The ‘Pass Rush’ movement marches on: Colts owner says he’d vote no on Limbaugh
So far, we’ve heard from black players, the head of the NFL player’s union, football fans, pundits, and Al Sharpton. For the first time, we’re also hearing from a current NFL team owner on whether racist talk radio fatty Rush Limbaugh would be welcomed in as the Marge Schott of the National Football League. And, to quote Simon Cowell, “it’s a no” …
BOSTON — Rush Limbaugh’s bid to buy the St. Louis Rams ran into opposition within the NFL on Tuesday, when Colts owner Jim Irsay vowed to vote against him and commissioner Roger Goodell said the conservative commentator’s “divisive” comments would not be tolerated from any NFL insider.
“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.”
Meanwhile, Goodell went further, raising the question of whether, ironically, if Rush did somehow manage to get enough votes from the owners to buy into the Rams, he’d be shooting himself in the polinidal cyst by constraining what he could say on the air:
Goodell repeatedly distanced the league from Limbaugh’s statements on Tuesday, calling them “polarizing comments that we don’t think reflect accurately on the NFL or our players.”
“I have said many times before that we are all held to a higher standard here,” the commissioner said. “I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about. I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position within the NFL. No. Absolutely not.”
Not everyone believes Limbaugh would tone it down if he became a team owner, however:
Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank echoed Goodell’s comments and noted that the league and the union had a similar stance. Blank also said he wouldn’t expect Limbaugh, if the deal went through, to tone down his lucrative radio show to avoid running afoul of the league.
“I find that highly unlikely,” he said.
… and if that sentiment prevails, it’s bad news for Rush’s bid.
Limbaugh and his supporters, meanwhile, are attempting to fight back, incredibly, by denying that Limbaugh — who over the years has been quite proud of his incendiary comments — has never said anything the least bit racist! Seriously … First, Limbaugh gets all whiney:
In an e-mail to The Associated Press, 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.” He also noted that he would be a minority owner in the prospective group, adding he is from Missouri and was saddened when the Cardinals left for Arizona.
“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.”
Rush Limbaugh wants to be a minority and admires the Crips and Bloods??? I’m confused … And then the completely irrelevant, typically tacky RedState.com sludgefest, in which Col. Von Erickson attacks … Rick Sanchez …
Rick Sanchez quoted Rush Limbaugh on CNN and the quote was fabricated. The racially insensitive quote attributed to Limbaugh was made up on the internet and not uttered by Rush.
Sanchez has refused to apologize for using the quote in a hit job on Limbaugh designed to destroy Limbaugh’s bid for the St. Louis Rams.
Here is what is real.
Rick Sanchez ran over a man and left the guy for dead.
So that’s the way it works, Erick? Report on Rush’s racism and RedState dishes your dirt? Interesting. So … anybody care to donate for a full body cavity background check of Erick Erickson? After all, this is a guy who publishes people’s personal rolodexes as a way of threatening politicians out of voting for things he doesn’t like, and who sees Internet blackmail and smear campaigns as a normal part of doing business. I say investigate him within an inch of his life, and see what happens.
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh? Still a racist. And still not likely to become a racist NFL team owner.
By the way, the right’s desperation to prove that Rush really is just a lovable fuzzball (Allahpundit thinks he should sue for defamation, which is funny, because I didn’t think right wingers believed in lawyers, except when they’re needed to combat the odd prescription drug/doctor shopping offense… and other right wingers are trying their hand at OUTRAGE by freaking out over Chris Matthews’ movie references in decidedly desperate fashion…) rely solely on Rush’s denials of having said some of the quotes in the now well-circulated “top ten racist Rush quotes” list. Well, some of the quotes are on tape, and some he has admitted directly to. So if you’re me, you’re disinclined to believe Rush’s denials. From snopes.com, let’s just look at the ones for which there is direct documentation:
Right. So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela — who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing.” Media Matters for America documents this statement (with an audio clip) as one made by Rush Limbaugh in the course of his radio program on 21 August 2007.
“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
Media Matters also documents this statement as one made by Rush Limbaugh in the course of his radio program on 19 January 2007.
Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” Rush Limbaugh acknowledged making these statements in a 1990 Newsday article (although the latter, at least, occurred not on Limbaugh’s now-familiar talk and political commentary radio program, but at the beginning of his broadcast career back in the early 1970s when he was hosting a Top 40 music show under the name “Jeff Christie” on either WIXZ or KQV in Pittsburgh):
For all his bravado, however, Limbaugh is immensely sensitive to charges of insensitivity. When asked about the racist they-all-look-alike connotation of a statement like “Have you ever noticed how all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” this professional talker from a family of lawyers pleads total innocence.“You may interpret it as that, but I, no, honest-to-God, that’s not how I intended it at all. Gee, don’t get me in this one. I am the least racist host you’ll ever find.” Recalling a stint as an “insult-radio” DJ in Pittsburgh, he admits feeling guilty about, for example, telling a black listener he could not understand to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
“I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.” Rush Limbaugh made this statement about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb during a September 2003 broadcast of ESPN television’s Sunday NFL Countdown program. The controversy generated by the remark prompted Limbaugh’s resignation from his position as a commentator on that show.
For the last one, Rush was FIRED from ESPN. And I’d venture to say that we could add “Barack the Magic Negro,” “halfrican” and any number of other comments just about Barack Obama to the list, and have more than enough evidence that putting Rush Limbaugh in charge of an NFL team on which there are several black players, not to mention black employees, assistant coaches and on an on, would be like putting David Duke in charge of the NAACP. It just wouldn’t work out.
UPDATE: Rush finds a defender! And this TIME writer makes the point that Rush might fit in more than we think …
The fact that he is a lawbreaking former drug addict whom the cops discovered copping OxyContin in Palm Beach after years of calling for illegal drug users to go to jail might not boost his candidacy for the owners club. (It could qualify him to play in the NFL, though, which leads the sporting world in felonies.)
Ouch! And Bill Saporito also takes a swipe at Irsay and other team owners, who are not exactly saints when it comes to the treatment of their home cities…
The very idea, though, that the collection of NFL owners is some kind of football Kiwanis Club is crazy in the first place. Civic good? NFL owners have a dedicated interest in going wherever civic leaders are good enough to shower them with money. Remember the Irsays, who owned the Baltimore Colts? They slunk out of Baltimore in the middle of the night for the riches of Indianapolis. Now Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, is saying he couldn’t even think of voting for Limbaugh. The man has his standards. And let’s not forget former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, who abandoned a down-on-its-luck city that worshipped his team for … Baltimore. The Adams family bid farewell to Houston — Love ya, Blue, bye-bye — for Nashville. The Bidwells, formerly of St. Louis, now winter with their Arizona Cardinals while the Rosenbloom family that is selling its piece of the St. Louis Rams used to call Los Angeles home. Meanwhile, won’t Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, long his own best friend and adviser, move his dysfunctional 0-5 team anywhere for the right amount of money? (Oakland fans may also consider paying him to leave.) More recently, teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants and the New York Jets have held up hard-pressed state and local governments for money to build stadiums where they can gouge their fans with $20,000 seat-licensing fees. So loyalty isn’t really big in the NFL, though self-indulgence, a Rush specialty, certainly is.
Not to mention the busted contracts that leave so many players broke:
Several outstanding NFL players, including McNabb and Jets linebacker Bart Scott have announced they wouldn’t play for a Limbaugh-owned team. That’s understandable, but they shouldn’t forget that playing in the NFL is to be working for sport’s biggest plantation. Yes, guys like McNabb are making multimillion-dollar paydays. Yet he and the rest of the players labor within the confines of a football monopoly that has never taken kindly to outside competition or an activist workforce. Consider the NFL players’ strike of 1987, which the owners crushed with all the sensitivity of Kentucky coal-mine operators. In ensuing labor agreements, the owners not only imposed a salary cap but also made most of the players indentured servants. In the NFL there are two positions: stars and parts. Teams discard broken parts, which is why the average playing career is just a couple of years, leaving behind hundreds of wrecked bodies. Once a player become less useful, his contract, like his bones, can be broken.
Did somebody say “plantation???” No wonder Rush wants in …
Meanwhile, another columnist congratulates Rush on finally embracing socialism.
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