Are You Ready For Some Football?
Posted on October 15th, 2009
by Clark Stooksbury |
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It looks like Rush Limbaugh won’t be part owner of the Saint Louis Rams. His failure reminds me of his short-lived career as a spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice in 1994. I remember seeing footage of dittoheads wading through angry feminist protesters to purchase orange juice by the case. Not surprisingly, the orange juice mandarins didn’t like the controversy and eventually dropped Limbaugh as a spokesman.
The lesson for Limbaugh from the orange juice flap, his brief career as ESPN commentator and his apparently failed bid to become a part owner in the NFL; is that he should stay inside the bubble. In the rightwing bubble, nobody is bigger than Limbaugh, but on the outside he is a mere mortal. Media Matters has an extensive list of Limbaugh comments that they find objectionable. I wouldn’t want Media Matters to define the parameters of acceptable debate, but the worst of Limbaugh’s statements are offensive. I agree with Rod Dreher that Limbaugh was “deliberately trying to whip up racial fear and loathing of the president” with his comment about “Obama’s America.” But I assume he was indulging in innocuous sarcasm when he said that Like Obama, “God does not have a birth certificate either.”
I scarcely blame the NFL for not wanting to devote all of their public relations to defending and contextualizing the ravings of one of its part-owners on an almost daily basis. And that is what they would have to do if Limbaugh was involved.
Glenn Reynolds absurdly claimed that “this whole NFL thing is a Limbaugh-set trap for the press and Democratic pols, and it’s working . . . .” No, this “NFL thing” was an attempt by a very wealthy man who loves pro football to become an owner and perhaps, one day, to slip a super bowl ring on one of his pudgy fingers. And its not working . . .
Why is this website conservative again?
Ha!
I hear ya, Webster. I subscribed last fall to what I thought was Pat Buchanan’s magazine, and what I’m finding instead is a bunch of people who spend most of their energy sniping Rush, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and generally everything the Republican party says or does. And defending Obama (Eunomia). Much of the time, the comments and other writers even snipe Pat. But what are they in support of? Some dead professors (same line of work, you see), Ron Paul, and, presumably, air.
Before I read, I knew that you hated Limbaugh, and most things conservative. I expected worse from you. I apologize.
This is a well-written article, and more balanced that I would have wanted to give you credit for.
I was listening the day Rush made his comments. He made clear at the time, that he was being “tongue in cheek”, and that he did not intend racism. It was being said in the context that he was making fun of the racism of others, in the sense that reverse racism was favoring an NFL player.
I remember that I immediately thought, “Rush, how can you not suffer some backlash from the black community over these comments?” History will not remember the national stage was abuzz with opinions about reverse racism.
Stooksbury, good job, good article. As good as these opinion pieces from black conservatives:
http://www.bookerrising.net/2009/10/should-rush-limbaugh-co-own-nfl-team.html
It looks like the main reason Limbaugh was dropped from the group trying to buy up the Rams was that a - lot - of NFL players made it very clear that they wouldn’t play for any team he had a stake in, and the rest of the group weren’t willing to pre-emptively handicap their investment.
Makes perfect free-market sense to me.
Because we’re not Republicans (sic)
Well I suppose he could always go back to hawking Pizza Hut…
I agree, every time he steps out of the radio booth he gets in trouble.
Sean, he didn’t “Get in trouble.” He tried a commercial transaction and the hive closed in around him. Limbaugh may be a buffoon but I for one will not take pleasure or part in this blackballing.
Limbaugh, Hannity & company are powerful because they operate in a vacuum of leadership and policy coherence on the right. I’m sure his ilk would be happy to play the role of cheerleader if there was anyone of stature to look up to.
I think Rush’s rejection is about the politics of the NFL rather than the politics of Limbaugh himself. If Rush had been approved, he would have been different from every other owner in several ways, but the most important of them would have been his direct power over the airwaves.
Mark Cuban, the controversial owner of the Dallas Mavericks, gives his league fits by criticizing the way officiating and league discipline are handled. He alleges bias, incompetence, and favoritism, and they don’t always have good answers to his accusations. Rush has a similar personality profile, more money, and (this is the most important) a 3-hour national radio gig.
So there’s that, and also the fact that Rush’s coalition is trying to keep the team in St. Louis (a small media market) instead of letting them move to LA (the 2nd-biggest market). That makes a difference because the owners have a revenue sharing deal, meaning that they would, as a group, stand to profit from the move.
Did Rush’s being a racial and political lightning rod help the league push him out? Absolutely. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the same thing as being the cause of his rejection.
“The lesson for Limbaugh…is that he should stay inside the bubble”
This “lesson” doesn’t only apply to Limbaugh.
Why is this website conservative again?
Not much conservatism here. Even less at the GOP:http://mangans.blogspot.com/2009/10/gopcom.html
If you want conservatism you should probably become a Mormon and avoid politics. Better yet join the ROCOR-MP. At least the latter has a homeland where the schoolkids still read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy instead of Toni Morrison and other multiculti trendy stuff. Or so I’ve heard.
I’m not a fan of Limbaugh, but what (most of) his wisecracks might be alluding to is the hatred our ruling elites-what Mencius Moldburg refers to as “The Cathedral”-have for virtually everything about the pre-1965 US.
I think Rush’s rejection is about the politics of the NFL rather than the politics of Limbaugh himself. If Rush had been approved, he would have been different from every other owner in several ways, but the most important of them would have been his direct power over the airwaves.
Mark Cuban, the controversial owner of the Dallas Mavericks, gives his league fits by criticizing the way officiating and league discipline are handled. He alleges bias, incompetence, and favoritism, and they don’t always have good answers to his accusations. Rush has a similar personality profile, more money, and (this is the most important) a 3-hour national radio gig.
So there’s that, and also the fact that Rush’s coalition is trying to keep the team in St. Louis (a small media market) instead of letting them move to LA (the 2nd-biggest market). That makes a difference because the owners have a revenue sharing deal, meaning that they would, as a group, stand to profit from the move.
Did Rush’s being a racial and political lightning rod help the league push him out? Absolutely. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the same thing as being the cause of his rejection.
The role of “Rich Man, Having Never Played Game, Acquires NFL Franchise and Screws Said Franchise Into Ground” is already taken, and there’d be no way in hell Dan Snyder would ever give up that distinction!
All is not dichotomous, but I get Webster’s and Rossi’s point. The outrage here is that Political Correctness has derailed an entirely legitimate attempt to buy a football team. We should be training our sights on the obvious Cultural Marxism on display, not on Rush. Particularly Goodell’s craven and inarticulate babbling PC fest explanation for why Rush was not welcome.
Goodell, the NFL, the owners group that dropped him, and all the PC thought slaves that protested are the villains in this story, not Rush.
I guess you have to be a pill popping fiend in order to be a true conservative.
yet, liberals can continue to say far more offensive things and act far more political and still be ’spokesmen, sports owners, and so on…
The current double standard means civility only applies to white conservative males - and that previously perfectly acceptable words are now uncivil (oriental, for example). You seem to be either approving or capitulating . This ’standard’ means that the neocons/left, or the globalist elite, will ‘always’ eventually win every issue…and you know what, they have..
Jeebus H Christ.
Rush Limbaugh got dropped from the investment group bidding for the Rams because many of the players they’d want to employ in order to make that investment profitable said they wouldn’t play for any team he had a stake in. That’s what happened here, the market spoke, and it was louder than any microphone.
In what alternate universe is it incumbent upon private investors to waste their money in a deal that would never return an investment just to make Rush Limburgh feel like less of a tool?
It truly baffles me how anyone could find the investment group’s decision surprising. News Flash - Rush Limburgh is not popular outside of his chosen audience, and people who want to make lots of money from the NFL by buying a team have no obligation whatsoever to pretend otherwise.
Or to put it even more simply, just because Rush Limbaugh is a challenger for the title of Most Popular Right Wing Leader Who Isn’t Actually Elected, it appears that he’s considered ‘Too Big to Fail’ by those who like his stuff. Well, y’know, he’s obviously not. Just deal with the pain and stop trying to make yet another insidious conspiracy out of it. You’ll only get ulcers.
Tony J, did you hear Goodell emasculate himself in his PC slobber fest statement. If it is bad for business then say it is bad for business and be done with it. But he didn’t just do that. He validated all the PC thought policing like a good little Cultural Marxist. The man is a tool and should be ashamed of himself.
Conspiracy theory alert: Was Rush “set up”?
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Limbaugh_Rams_Soros/2009/10/15/272750.html
What if the left engineered a way to attempt to do damage to Rush?
WTH, the American Conservative appears to be a misnomer, the American Apologist or AmCon Progressive would appear to be more acurate. During my sparse previous visits here I caught a whiff of this odour but your bashing of Limbaugh confirms a real leftward stench!
Rush is not a conservative.
So why is AmCon bad for making negative statements about him?
Do you have short memories? Do you remember how he just tried to get you to vote for Romney or Giuliani (or Hillary)? Do you remember how he didn’t let anti-NAFTA and anti-GATT people call into the show? How he virtually backed Dole early on in 96? How he said the Council on Foreign Relations didn’t exist?
And what does he support? Capitalists (not always the free market even), “free trade”, war, and the Republican Party.