The Chris Moeller Archives

Confederate junkie broadcaster faces opposition

It's often said today that there is so much media in existence that a person can isolate him or herself by getting the news only from the outlets with which they already agree. If you're a liberal, you keep yourself up-to-date with Rachel Maddow, and if you're a conservative, you can follow along with the headlines by watching Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and a bevy of leggy, blonde GOP spokesmodels on Fox News.

Rush Limbaugh knows this, and he's been playing that card this week on his radio show. A large number of progressives, African-American commentators, public advocates, the head of the players union, and now even a pair of team owners have spoken out against the prospect of Limbaugh buying into the NFL cartel of owners by purchasing the St. Louis Rams (disclosure: my favorite NFL team). Meanwhile, a number of African-American players have said or implied that they would refuse to play for a Limbaugh-led club. Limbaugh's response, as it is every time he's confronted by opposition in "the mainstream" of American life, is that his critics don't listen to his show, and that they're taking all of his past "controversial" comments out of context.

Well, that argument falls flat here. I have listened to Rush's program. I listened to all three hours of that fucker's show every day for almost four years, from 1997 to 2000. I had to. I operated the audio board during the afternoons when his show would air, and still does, on WHO Radio in Des Moines. Do I think that Rush is a racist? Maybe. He raises the specter of persecution against white racists on a semi-hourly basis. He is a capitalist, and that's often the same thing. What I do know for certain is this-- the man is a constant complainer. His whole act is predicated on the financially-lucrative truism that many white men liked things a lot better when they didn't have to compete with women, or men and women of color, for career and economic advancement. And while he pretends to care most of all about "freedom" in America and not giving any minorities "preferential treatment," he never cops to the fact that the entire system is actually rigged-- unless it's being rigged against him.

That's why-- for me-- Limbaugh's plight to own an NFL team and the ongoing desperation in his life to be loved back by an institution that he loves so much (and make no mistake, Rush is clearly a man who is underloved-- the guy could be a psychotherapist's life's work) is not so much about his right to buy a football team or about other team owners' hesitation to subject themselves to the daily controversial public commentary of a business partner. It's about how hysterically funny I find this all to be. The Germans call it Schadenfreude. Limbaugh has made himself a fabulously wealthy man over the last two decades by dividing Americans on gender, ethnicity, and belief system, labeling and denigrating everybody he disagrees with consistent with only his terms. He claims the audience and loyalty of millions, but the trade-off is that he's alienating everybody else to get them. Rush has human needs and desires though too, and unfortunately, one of them (his having been a fat child who now wants to pal around with the jocks during middle-age) requires that he land himself firmly in the mainstream of American cultural life. And, as he well knows, the barn door closed on that prospect years ago-- right when his television venture went down in flames.

An ESPN anchor this morning said that Limbaugh was facing opposition to his bid because of his comments six years ago on that network that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the news media was "desirous that a black quarterback do well." The radio host contends he was treated unfairly in that instance because he was being critical of the "liberal news media," not McNabb, but it's still a terribly divisive statement, and those are bad for business in the world of Corporate America unless you're in the business he's used to of only "narrowcasting" on radio to the angry white males.

If NFL owners reject Limbaugh-- and they will soon enough-- it won't be because they disagree with Limbaugh's politics. Political fundraising disclosures reveal they probably overwhelmingly agree. In fact, that's likely a healthy part of why Rush wants to be a member of their exclusive club. Part of the joy of becoming a "new-money" multimillionaire, I would think, would be that you could then rub elbows with the possessors of the "old-money." No, it will be instead because his well-known public divisiveness is bad for the business of everybody else in the club. He would be a public relations disaster each new time an African-American player announced that he didn't want to sign with the Rams.

The McNabb comment was hardly the only one that is now causing Limbaugh harm. A couple others, uttered during the otherwise safe hours of his broadcast on the EIB ("Excellence in Broadcasting") Network when only the dittoheads are usually listening, are more alarming still-- boldly racist, in fact, and even defamatory towards the NFL. Among them:

"The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There I said it."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

And my personal favorite: "We didn't have slavery in this country for 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark." Yep, and I'm an idiot for equating capitalism with racism.

ESPN ran an audio clip of Limbaugh crying about the opposition to his bid on his radio show this week. As usual, he was playing the anti-elitism angle even as the news release for his ownership group announced that he couldn't disclose the terms of the specific offer for the Rams "because of a confidentiality clause in our agreement with Goldman Sachs." Yes indeed, a partnership with the bailout kings of Wall Street is certainly an anti-elite position to be in and a powerful example of pulling one up by his own boot straps. It's almost as inspiring as the time Rush got his first job in radio because his uncle owned the station.

Does Rush Limbaugh have a right to buy a professional football team? Of course he does. But then so too do tens of millions of African-Americans, and yet strangely, even though 70% of NFL players are black, none of them actually do. NFL owners, who pride themselves on the diversity of their enterprise, recognize this delicate and unfortunate fact, and understand that Limbaugh's entry into their exclusive club will only draw unneeded attention to the void when it was well-established in the U.S. decades ago now that if you want to go about the business of exclusivity and continuing to toast wealthy colleagues who look just like you, do it quietly. Rush, for everything he is-- and isn't, is not quiet.

The satisfying part of this for me is that when Limbaugh is denied entry, he won't be denied entry by Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Harry Edwards or Donovan McNabb, it will be by overwhelmingly conservative white males who look and think just like him. Americans that support an inclusive society, you see, have made their feelings known that Limbaugh's participation in the NFL would be bad for business. Many of them might be fed up with seeing "Crips and Bloods" fight it out on their televisions on Sunday afternoon, but many more look at the same screen and see their fathers, brothers, and friends.

posted by CM @ 9:41 AM