(Though the reverse is true.)
Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat, idiot. To coin a phrase.
I have about a five minute tolerance for listing to Rush on the radio. He’s clever and witty and all that, but usually after about five minutes, the safety valve on my blood pressure starts hissing madly, and I need to change to another station.
I have minimal interest in pro sports, and when I heard that Limbaugh was doing a stint on ESPN football coverage, I scratched my head at the bizarre juxtaposition, then forgot about it.
Until, of course, the contretemps as to his comments. And now he’s resigned under fire.
The irony is that he was roundly blasted for “racist” remarks, when his remarks were not, so far as I can see, racist at all — except, insofar, as they (a) referred to race, and (b) referred to folks making decisions based on race.
What Limbaugh said that got him in trouble was the following, about Eagles QB Donovan McNabb, who happens to be black:
I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. 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.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen McNabb play. I don’t usually follow the Eagles (I barely follow the Broncos).
But I do know that there’s been a lot of criticism of the NFL in the past over the dearth of black QBs and coaches (which is exactly what Limbaugh noted). Indeed, the NFL has been called racist over that shortage, and anyone who has explicitly defended it (say, Jimmy the Greek) has been branded racist as well.
So Limbaugh speculates, offers his opinion, that McNabb is (a) not all that great of a QB, and (b) is getting favorable treatment from the NFL because of his skin color.
He didn’t say that McNabb was a bad QB because he was black. He said he was getting a pass (so to speak) by the NFL because of his color.
Which, when it’s couched in terms of hiring quotas and affirmative action and so forth, anywhere but in the NFL, is defended as being a Good Thing, benefiting society, righting past wrongs, pursuing social justice. But, evidently, if it’s what’s being done in the NFL — excuse me, if it’s what someone opines that is being done in the NFL — then that opinion is racism.
Huh?
Was Limbaugh’s assessment of McNabb’s quality as a QB wrong? I have no idea. Certainly sports commentators express their opinions about who’s a great athlete, and who isn’t, every day, without getting in trouble. If Limbaugh had only said, “I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. He got a lot of credit for the performance of his team, that he really didn’t deserve,” folks could and would debate what he had to say, but nobody would call for his firing. Criticizing a sportsman’s performance is not racist, unless, one would think, the criticism is ascribed to his race.
Were Limbaugh’s statements impolitic? Obviously. But that’s not racism.
Were Limbaugh’s comments about the NFL, or the Eagles, wrong? Hard to say. I doubt there’s a memo in someone’s file that says, “Hire this guy, it will make the league look better.” And it seems that a team, at least, would hardly start a QB that was marginal, only because of his color. On the other hand, what’s said around conference tables or on the phone is a different matter, and certainly I suspect that there were those in the league who were pleased at another starting QB who was black — to deflect that racism charge, if for no other reason.
But whether Limbaugh was wrong or right about it, there’s nothing racist about his comments. They’re ascribing social or political agendas to the media and to the league, effectively calling them racist. It’s ironic that folks can accuse the NFL of being racist for having too few black QBs and not draw any any criticism, but that calling them racist for coddling a black QB is branded as racism in and of itself.
Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot, and he may well be racist; I don’t listen enough to his show to say. But anyone who applies that label to these specific remarks is ascribing a quality to them that is just not there, and is therefore playing politics with the language. They are diluting the perniciousness of racism itself, turning it into something that means, “Anything that criticizes the job of someone who isn’t white.” Which is kind of idiotic itself. And racist.
What I think Limbaugh stepped in (excrement jokes here) is something that many commentators dance around.
Let me name a couple pretty good-to-decent QB’s in the NFL: McNabb, Steve McNair (Tennesee), and Kordell Stewart (whoever will take him). Just for fun lets throw in Dante Culpepper (vikings), and Aaron Brooks (Saints). These guys are good, but they aren’t GREAT. Them’s the breaks.
Now, look at the good things that announcers and analysts say about these, or any, quarterbacks who aren’t in the “A” list.
“Athletic.”
“Strength.”
“Speed.”
“Scrambler. Dangerous when forced out of the pocket.”
Look at the things they say about some other quarterbacks in the league, such as Rich Gannon (or, back in the Day, Elway).
“Poised.”
“Field General.”
“Like having another coach on the field.”
“Vision of the play.”
“Calm in the pocket.”
The doublespeak, if you look for it or know the NFL-code is this: “Athleticism” equals “He has physical ability which makes up for him not being, technically, a great quarterback.”
Right now, Limbaugh isn’t wrong: there are many impressive athletes in the NFL who happen to be black. Some are quarterbacks because they have a talent for it combined with massive natural athletic ability, but there has not yet been a black QB in the NFL who has shown the fieldsmanship of, say, Elway or Marino or Steve Young or any of the Big Names in the QB realm.
Ditto that lack in coaches: Dungee coaches the Bucs to almost-champions about a half-dozen times — he leaves, a new coach comes in and they win the Super Bowl that year, and people mutter that Dungee just doesn’t have “It”. People look at that and think, “there are no really great black QB’s or coaches in the NFL. This must mean that the ones that are there are only there to make up some quota.”
Which is crap.
There are perhaps 3… probably fewer… “A” list QB’s in the NFL at any given time. Maybe. Ditto for coaches. Everyone else are those talented or gifted or skilled guys who just aren’t going to blast their way into the hall of fame because they don’t have that undefinable “IT”. These guys are white AND black, and there’s at least sixty of them at any given moment. This is their job, and they do it well. They do it better than 95% of the rest of the world could, and because black QB’s/Head Coaches are fairly new to the system and one hasn’t broken through into that hallowed top-tier yet, then the rest of them must be Equal Opportunity tagalongs?
Sure.
Fact is, Limbaugh’s not wrong about McNabb being overrated and getting credit personally for work the whole team did, but that’s not because he’s black. That’s false attribution happens with LOT’S of QB’s (Kurt Warner, to name one key example from the last couple years), McNabb’s just a guy doing a job — he’s not remarkable in what’s happened to him, and mostly what I object to with Limbaugh is that he pretends that the exact same thing doesn’t happen with other QB’s every year.
I had to laugh. The difference between politics and business bites Rush on the butt!
“I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the workplace. Upper management has been very desirous that a black manager do well. They’re interested in black managers and supervisors 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.”
Imagine that statement as a national press release from a bank.
De: That wouldn’t come from a press release, but I could imagine folks saying it.
Doyce: Certainly it’s something that’s said about a lot of QBs (I’ve heard you complain about it, for that matter). I have no idea whether the foofoorah overrating McNabb is greater, or lesser, than for, say, Warner (let alone what that means).
But whether it’s an accurate statement or not, calling it a racist one seems like a gross overreach. And while there’s a certain joy in seeing Limbaugh’s words come back to bite him, it’s tempered by seeing a pernicious label used unjustly.
While I can’t respect Rush’s original statement, I can respect why he resigned. ESPN management told Rush that the other people on the show were uncomfortable because they were being attacked for not rebutting Rush on the air. Rush considered them friends and didn’t want to put them through it. So he quit.
Maybe it might be fair to criticize Rush for his remarks, but I see no justification for attacking the other members of the cast.
“If you’re not for us, then you’re against us.”
Mabe the only idiots are those who call Rush, “Fat.”
He weighs in the neighborhood of 180 pounds.
FROM VRWC.COM
Bill Clinton praises rabid segregationist and says he was my mentor. The question is… should he resign as Past President and give up all privileges and compensation. And because of his past association with a know racist is he a racist?
May 5, 1993, in what the Washington Post characterized as a “… moving 88th birthday ceremony for former senator William Fulbright, President Clinton last night bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the man he described as a visionary humanitarian, a steadfast supporter of the values of education, and ‘my mentor.'” The American political system produced this remarkable man, and my state did, and I’m real proud of it.”
Of course, the man Clinton was praising, who he called his “mentor,” who supposedly embraced utopian values and made the world a better place for everyone, was also a rabid segregationist.
In 1956, Fulbright was one of 19 senators who issued a statement entitled the “Southern Manifesto.” This document condemned the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Its signers stated, among other things, that “We commend the motives of those States which have declared the intention to resist forced integration by any lawful means.” They stated further, “We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.”