Around the Horn for Rush Limbaugh

One wishes Rush had explained himself better. Maybe it would have mollified his critics had he explained that it is also in the conservative impulse to cheer the achievements of barrier-breaking blacks, so long as the achievement is real (Woods, Williams sisters) and not construed (in Rush's analysis, McNabb). But that's the stuff of three-hour radio talk show discussions, not seven-second TV soundbites. That mistake, coupled with the media's unwavering commitment to political correctness, is what spurred ESPN to grow queasy and hush Rush. - Brent Bozell

First Michael “You should only get AIDS and die, you pig” Savage, then Rush Limbaugh. The great thing about putting these right-wing radio nuts on television is that everybody gets to see the racism, homophobia and hatred they regularly spew under the radar screen to only their devoted listeners.
Eric Alterman

The sports news network hired Rush Limbaugh to do pre-game football commentary and chatter for its "Sunday NFL Countdown." Rush Limbaugh is a conservative talk show host with strong opinions about all sorts of things, including race and media bias. He offered his opinion about race and media bias. He lost his job. Who did ESPN think it was hiring? Martha Stewart? - Jonah Goldberg

When white men gather in living rooms, locker rooms, or sports bars, you'd be amazed at how often they make racist comments.

It doesn't happen all the time. But it happens a lot.

So maybe Rush Limbaugh did the country a favor by reminding us, yet again, of the insidiousness of white supremacy.
Matthew Rothschild

Next, Rush Limbaugh will be forced to resign for saying that Katie Couric is cute, that Saddam Hussein is evil, and that the sun rises in the east. His recent comment on ESPN that sports reporters might want a black quarterback to succeed because of their "social concern" is self-evidently true. That it created a furor leading to his resignation is a sign of a pervasive double standard in American life -- the left obsessively racializes nearly everything, but if a conservative dares mention anything related to race, he is dubbed a "racist" and considered unfit for polite company. - Rich Lowry

The creation of the Rush Limbaugh era was a move of astonishing cynicism by ESPN, a race down the low road in search of a buck or two, middle finger extended out the driver's side window at its best customers, hardcore sports fans. Knowing that any publicity is good publicity and that hiring Limbaugh would have tongues wagging, the network hired him knowing he'd add nothing to viewers' enjoyment of the games but plenty to the bottom line as the curious tuned in to see how Rush would try to shape the events on the field to fit his know-nothing political agenda.

Time and again in his brief, idiotic tenure Limbaugh returned to one of his favorite themes, the liberal media, sometimes imagined as an unthinking horde marching in lockstep, sometimes as individual reporters, legions of them, all acting in exactly the same way for some reason that's obvious to Rush if not to the rest of us.
King Kaufman

The nice thing about posts like this is that I don't really have to add anything. Just present the info.