Fools "Rush" to judgment

Rush Limbaugh's off-the- top-of-his-head, shoot-from- the-lip mouth finally got him in trouble after all these years.

Rush has been mesmerizing the reactionary wing of the Republican party for years through his syndicated radio program, heard nationwide, by loudly shouting to his followers that Democrats can do no right and Republicans can do no wrong. And his base, estimated at about 8 million listeners, (about 1/34 of the American population) has remained solid and strong.

He has held onto that base because he tells them what they want to hear. His listeners tend not to go to "fact check" on their computers after they listen to his show. Rush is right because he tells them what they already believe to be right. And so it goes.

Now for the sake of equal opportunity and fairness, Democrats do about the same thing. I'm in the middle of reading Al Franken's new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," and Al does similar things in reverse.

His book is a laundry list of all the things Democrats do that are right and all the things Republicans do that are wrong. So, even though I've been a registered Democrat all my life, I think my mind would register me Independent if my hand would let me. Because I have no problem at all conceding that Bill Clinton lied to the American people over his affairs with various women, although I think he did a pretty good job exercising his formal duties as President of the United States.

And Lyndon Johnson, another Democrat, lied to the American people during the Vietnam War when he promised the United States would never expand the war beyond the borders of Vietnam when we were, in fact, bombing Cambodia while he was giving his speech.

And Ronald Reagan lied about the whole Iran-Contra affair, and Nixon lied about not being a crook and George Bush the First lied about no new taxes.

Politics is a brutal sport and both sides have decided to fight it by blaming everything bad on the other guy and taking all the credit for anything good for their side. Speaking of sport, that is the motivation for this week's column. Rush Limbaugh, it is believed by many, overstepped the bounds of good taste at best and engaged in using the race card at worst, when he proclaimed on ESPN's game day a couple of Sundays ago that Donovan McNabb, quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, was "not that good" a quarterback and that he was being promoted by an admiring press "because the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."

Limbaugh could have made these comments during his radio show on any day of the week and they would have been met with affirmations from his loyal followers and, at the same time, would not have been noticed by anyone else in America. But Limbaugh was on a different stage two weeks ago, a fact that obviously escaped him. He was now addressing an entire nation of football fantatics (believe me, no one would watch a two-hour pregame show if you weren't seriously into pro football) who were interested in one thing and one thing only: football.

This audience reached a much greater cross-section of the American people than his radio show does and audience reaction to his observations and comments was swift and critical.

Limbaugh miscalculated in two different ways in saying what he said. I was watching the show and immediately felt like he had opened mouth and inserted foot when he said what he said. I knew there would be a backlash because there is no other institution in America as color-blind as sports in general and football in particular. Owners, coaches, teammates, and fans couldn't care less about the skin color of an athlete playing for their favorite team as long as he produces. And if he doesn't produce, they still don't care about his skin color. We all want the same thing. We want winners and they can come in any size, shape, or color, as long as they win.

One of the hobbies that has swept the country is fantasy football. There are fantasy football leagues in practically every city in America, not to mention the Internet. I'm on two different ones in McCook. Fantasy football owners are just like "real" football owners. We don't care at all about the color of a player's skin as long as they can produce. Before each fantasy owner drafts his team for the upcoming year, we all go out and find "cheat sheets." These either come in fantasy football magazines or fantasy football sites on the Internet or television programs devoted entirely to fantasy football. I can tell you that the top two quarterbacks listed in every "cheat sheet" I saw this year had Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper listed either one or two. They're both black.

They were listed that high because of their past performances, not the press making them out to be something they weren't. In particular, McNabb, the quarterback Limbaugh made reference to, has been selected to three straight Pro Bowls, chosen for that honor by his opponents and teammates in the National Football League. In his first full season as the starting quarterback, McNabb finished second in the voting for the league's most valuable player, and he has directed his team to consecutive conference championship games. Hardly the stats of a media creation.

So Limbaugh misjudged his audience. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was breaking an agreement that he and the other members of the pregame team had made when his hiring was being considered. The other team members insisted that the pregame show was about football. Not social justice, not politics. Just football. Limbaugh agreed and assured the team that he would only make comments from a football perspective. Evidently, he just couldn't help himself and he went back on his agreement.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day, obviously a Limbaugh believer, who said that Rush should be able to offer his opinion, whatever it is. That he shouldn't get in trouble for it and he surely shouldn't have been pressured out of his job because of it. In a perfect world, I suppose that would be true. But we don't live in a perfect world. We can't say whatever we think, just because it's our opinion, because what we say impacts on others. I can't write about anything I want to in these columns, nor can I say anything I want to say. I have to take our readers and our potential advertisers into consideration when I'm choosing my topics and my words.

Rush agreed to limit his comments to football and he didn't. And he failed to realize the heterogeneity of his football television office compared to the homogeneity of his political radio office. That's why we won't see him on the ESPN pregame show anymore.