Rush Limbaugh wrote a column yesterday for the Wall Street Journal in which he whines pathetically about being denied the provilege of part ownership of the St. Louis Rams. I've been criticizing Limbaugh for years (I'm a communications professor and media critic) but have never had quite as much fodder to work with as this. (For more, feel free to visit my blog:
Newsprism--following news and politics with a big shovel.
In a
Wall Street Journal column Friday, Rush Limbaugh demonstrates exactly why he's not worthy of joining the National Football League.
To begin with, the column is subtitled, My critics would have you believe no conservative meets NFL 'standards'. But the issue has nothing to do with the liberal/conservative divide; the opposition to Limbaugh's participation in the league is based on the fact that he's made his name by being a provocateur and a controversialist, not on his politics.
Does anyone seriously believe that among the league's many owners there are no conservatives? Or that NFL fans are any less likely to be conservative than the general population?
Limbaugh, the consummate self-promoter, wants to make this about some vast left wing conspiracy. It's not.
The NFL's revenue stream depends largely on its public image; the league is therefore, like any other business, highly protective of its image. Any threat to that image poses an existential risk that no business would be wise to take.
The outpouring of opposition to Limbaugh taking part ownership in the St. Louis Rams proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that allowing Limbaugh into the league would be risky. That opposition came from many quarters, including players, the NFL Commissioner, fans, numerous sports writers and political commentators, and, yes, two outspoken media whores named Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Limbaugh conveniently downplays the players, the commissioner, the fans, the writers, and the commentators in order to concentrate his ire on Jackson and Sharpton as he begins his column by citing a well-deserved litany of their attention-seeking, race-baiting tactics.
But doesn't Limbaugh play exactly the same game as Jackson and Sharpton? Don't all three men exploit every controversial issue possible to keep their names in the headlines? Talk about the pot calling the kettles black!
And speaking of black, is it a coincidence that in this column Limbaugh focuses his fire on four African-Americans---Sharpton, Jackson, NFL Players' Union head DeMaurice Smith, and sportswriter Michael Wilbon---for playing the race card against him?
Limbaugh deftly uses race to his advantage while always stopping just short of overt racism. For example, on his radio program he made the satirical song "Barack the Magic Negro" a mainstay; accused General Colin Powell of endorsing Barack Obama's presidential bid solely because Obama is black; called Obama a "Halfrican American"; associated the violence plaguing Chicago with Obama by pointedly and repeatedly calling the city "Obamaland" in a discussion of that violence and its effect on Chicago's bid for the Olympics; and, after the release of a well-publicized school bus video of black children beating a white child, said that in "Obama's America" such behavior is now acceptable.
Limbaugh even mentions Obama twice in his WSJ column. Why? What does the president have to do with this?
Then there's the infamous 2003 incident in which Limbaugh managed to bring race into his sports commentary on ESPN, saying that
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."
I've never heard a single announcer or commentator bring race into a sportscast. That Limbaugh did so is a classic example of "leakage," a psycological syndrome akin to a Freudian slip. Limbaugh just couldn't keep what was on his mind in his mind!
The petulant Limbaugh later claimed with typical arrogance, "All this has become the tempest that it is because I must have been right about something. If I wasn't right, there wouldn't be this cacophony of outrage that has sprung up in the sports writer community."
Even if Limbaugh was right about McNabb (and he wasn't), it was inappropriate to bring race into the equation. It was damaging to ESPN and to the NFL. Once burned, twice shy; the league has no reason whatsoever to give Limbaugh more opportunities to show his true colors.
Limbaugh's column ends with as pathetic an example of victimization as I've ever read:
There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us....
These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.
If Limbaugh is a victim of anything, it's his own lack of integrity.
And if there's a cancer on our society, it's not some vast left wing conspiracy to deny opportunity to conservatives.
No, the cancer on our society is the demagoguery, the brazen intellectual dishonesty, the subtle racism, the exploitation of ignorance, bigotry and narrow mindedness that has made Rush Limbaugh a household name, and increasingly divided the country, and poisoned our political discourse.
Ironically, one of the nation's best conservative political commentators,
David Brooks, chastised Limbaugh and his ilk in a brilliant column two weeks ago. Brooks blames Limbaugh and his media progeny (which now includes Keith Olbermann!) for weakening the Republican Party:
The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.
The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.
Limbaugh pioneered a form of demogogic and self-aggrandizing infotainment that is damaging not only to the nation's political discourse, but to the very ideology he purports to advance. There's no reason to let that poison once again do its ugly work in the arena of sports.
Brooks adds a colorful analogy to his critique, writing that Limbaugh's story "is a story as old as 'The Wizard of Oz,' of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain."
Rush, get back behind your curtain and leave the gridiron to men of honor.
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