October 17, 2009
So this is what we have come to in this country. Rush Limbaugh does not meet the "high standards" of the NFL to be a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams, but Michael Vick can play.

We're going to assume our readers know what this is all about. On the surface it has to do with pressure brought to bear by racists calling someone else racist and the powers that be not being honest enough to stand up to intimidation. Political correctness run amuck.

Rush says "welcome to Obama's America." We beg to differ. This game is as old as the hills. It is a game of power, played by little people.

If you want to review the current media hype about the Limbaugh/Rams mess here are some articles from both sides:

Wall Street Journal op-ed by Limbaugh

Breitbart article on NFL hypocrisy

The Left's side: The Grio on Limbaugh

Washington Times on Sharpton

New York Post on Sharpton

We could go on. And it could even be expanded:

RedNeck Rap

White House attacks Fox News

But this piece begins to get at what we think all of this means:

Attacking Fox not good idea for Obama

The long and short of this Limbaugh dispute is that his ratings will go up. His supporters will rally to his side. He may not become a Rams owner, but he will come out ahead of the game in the long run. The White House has made the mistake before of attacking Rush. They lost that one. They came across as whiners and his ratings went up. But more than that, it emboldened him. They have done the same thing to Glenn Beck and the same thing happened. He is now one of the most popular people on TV. Controversy sells.

This is a power game these folks are playing. And the winners in such power games are the strong. Not the weak. And we would suggest that "strong" means people who believe strongly in a principle. If one attacks them and their "followers" you never win. The NFL will learn this.

We think the Wall Street Journal editorialist was right on target in his/her assessment of the NFL. Weak leadership. It will cost them millions. Limbaugh will make millions in the end.

So who won and who lost this power game?

The answer is that the American people lost. The Elite Media lost. The people see once again that the Elite Media is not honest. We hate to sound like a broken record, but its true and we and others will have to keep pointing this out until these hypocrites stop trying to make it look like they are not just as biased as they accuse others of being.

Whether it is Dan Rather abusing his prestige with a false story about George Bush's National Guard record or MSNBC repeating quotes attributed to Limbaugh that they did not check out the source or any of the other almost daily examples of media hypocrites, the sad fact is that people get hurt in this game. People who do not deserve to be hurt.

But it will continue as long as the Elite Media believes they can or do control what people think. It will continue until the day comes when they realize that people have good sense and they have the ability to get their information from many sources and are not dependent on the Elites.

Sharpton may think he can intimidate people who do not agree with his brand of race pimping but he is wrong. It only works on the weak, and thus Sharpton becomes an exploiter as bad as any plantation owner ever was. And the White House may think it can intimidate Fox into not being critical of them, but even if they could silence Limbaugh and Fox there will always be someone who will take their place. And you can't annihilate them all. That is one of the truly liberating things about the internet. You can't suppress ideas and the expression of those ideas, even the repugnant ones.

What the NFL, Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, Barack Obama, David Axelrod and Anita Dunn/Bob Gibbs et. al. will eventually learn is that their best bet is to subscribe to the tactics Limbaugh and Beck (and the Beaufort Observer) use: Deal in ideas. Welcome open debate. Choose to counter untruth with truth.

The idea that suppression of ideas is a good strategy or even possible is the mistake Team Obama is making. And if the NFL was indeed naive enough to believe it could avoid controversy by dumping Limbaugh it has already learned that all it did was stir the fire even more. They (the NFL and Team Obama) have come across as amateurs playing in a sandbox.

Rush 1, NFL 0.

And Sharpton is so far out in left field he is not even in the game.