Why was it left to the National Freakin' Football League " hardly a bastion of liberal thought " to call out bombastic shock jock Rush Limbaugh for his puerile racism and incessant bigotry? And why do NFL owners hold themselves to a higher standard than"the rest of us?
Limbaugh
made headlines again this week " an annoyingly regular occurrence --when it was
reported that he was part of a group attempting to buy a piece of his hometown
football team, the St. Louis Rams. As is usual with All Things Rush,
controversy erupted
immediately.
This should have come as a surprise to no one, since the Rams play in a league where two-thirds of the players are black. Current and retired players, several owners, the head of the players union and of course professional gadflies like the omnipresent Reverend Sharpton all made it immediately and abundantly clear that Limbaugh's bid would be met with fierce opposition.
Soon National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell publicly called out Limbaugh for making " here's another surprise! -- "divisive comments, and it became obvious that El Rushbo was a dead man talking "at least as far as the NFL bid was concerned.
As Goodell told the New York Times, NFL owners are "held to a high standard, and "I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the N.F.L. " absolutely not.
Although he may actually have taken a principled stand, it's more likely that Goodell was simply recognizing reality. A successful ownership bid by Limbaugh & Co. was never really in the cards. For one thing, despite Rush's recent $400 million dollar contract extension, there might not have been enough money on the table to ensure a successful bid. But the real reason is that NFL owners were rightly worried that letting Limbaugh join their exclusive club would be akin to asking for a stink bomb to explode in their clubhouse.
After all, The Grand Poobah's previous NFL foray was a public relations fiasco. While he was employed by ESPN as a commentator, Limbaugh announced on air that Eagles star Donovan McNabb was consistently overrated by a news media anxious to see a black quarterback succeed. "They are polarizing comments that we don't think reflect accurately on the N.F.L. or our players, Goodell said. "I obviously do not believe that those comments are positive and they are divisive. That's a negative thing for us.
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