Word: nfl
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...should Rush Limbaugh be deemed unfit to be an NFL owner because he's said things that some people deem racist? Sadly, the league's historical precedent does not exclude such behavior. As Sports Illustrated just pointed out, the former Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was an open racist who kept the Redskins white, not to mention inept - now there's an accomplishment - until 1962, long after the owners grudgingly reintegrated the league in 1946. (See TIME's top 10 things to watch this NFL season...
...current NFL owner is crazy enough to engage in the racially charged polemics that Limbaugh does, whether regarding voter turnout, affirmative action or whatever else the Republican Party's white wing - oops, my bad - right wing wants to attack politically. That's his job as a conservative talk-show host, and he does it really well - well enough to earn the dough needed to own a piece of an NFL franchise. The fact that he is a lawbreaking former drug addict whom the cops discovered copping OxyContin in Palm Beach after years of calling for illegal drug users...
...very idea, though, that the collection of NFL owners is some kind of football Kiwanis Club is crazy in the first place. Civic good? NFL owners have a dedicated interest in going wherever civic leaders are good enough to shower them with money. Remember the Irsays, who owned the Baltimore Colts? They slunk out of Baltimore in the middle of the night for the riches of Indianapolis. Now Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, is saying he couldn't even think of voting for Limbaugh. The man has his standards. And let's not forget former Cleveland Browns owner...
...Several outstanding NFL players, including McNabb and Jets linebacker Bart Scott have announced they wouldn't play for a Limbaugh-owned team. That's understandable, but they shouldn't forget that playing in the NFL is to be working for sport's biggest plantation. Yes, guys like McNabb are making multimillion-dollar paydays. Yet he and the rest of the players labor within the confines of a football monopoly that has never taken kindly to outside competition or an activist workforce. Consider the NFL players' strike of 1987, which the owners crushed with all the sensitivity of Kentucky coal-mine...
...players' dream boss, nor is he even favored by other owners, including Jim Irsay. But the notion that you need to occupy some kind of moral high ground to be able to extract profit from a monopoly sport that routinely exploits its criminally inclined workforce leaves me unmoved. The NFL is just another big business - why should it be anything less - only with a huge amount of ego attached to it. Rush should fit in quite well...