Rush Limbaugh's chances at becoming an owner of the St. Louis Rams are virtually over.
Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said this afternoon that the divisive rhetoric of prospective Rams minority owner Rush Limbaugh makes him unappealing.
"I myself couldn't even think of voting for him," said Irsay speaking from the NFL's fall ownership meetings in Boston.
Asked if he'd spoken to other owners about Limbaugh's candidacy, Irsay said, "I haven't and I don't think I would even go to the point of talking to Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Dwight Freeney, talking to those men and seeing what their positions are. I'm very sensitive to know there are scars out there. I think as a nation we need to stop it. Our words do damage and it's something that we don't need. We need to get to a higher level of humanity and we have.
And the NFL Commissioner chimed in with this.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said here Tuesday that it would be inappropriate for the owner of an NFL franchise to make the sort of controversial statements attributed in the past to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
"I've said many times before we're all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about," Goodell said at an NFL owners' meeting. "I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not."
I heard Mike Francesa, a NY sports talk show host that I actually liked, sort of defend Limbaugh by saying that he didn't realize there was a political test that someone needs to pass to be able to own a team. He said the McNabb statements were ignorant that Limbaugh made on ESPN, but it seemed that he thought that incident was the one NFL players objected to. I believe he doesn't know all the foul and racist garbage Rush has been peddling over the airwaves since Obama started running for president. Hey, most sports owners supported John McCain, but as a sports fan, who really cares about that?
Sports team owners may not be John McCain’s answer to the Hollywood elite, but they’re overwhelmingly supporting his presidential campaign over Barack Obama’s. Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given to or raised as much or more than $3.2 million for McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared with as much as $615,000 for his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews.
They aren't out there for hours every day publicly attacking the African American community at every turn. That's the difference.
Media Matters: Limbaugh: "[I]n Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering"
Rush Limbaugh Uses Innocent Detroiters As Show Pinata
Some of his more recent lowlights:
– “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
– “We need segregated buses. … This is Obama’s America.”
– “President Obama is black. And I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder.”
– Democrats are interested in Darfur to secure black “voting bloc.”
– “Minorities never do anything for which they have to apologize.”
– Obama’s nomination for president “goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”
– Obama is a “halfrican-American.”
If Mike Huckabee put a group together with Dave Checketts to try and buy a team as a minority owner, I bet there wouldn't be this kind of outrage.
Oh, and I love that Limbaugh wants to be a minority owner.
