Daily Loaf

We’ve discussed Rush Limbaugh possibly buying a piece of the St. Louis Rams for much of this week, so now that El Rushbo has been kicked to the curb by his would-be financial partner, Dave Checketts, time for some reality.

The Wall Street Journal blasts the pressure brought on by progressive groups (and National Football League Players Association head DeMaurice Smith) that led the man who boasts that his talents “are on loan from God” to be rejected by the NFL establishment in recent days.

Smith did send out an e-mail earlier this week to his membership asking them to speak out against a potential Limbaugh ownership bid.  The Journal believes (as does Rush, as he said on his radio program  yesterday) that with new contract negotiations beginning between the players and the owners, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “punted’ because of fears of alienating the NFLPA.

Who knows what motivated Goodell to speak out against Limbaugh’s controversial statements in 2003 while working for ESPN?  Perhaps common sense? Good business acumen?  The fact is, even Rush lovers must realize that the man alienates a good third of the public.  How is that beneficial to the NFL?

The Journal points to MSNBC’s highly partisan political commentator, Keith Olbermann, working on NBC’s Sunday night telecasts, as a case of hypocrisy in action.

But in fact Olbermann’s role is akin to what Rush’s with ESPN, a well-known news man who loves sports doing his sports commentary.  I know Olbermann has done his “Worst Person in the World” bit on the football pre-game show, but I’ve essentially seem him stick to scores and highlights, not making racial pronouncements à la Limbaugh  back in ‘03, which led ESPN to give him the boot.

Most amusing has been the pity party that the right wing has been conducting in recent days, mourning the assault on Limbaugh in the media.

Some conservative commentators have seized on inaccurate statements made by Rush foes — and those inaccuracies need to be called out. When you have a track record of incendiary comments like he does, there’s no reason to embellish, and those that have should be embarrassed.

As the New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka told the NY Daily News rather eloquently last week:

I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, 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.

Limbaugh and the Journal can blame “political correctness” till the cows come home.  But in a league that is 65% African American, don’t expect people to feel warm toward a guy who says of our president, “We’re supposed to bend over and  grab our ankles because Obama’s father was black?”

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