the Seventies (Right!). From McCarthy’s white-Irish-boy-in-a-Catholic-School perspective:
“We were encouraged to see each other as peers, not tribesmen. Of course there was intra-group affinity along ethnic and racial lines — there always is. But there wasn’t a lot of tension. There was some — again, there always is — but there was no special treatment and no pressure for enforced separateness. We laughed at each other’s expense (ethnic and racial jokes were not cause for banishment from society back then) and competed on a level playing field of merit. Everyone was treated like he belonged, if you did something good it was yours, and if you screwed up it was on you, not your heritage.”
Well now, that’s clear as mud – first he says there was “intra-group affinity along ethnic and racial lines” then notes “But there wasn’t a lot of tension” – maybe because of all that intra-group affinity along ethnic and racial lines? But wait a minute, “yes there was tension – but there always is”?
McCarthy reminisces that “We laughed at each other’s expense and competed on a level playing field of merit.”
“Ethnic and racial jokes were not cause for banishment from society back then” – ah yes, the “good old days.”
According to Andy:
“That’s how Rush treats people — in the Martin Luther King aspiration (classy touch, Andy) that the content of one’s character is what matters, not the color of one’s skin. Yet, in the media narrative, he’s somehow the one who’s got a race issue — and the guys who trade on race, live and breathe it 24/7, are held up as our public conscience. The Left calls this “progress.” I call it perversion.”
“There’s only one way this nonsense ever goes away: When we say “enough!” and tell the race-baiters their time is up. It’s too much of an industry, so it probably won’t happen tomorrow. But the Sixties ideal is crashing and burning before our very eyes, and I think it’ll take a lot of its warped obsessions down with it.”
Well Andy, there’s only one way Limbaugh’s nonsense ever goes away and that’s by sidelining him. Something is definitely “crashing and burning” and it isn’t Sixties ideals. As Margo Channing (Bette Davis) once said in All About Eve, “better fasten your seatbelt, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Technorati Tags: Rush limbaugh, Dave Checketts, St. Louis Rams, NFL, Roger Goodell, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Andy McCarthy
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
If Rush wants to spend some dough, he can probably get something going with the "Balloon Boy's" family. Their protestations of innocence are just about as believable as his. ha!