What Rush Limbaugh's Bid for the Rams Tells Us About Hate Speech

I think I've got it -- the hate in America and where it's coming from.

Rush Limbaugh's effort -- aborted by his fellow investors, it seems -- to buy the St. Louis Rams has given me the insight. Other people, when they don't get something they want -- and rich guys really want football teams; for them this is true love -- get sulky, or shrill, or litigious.  (Well, Rush does threaten, of course: "We are in the process of working to get apologies and retractions with the force of legal action against every journalist who has published these entirely fabricated quotes about me.") Rush immediately got out there and gave a speech which dismissed reality: "I'm not even thinking of exiting. I'm not even thinking of caving. I am not a caver. None of us are. We have been betrayed by too many who have caved. Pioneers take the arrows. We are pioneers. It's a sad thing but our country, over 200 years old now, needs pioneers all over again, but we do."

So the hate: I think people have a natural instinct to want to declaim, to inveigh, denounce, opine, and show-off to great rhetorical effect. It's as natural as dreaming of playing major league baseball (it is, speech for speech's sake, like baseball, a man's thing). People (men) just want to hear themselves talk.

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Comments

[pollwatcher123]

12:49 PM on 10/18/2009

http://mediamatters.org/research/200702070012
http://mediamatters.org/research/200602090012
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1627887

[trinidadgirl]

06:49 PM on 10/17/2009

cwestx....Even if there is a tape or not, what RUSH amounts to by his everyday bombastic in your face hate is enough. So, he didn't get the deal. BIG deal! Maybe he will get an all white line-up somewhere else. That would be just up his street!

[noamjunior]

02:42 PM on 10/16/2009

The real issue here is -given Limbaugh's statements- how on earth can the FCC NOT justify a licence review of every station that runs his show

[cwestx]

12:24 AM on 10/17/2009

What did he say?

[cwestx]

12:25 AM on 10/17/2009

What "statements" would those be?

[pollwatcher123]

12:49 PM on 10/18/2009

http://mediamatters.org/research/200702070012
http://mediamatters.org/research/200602090012
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1627887

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-wolff/what-rush-limbaughs-bid-f_b_322716.html

[Ironhelix]

01:02 PM on 10/16/2009

Consider the other investors that included Limbaugh in the first place. His racist, hateful behavior isn't new or was unknown to them when they formed their investor group. What does that say about them?

[gs-425]

08:01 AM on 10/16/2009

Maybe it has more to with DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFLPA, who worked on the Obama transition team and also worked for Eric Holder before he became AG than it has to do with anything else.

BTW, political speech, is not h8 speech.

[noamjunior]

02:26 PM on 10/16/2009

It sure isn't- but saying that blacks were better off under slavery and the streets were safer then- sure is

[cwestx]

12:23 AM on 10/17/2009

I'll ask again; be so kind as to provide evidence of Limbaugh saying this...a tape, a newscast, a witness...anything will do...other than repeating what you have heard from a third source.

[cwestx]

12:27 AM on 10/17/2009

It would be if it were true. As requested before, please provide backup - actual data - of your statement here.

[DUSAA-1775]

06:33 AM on 10/16/2009

It has been interesting watching this issue unfold. Calm rational people can see the political witch hunt against Rush. Limbauch is certainly a confrontational figure who has consistently irked and angered those on the radical left.
Given the opportunity to poke him in the eye, the left jumped on the chance. They would not be deterred, even if they had to make up quotes to prove how much they truly despised him.

[gs-425]

08:10 AM on 10/16/2009

5 will get you 10 that you didn't know that the ED of the NFLPA, DeMaurice Smith, was on the Obama transition team. That 10 will get you 20 that you wont hear that little tid-bit on the news either.

[noamjunior]

02:29 PM on 10/16/2009

Watching this story on ESPN - I gotta say you couldnn't be further off base- Rush's direct quotes supporting slavery (something about the streets being safer then)- as told on ESPN's first and ten, should get him fired off the airwaves, much less disqualify him from owning an NFL team.
Of course- when Rush wins his Libel suit against ESPN- I will be the first in line to apologize

[cwestx]

12:16 AM on 10/17/2009

You use the term: Rush's direct quotes supporting slavery. Please, since you state it is a direct quote from Limbaugh, give us the source; give us the complete statement; give us the tape; give us the film.

Or, you can apologize now.

[cwestx]

12:17 AM on 10/17/2009

Please, be so kind as to provide us with the source of the "direct quote" where Limbaugh supported slavery.

[flacon]

03:52 PM on 10/15/2009

I think you are confusing hate with commentary you don't care for. Saying the media is in the tank for a black man to succeed is not too far a stretch whether you're talking McNabb or Obama.

[noamjunior]

02:42 PM on 10/16/2009

but saying blacks were better off under slavery is both h8ful and ra-cist

[cwestx]

12:13 AM on 10/17/2009

What do you not understand about: He never said this.

There is no tape; there is no film, there are no witnesses coming forward. This quote was written in a book that never, ever provided evidence of its validity.