Rush Limbaugh

I haven't said anything on this blog about Rush Limbaugh's attempt to buy the St. Louis Rams as part of an ownership group led by the owner of the NHL's St. Louis Blues. There were primarily two reasons for my silence. For one he had absolutely no shot at being approved as an owner and this was more than likely just a big publicity stunt. And for two I wanted to see just how far his supporters and apoloigists would go to try to defend him.

On the first reason I think its clear now that I was 100% right on this. Checketts wasted no time in dropping Limbaugh like a bad habit as soon as it was clear his membership in that ownership group would imperil their chances of buying the Rams. But Checketts isn't anybody's fool and neither is Limbaugh. Even football fans who have no interest in politics at all remember his racist and incendiary remarks made about the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donvan McNabb just a few years ago. They knew good and hell well that just the kind of backlash that occurred would occur. But Limbaugh has shown time after time that he believes any press is good press for him. And Checketts has now set himself up as a "good guy" by jettisoning Limbaugh from the group.

It was all so very predictable and plenty of people called it before it ever went down. And now of course Limbaugh will once again position himself as an oppressed victim of the liberal media and his radio following will probably increase. Mission accomplished Rush.

Now on the second reason it has been very interesting watching Rush's apologists and supporters rally around him. If you noticed just about all of the criticism of Rush coming from the NFL player, former and current, focused on his plethora of racist, bigoted rhetoric over the years. But the right jumped in to claim that Rush was being slammed for his "political" free speech. See this was a very important moment in our recent history because essentially these folks were owning up to the fact that Rush uses race baiting and sexism to push his own twisted political agenda and evidently they don't have a problem with that.

You can go look at any article where someone is quote opposing Rush Limbaugh as an NFL owner. You won't see them speaking out against tax cuts. You won't see them speaking out against smaller government. You won't see them speaking out against gun rights. Time and time again the consensus centered around things Rush Limbaugh has said over the years to divide the country by race and or by sex. I know Limbaugh has tried to claim he has been smeared or taken out of context but if you want a quick overview of documented on air statements by him you can simply go here and check it out for yourself. But to claim that this is about him being a Republican or him being a Conservative is laughable on its face. And its also very interesting that the same people harping that Rush was being "persecuted" for exercising his first amendment right to free speech, don't get the irony of they themselves working furiously to silence his critics.

Now I am not going to get into a Democrat vs Republican or a Liberal vs Conservative conversation on this sports blog. But I will say that people on the right staking out racist and sexist rhetoric as political speech just to try to defend one of their ideological allies are doing their movement a disservice.

It is what it is.