Dittohead Forever: Rush Limbaugh Dropped From Bid for NFL Rams
Yesterday Dave Checketts, the executive leader of a group bidding for the N.F.L. Rams, announced Rush Limbaugh would be dropped from the group. Writing for The New York Times, Judy Battista reports that
once word leaked last week that Limbaugh was involved, several retired and current players said they objected to Limbaugh’s involvement and said players would not join the Rams as free agents if Limbaugh prevailed. Then the union executive director, DeMaurice Smith, expressed his personal concern about Limbaugh and encouraged players to speak up.
The players’ opposition to Limbaugh is rooted largely in his public comments about race. The most famous of those came when he spoke about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in 2003, while Limbaugh worked for ESPN.
Judy Battista
In the wake of the controversy raised by his comments about Donovan, Limbaugh resigned from his position at ESPN. Six years later, Limbaugh’s racist comments continue to affect how people who work in the N.F.L. perceive Limbaugh, unsurprising given Limbaugh’s refusal to back away from his statement. Instead, Limbaugh went so far as to say
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.
Leave it to a racist like Limbaugh to explain that people get upset with racist comments because racist comments are true.
At the time of Battista’s report, Limbaugh vowed not to drop out of the group bidding for the Rams and the right-wing blogosphere is spinning all of this as a liberal conspiracy to silence Limbaugh.
If by silence the right wing means the refusal of workers to allow an infamous, proven, and unapologetic racist to gain partial ownership of the system in which they labor and to which they have dedicated their lives, then Limbaugh for now has been silenced. And if by liberal conspiracy the right wing means the social and political movement that begins with Abolition and continues through the Civil Rights Era, they have correctly identified the natural enemies of racists such as Limbaugh.
