Rush Limbaugh

Not to Rush to his defense, or anything....

You know, the last time I checked, this was America. And Rush Limbaugh, however closed-minded and quick stepping the party line he may be, has the right to say whatever he wants. But Raiford says we're the United State of the Easily Offended, and I reckon he's right.

Let me say that it's hypocritical of ESPN to have even issued a statement about the incorrectness of what Limbaugh said if they're going to have a poll question basically stating the same thing Limbaugh said on their website.

Folks...he was criticizing the media. Listen carefully to what he said. At no point did he say he thought a black quarterback wouldn't be able to make it in the NFL, or that he thought McNabb wasn't up to the task of leading an NFL team.

He said McNabb was overrated (which is a legitimate opinion, though I don't agree), and that the media was trying to make a story out of a black quarterback's success story.

He was criticizing the media, but awkwardly and rather stupidly. When I heard what Rush had said, it made me think Rush had gone a little batty. Like he was seeing conspiracies when not only is there no conspiracy, there's no need for a conspiracy.

Nobody's trying to create a feel-good story out of a black quarterback are they?. Because it's already happened, and the most everybody's past it. It would be like creating a vaccination for Polio. Again. I thought it was so much a foregone conclusion that race wasn't a determining factor in directing an offense that it was old hat.

Also, I think he was wrong about McNabb. He's not overrated, I don't think. And it's not his fault the Eagles aren't performing this year (crappy O-Line, and also Duce Staley). He's one of the top five QBs in the NFL, in my mind, not too far ahead of Steve McNair, who's not too far ahead of Culpepper up in Minnesota.

But all this is more or less by Rush's design, I think. He's a media whore, who isn't happy unless he's being talked about. There's not such thing as bad publicity, they say.

And it's what ESPN wanted, too, when they hired him. I think they all won, in the end.