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Posted on Sunday 18 October 2009


David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn’t much care. I accepted his offer…

blah, blah, blah…

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. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.
I’ve personally enjoyed this story as it’s played out.  It’s not about the football thing. I don’t much care who owns professional sports teams. I do think his subtext is interesting, "My critics would have you believe no conservative meets NFL ‘standards.’" I definitely count myself as a Limbaugh critic, but I sure think conservatives meet NFL standards. I would be surprised to find out that there are "Liberal" owners of NFL teams – very surprised! And I do think that Limbaugh analogizing himself with Clarence Thomas is bizarre. How he sees himself as like Clarence Thomas is beyond my understanding. I don’t quite get the Teabagger analogy either. But I often have trouble following his analogies or logic. It’s not a question of disagreeing with him. That usually goes without saying. It’s that he seems to speak in some code that his listeners understand, but I just don’t get. But those things are standard Rush Limbaugh. That’s not what’s interesting about this story.

Limbaugh says that his rejection by NFL Players, the NFL Players Union, the Commissioner, and black leaders is because he’s "conservative." He says what’s being opposed is his "conservatism," not his own sarcastic racial slurs. In the body of this op-ed, he says:
The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?
I find that to be a truly remarkable thing for him to say. Is it even possible that he might believe such a thing yet say what he says day after day? Is it possible for him to actually think that the intensity of the negative feelings expressed about him recently are because he is a self-proclaimed conservative? Can he actually be that deluded?

As strange as it seems, I think the answer is "Yes." There are only a few possibilities. One is that he is as hateful as he sounds, but consciously twists what he says to stay out of trouble. In other words, he’s faking it. The second is that he’s only a showman, a flim-flam man that says whatever it takes to keep up his ratings. In that case, he’s only faking it. Finally, there’s the possibility that he is exactly as he appears and believes what he says, he has become what he sees in the mirror.

Rush Limbaugh has an incredible ability to generate reasons that he’s "right" on the fly. He never misses a beat, and he’s alway being persecuted by others. Busted for his Oxycontin Addiction, he was being singled out because he was a celebrity. The players that spoke out were influenced by DeMaurice Smith who is in cahoots with Obama. The NFL is controlled by Liberals. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are hateful racists [and bad apples otherwise]. Sportswriters hate conservatives and that "reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson." Like Clarence Thomas, he’s the victim of something [something unspecified]. This same something was turned on the tea-baggers and is spreading like cancer.

What do you call a person who is never wrong, but is always being wronged by some unspecified community of characters who are in dialog with each other? What do you call someone who includes any critic in this conspiracy against him, immediately? What do you call someone who is so important that they are always the center of the attention of others [like the center of my recent attention]? What do you call someone who charges everyone else with being what he obviously is, attributing his own motives to others with ease – over and over? What’s interesting is how this intensely paranoid and grandiose man has turned his paranoid illness into a gold mine. That’s what’s interesting…
  1.  
    Joy
    October 18, 2009 | 2:30 PM
     

    I wonder if Rush’s radio show is still piped into the armed services airways on all the bases around the world as it has been for years. I sure would like to know that his voice is no longer spreading hate and racism on our dime to our young men and woman, it’s bad enough it’s on free speech public radio.

  2.  
    Mickey
    October 19, 2009 | 12:49 AM
     

    I think he’s still on AFN – the Armed Forces Network.

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