Rush Limbaugh blames the Left for Being Dropped in Bid for the Rams

Conservative radio host/comedian Rush Limbaugh has been dropped by an investment group making a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams according to ESPN.  Robert Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, became the public face of several owners in stating that he wouldn’t lend his vote — one of 24 required to approve the deal — for the transaction to happen. 

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said: “Divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about.” Goodell added: “I’ve said many times before, we’re all held to a high standard here. I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL — absolutely not.”

And Rush Limbaugh says it’s about the Left:

“This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me,” Limbaugh said. “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”

Nah…it couldn’t be about the well-documented racist comments made over the years.

Media Matters has documented at least 28 examples of Limbaugh’s racist remarks, including these gems:

• “We are being told that we have to hope [Obama] succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles … because his father was black.”
• “I do believe” Obama is an “angry black guy.”
• “[I]n Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering.”
• “Obama’s entire economic program is reparations.”
• Obama is “more African in his roots than he is American” and is “behaving like an African colonial despot.”
• Obama is “Halfrican-American.”
• “Obama has disowned his white half … he’s decided he’s got to go all in on the black side.”
• Sotomayor “a reverse racist” appointed by Obama, “the greatest living example of a reverse racist.”
• Obama “wants us to have the same health care and plan that he had in Kenya” and “wants to be the black FDR.”
• Latching onto LA Times op-ed, Limbaugh sings “Barack, The Magic Negro.”
• “God does not have a birth certificate. Neither does Obama”; Obama “has yet to prove he’s a citizen.”
• Limbaugh on Gates controversy: “Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman.”
• Limbaugh suggests Obama would not have acted on Somali pirates if he’d known they were “actually young, black Muslim teenagers.”
• Limbaugh suggests Democrats, media believe “you can’t criticize the little black man-child.”
• “The government’s been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives.”
• “The days of [minorities] not having any power are over, and they are angry.”
• “[M]inorities never do anything for which they have to apologize.”
• Limbaugh: “The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”
• Limbaugh says “NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips.”
• Limbaugh declares basketball “the favorite sport of gangs.”
• Limbaugh invented “racial component” to Hackett’s decision to withdraw from Ohio primary race.
• Limbaugh on Survivor series: “African-American tribe” worst swimmers, Hispanics “will do things other people won’t do.”
• Limbaugh suggested Colin Powell only supported Obama because of race.
• Limbaugh: Gates is an “angry racist.”
• Limbaugh called illegal immigrants an “invasive species.”
• Limbaugh repeatedly calls Native Americans “Injuns.”
• Limbaugh says Democrats’ interest in Darfur is securing black “voting bloc.”
• Limbaugh says that if “feminazis” had remembered to oppose “affirmative action for black guys … they wouldn’t face the situation they face today.”

Today’s Los Angeles Times questions why Limbaugh wants in to a business and a team that relies on corporate socialism to prop up small market teams and uses “revenue sharing” from broadcast contracts while being free from anti-trust laws? From the Times’ editorial:

“It’s odd that a business built around a quintessentially American game — teams of oversized men pounding each other senseless to promote the sale of cars, trucks and beer — would be run more like a socialist collective than a free market. But that’s how the major sports leagues function in this country, thanks to exemptions from antitrust laws. The share-the-wealth approach is particularly helpful to football teams in smaller markets, such as St. Louis. But the collaborative structure also means that anyone trying to buy or sell a team has to persuade owners of 24 of the league’s 32 teams to approve the deal. The notion of owners sitting in judgment on their would-be competitors is richly ironic, given that their predecessors included unabashed gamblers and felons.

We don’t like the idea of any business closing its doors to potential entrants based on the size of their mouth. We say that because we believe in free markets and free speech, although we also liked the thought of Limbaugh becoming so preoccupied with the woebegone Rams that he’d spend less time on-air. Still, we wonder why a rock-ribbed conservative would want to join a league with so little freedom and a team so dependent on income redistribution.”

But the comment that most made me think about why Limabugh wants to be an NFL owner appeared in the blog Scholars and Rogues.  

“Let’s set aside for a second the obvious troubling question about how a team with Rush at the helm would get new players, since presumably it would dodge the draft. And the also-obvious question of whether, given its stance against illegal drug use, the league would be forced to ban Limbaugh from his own facility. Instead, let’s ask a more basic question: why would a guy like Limbaugh want to own an NFL team, knowing all the hassle involved in the process?

I think I have it figured out. Because it’s the closest he can get, in this day and age, to actually being able to buy, sell and trade Negros.

There. I said it.”

And remember, during the presidential campaign, local conservatives would refer to Rush’s opinion on which candidate was the “true conservative.”