Dear Readers,
There are many moments in a profession when incompetence is confused for corruption. Rush Limbaugh just proved that in a big way.
Hired by ESPN to drag his huge radio audience to the pre-game football show, Limbaugh stepped down when his opinion about a black NFL quarterback proved to be — what a surprise! — controversial. (In the future, ESPN, be careful what you wish for.)
Essentially, Limbaugh argued that Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb was overrated. His weak play so far this year invites that opinion. No harm. No foul. But Limbaugh’s premise was that McNabb was overrated by a liberal media with a social agenda to promote African-American quarterbacks.
This premise is so off-base as to be ludicrous, or perhaps Doc should say, Ludacris (“Shake ya ass, Rush, watch yaself!”).
American sports departments have long been bastions of white, old-boy, locker-room values, resistant to social change, and slow at opening doors for women and minority journalists. That condition has improved since the 1970s. It improved, coincidentally, at the same time and pace that a vicious myth died: that black men, however athletic, didn’t have the intelligence to stand behind center and run a football team.
If Limbaugh had done a bit of research, it would have revealed that most contemporary sports journalists — who in many respects act more like theater critics than news reporters — praise black quarterbacks who perform well (Michael Vick, Daunte Culpepper, Donovan McNabb), and criticize those who don’t (Kordell Stewart, Akili Smith, Rodney Peete). They do the same for white quarterbacks.
This argument is not meant to absolve Mr. Limbaugh of insensitivity. Only to repeat that he got himself in trouble, and lost a great gig, not for injecting race into a conversation about sports, but for playing the Liberal Media card. This case may reveal how reflexively some conservative commentators reach for that card, and how shallow some of their arguments prove to be.
