In Case You Missed It

This is far too easy. Way too inviting. Someone pinch me, please. No wait, it’s real? Golly, how great is this, I get to write a post about two things I love, NFL football and the joke that is Rush Limbaugh. Cool. Word is the aforementioned sultan of slime, er, pill-popping propagandist, uh, that leader of the lost is joining forces with Dave Checketts, owner of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, to buy the St. Louis Rams of the NFL. A man who has made his living from sowing the seeds of hatred and trumpeting the false propaganda of the right wants to own an NFL franchise. Oh, the sweet delicious irony of it all, where to start?!

He wants to buy the St. Louis Rams, yes the Rams who have lost 15 straight games. At this moment they may be the worst team I’ve ever seen play, and I remember the first year of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, although admittedly, vaguely. BTW those same Bucs along with the Rams, Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs are the only remaining teams without a victory so far this year at 0 and 5. Meanwhile, the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings are at 5 and 0 and along with the New Orleans Saints at 4 and 0, are the last undefeated teams standing.

He wants to buy an entertainment business in a city where he hates, distrusts, reviles and despises over half the population. 51.3% of the population of St. Louis is black. Not to mention the fact that the majority of the assets (players) employed by the team are black. I thought Rush viewed NFL football today as “a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons“. Players have already come out to say they would never play for a Rush-owned team. I don’t care if Rush claims to be the least racist talk show host, or if some of the quotes attributed to him may be false (try these for starters, then here, or here), there is no denying that he engages in race baiting. It’s an tried and true tactic, one that he seems to be perfecting in his anti-Obama campaign. From hoping his president fails to blaming Obama for black kids beating up white kids on buses to stirring up fears of a hidden socialist agenda, it plays on people’s fears and it’s dangerous.

Despite being so vehemently opposed to Obama’s socialist plan, Rush wants to do business in a socialist market. Yes the NFL is socialist, they share about two-thirds of revenues (mostly TV rights) equally among the 32 teams. You see, the NFL understands that capitalism is a beast that in many cases needs to be tethered in order to level the playing field to allow the market to function properly. In order to avoid a world where the powerful elite are allowed to set the rules in order to become even more powerful, the league prefers to see parity amongst the teams, allowing each an opportunity to be successful and thus creating an exciting, competitive atmosphere that attracts a diverse fan base. The analogy this seems to have with the US economy is almost uncanny; if only Reagan (or at least his puppet-masters) and his snake-oil salesmen had known that some controls can actually make for a better product, the entire world would be a much better place today.

Rush can supply all the pain killers the team needs while blaming the users for destroying the country.

He’d also become the only league owner to weigh more than the average of his offensive line.

Oh, I agree with Al Sharpton for once.

Well, actually, on second thought, I don’t agree with Reverend Al on much. Sharpton’s argument seems to rest on the need for the NFL to hold up to ’standards’. Um, guess he’s missed out on what the NFL ’standards’ are of late. I mean what kinda crazy juice does Al drink?

A franchise sale would have to be approved by 24 league owners, something that’s never going to happen. Think about it, if you owned anything worth over a billion dollars, would you allow anything that could lessen it’s value get anywhere near it? Colts owner Jim Irsay came out with this gem, “I myself couldn’t even think of voting for him”.

His misogynist attitude will really add the NFL’s attempt at wooing female fans. Witness the success the league seems to have had promoting Breast Cancer Awareness Month during week 4. I wonder what Rush would have to say about women even watching football, and god forbid they’re ugly?

Perhaps the biggest reason Limbaugh’s bid will be rejected was his ill-fated short-lived affiliation with the NFL in 2003. He was ultimately forced to resign following comments he made about Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb on Sunday NFL Countdown that included, “I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve“. At the time, the Eagles had a 36-22 record in games which McNabb had started and he has gone on to lead his team to 5 NFC championship games and one Super Bowl. As usual, Rush’s comments were simply racist and he was only trying to stir up controversy. The irony here is that when Limbaugh’s bid gets rejected, he’ll play the victim card to the hilt. I can already hear his complaints of being victimized by the liberal media. Yet there he was on his show a couple of years back bemoaning the fact that he had turned McNabb into a victim. You reap what you sow Rush, eat it.

The bottom line is the NFL is too smart to let Limbaugh into it’s exclusive club. The ultimate irony is that the other owners may agree with 99% or what Rush spews forth, but will reject his application for purely capitalistic reasons. His admittance to the club would bring down the value of the assets of the entire league, he would be toxic debt that would drag down everything around it. Huh, sounds familiar for some reason.

Thank goodness for Rush Limbaugh. Oh, wait, there’s more: also, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and what the heck, throw in Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham and cute little Mark Levin too! It gets even better; I think we should have a parade in honour of Sarah Palin. Am I off my rocker? Have I lost my mind? Gone coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs? Nope, not yet at least. Here’s the thing, all these conservative nut jobs are so out of touch with reality, such anathema to the rational person, spewing the most fundamentalist of beliefs, that they guarantee the Republican party will stay out of power for the foreseeable future.

Pity poor Michael Steele. Here’s a man tasked with taking over a party that has just lost the White House to go along with huge losses in Congress for the second straight election. This Republican party ain’t Lincoln’s, hasn’t been since 1876, Jim Crow and all that. Heck, look at the other candidates he beat out to become the RNC chairman: one a man well known for defending his membership in an all-white country club and another notorious for circulating a parody called “Barack the Magic Negro.” In his letter of candidacy for the RNC chairmanship, Michigan Republican Party chair Saul Anuzis observed, “We were once the party that America trusted on national security. But when intelligence failures and poor planning led to unexpected challenges in Iraq, America lost faith in our party. We were once the party of fiscal responsibility. But when members of our own party led the way in pork barrel spending, which led to the fattest federal budget in history, America lost faith in our party.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

It’s hard to imagine the party coming up with any new ideas, it’s dangerous. Step out of line and the axe comes down pretty swift, in the form of a Limbaugh lashing. Yes, the man who when questioned about his hopes for the Obama presidency said, “I hope he fails“; the same man who was kicked off Monday Night Football for saying that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was only starting because he was black. This doctor shopper is now in charge of the Republican party. To illustrate one need look no further than the case of Rep. Phil Gingrey who had the audacity to defend his party leadership from some typical Limbaugh self enlargement. Senator Gingrey said, “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks…they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.” For suggesting that these right wing nutters show leadership instead of complaining, Gingrey’s office was flooded with angry calls forcing him to not only issue a retraction stating that Limbaugh, Hannity and Gingrich were “the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience“, but also to apologize on air to the hate radio host for what he self-debasingly called “foot in mouth disease“. This apology to the man who told his listeners: “[Barack Obama's] not black … he’s a human being,” adding “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.” Talk about bending over and grabbing the ankles.

It gets worse for the Republican party I’m afraid. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 55 percent of Republican respondents said the party should be more like Sarah Palin (insert double-take with huh? sound effect here)! I guess that explains the lack of new ideas out of the Republicans, there hero is too busy with other things. She’s created a PAC, originally enough called SarahPAC to help get like minded conservatives elected. There’s also all the time she has to spend complaining about the unfair media coverage she received during the election. Don’t think she’s relevant? Maybe not, but she seems to think she can command an $11 million book deal advance. Oh yeah, plus she’s still governing a rather large state.

The rear view mirror is even more distressing. Even in defeat, the policies of the past eight years continue to be the mantra. So what’s the plan to get the Republicans back in power Dick Cheney? Easy: hope for the stimulus plan to fail or a major terrorist attack. Both of which are likely due to the Obama administrations policy of actually talking with people to solve problems according to an interview with Politico. In the same interview, the man who got rich out of sending his countrymen to die in the name of oil chided the Democratic party for the many tax indiscretions made by some of Obama’s appointees. For shame, they must be morally weak! At the same time he was busy attempting to vindicate his authorization of torturing suspects by claiming that waterboarding had helped to avert other 9/11 type attacks. You see Barack, the way to solve conflict is to lash out you silly man, never open dialogue.

So where does this lack of a viable opposition party leave America? Some would say much weaker than with a strong, vibrant Republican party, one with new ideas and something to add to the discussion. I say good riddance to bad rubbish. A one hit wonder like the GOP is nothing but dead weight, one that you can try to appease by watering down legislation, but in the end will just act like the spoiled children they are. Perhaps it could even spell the end of the anachronistic two-party system in the US which could do a world of good. When you have a multi-party system you quite often end up having to learn to negotiate - and heaven forbid - compromise. What exists now is stale and diseased. Take the recent House stimulus package vote, where not a single Republican voted yes. Instead of lamenting the lost opportunity, Michael Steele speaking at a GOP retreat said, “The goose egg that you laid on the president’s desk was just beautiful, absolutely beautiful“: yeah we lost and didn’t have any new ideas of our own, but we sure showed him! The US deserves a system where there doesn’t necessarily need to always be a loser for every winner, one where the victories can be shared. Sure the line between right and wrong may become a bit more blurry, but imagine a world where there’s more than just a choice between Coke and Pepsi.