{"id":31902,"date":"2009-03-11T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:40:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:40:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:40:11","slug":"teachable_moment_jason_whitlock3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/03\/11\/teachable_moment_jason_whitlock3\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachable Moment: Jason Whitlock"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: A teachable moment comes from a town I lived in for ten years, Kansas City, Missouri. Well, I actually lived in Overland Park, but it\u2019s all part of the same metro area. I had a great time there. By the way, anybody who knew me in Kansas City for those ten years would say I was an abject failure. (laughed) I failed. But those ten years of failure were among the most valuable that conditioned me, prepared me for what was to come later when I left Kansas City. I still stay in touch with the Kansas City media, and I have a lot of friends that are still living in Kansas City that I\u2019m in regular contact with, golf buddies and so forth. I occasionally still read the Kansas City media, the local newspapers, the Kansas City Star. They have a columnist who has written things in the past that we\u2019ve quoted favorably on this program, other things he\u2019s not been so favorably quoted on, but I like this man, and I think he\u2019s really brilliant at times, and I think he\u2019s very creative. <\/p>\n

In a clouded, clogged, overrun media community, Jason Whitlock still manages to write pieces that stand out. And he\u2019s fearless. He has been fired from places like ESPN, which, to me, is a badge of honor. He has been fired for his outspokenness. Jason Whitlock has also taken his hand at hosting talk radio and sports. Jason Whitlock has a column that ran Saturday in the Kansas City Star. Now, it\u2019s about the Kansas City Chiefs. For those of you in Port St. Lucie and Rio Linda, that\u2019s the football team there. They just hired a new general manager, they got rid of king Carl Peterson, and they just hired Scott Pioli from the New England Patriots, and they just hired a new head coach from the Arizona Cardinals, the offensive coordinator, Todd Haley. Jason Whitlock — now, stick with me on this because it\u2019s a teachable moment. You\u2019ll be amazed at what I am going to read to you from Jason\u2019s piece. The headline of Jason\u2019s piece is: ‘It\u2019s OK to Question Pioli and the Chiefs.\u2019<\/p>\n

Now, keep in mind as I go through this and read excerpts, this is a column about football. Football does not determine your tax rate. Football has nothing to do with your individual liberty or freedom. It might have a little to do with your pursuit of happiness, if your team wins or if you like to root them on, this sort of thing, but there\u2019s no football team that can unilaterally enact a policy that will change your life, make you poorer, raise your taxes, or infringe upon your freedom. Jason Whitlock begins his piece. <\/p>\n

‘Wednesday afternoon, on my drive on I-70 to watch the Tigers and the Sooners tangle, I passed the time listening to sports-talk radio. I find one of our local stations unlisten-Neal-able, so you can assume which station and which show entertained me along the highway. And you can guess which host nearly made me drive off the highway. The New Don Fortune–‘ Don Fortune is still there, Don Fortune is a sports guy, sports TV anchor when I was in Kansas City in the mid-seventies. He\u2019s still there. <\/p>\n

‘The New Don Fortune expressed his disinterest in needing access and information from our New Carl Peterson, Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli. The New Don and his trusty sidekick, Mad Jack Harry–‘ Jack Harry is still there! I knew Jack Harry, Channel 5 in Kansas City when I was there. Fortune I think was at Channel 9, if I\u2019m not mistaken. Anyway, these two guys, Fortune and Jack Harry, they do a duo show, and Jason was listening to them. He wasn\u2019t liking what he was hearing because Fortune and Mad Jack Harry spent several minutes telling their listeners that we just have to trust the new general manager Scott Pioli implicitly. We don\u2019t need to waste emotion and energy worrying whether Pioli, the new general manager of the Chiefs, reveals himself or his plans or his players to the media. ‘Having worked in sports-talk radio, I\u2019m aware the discipline requires a dramatic and healthy loosening of journalistic standards. But basic common sense and backbone are allowed and occasionally encouraged when hosting a radio show. Supporting the new regime does not equate to rejecting the primary (and redeeming) role of the media.\u2019<\/p>\n

Now, folks, Jason Whitlock is talking about a football team! He\u2019s talking about a football general manager and two media people who said, ‘I don\u2019t need to question him; I trust him; I think I know what they\u2019re doing; I don\u2019t need to have access to them. I believe in what they\u2019re doing.\u2019 Whitlock is saying, ‘You trust \u2019em? You\u2019re a journalist. You gotta get in there and ask them questions, you gotta hold them accountable.\u2019 It\u2019s a football team! ‘It\u2019s our job,\u2019 Jason Whitlock writes, ‘to acquire information and pass it along to you. Based on what we\u2019ve seen from the Bill Belichick era in New England and our first two months with Pioli, gathering pertinent and enlightening information about the Chiefs is going to be rather difficult.\u2019 Do you see where I\u2019m going with this, Snerdley? Folks, the rest of you, do you see where I\u2019m heading with this? Jason Whitlock is aghast that the media is laying down, has no interest, is not curious, is blindly accepting whatever comes out of the Chiefs front office. He wants to dig and find out what they\u2019re trying to hide. He\u2019s writing this about a football team! A football team which cannot raise your taxes; a football team which cannot take away your freedom; a football team which cannot tell you what kind of car to drive. <\/p>\n

I mean, they can rape you financially with ticket prices, but that\u2019s up to you if you want to pay it. You at least get some value back. ‘Overall, we attempt to be a watchdog of those with power,\u2019 writes Mr. Whitlock. ‘When we fail to play that role, generally speaking, terrible things happen. The Iraq War is a worst-case scenario. We trusted our president implicitly, led the cheers when we declared war on Iraq and declined to demand answers to difficult questions. Hundreds of billions of dollars later, and with our economy in collapse, we now blame poor, minority homeowners for the fall of our society.\u2019 He\u2019s talking about football! Jason, you laid down, led the cheers? Have you forgotten the Democrat Party\u2019s role in trying to secure the defeat of the US military in Iraq? The media laid down for George W. Bush? Jason, the media is laying down and has checked its professionalism at the door with Barack Obama! The very demand, Jason, that you are making, that local media hold a football team general manager accountable, you don\u2019t even think to reference the national media holding a president accountable? There\u2019s no curiosity, there is blind acceptance of Barack Obama, Jason, right in front of your eyes. They\u2019re stenographers. <\/p>\n

From Jonathan Alter to Chris Matthews to whoever, they\u2019re taking dictation from the White House, Jason. They\u2019re taking dictation from Rahm Emanuel; they\u2019re taking dictation from James Carville; they\u2019re taking dictation from Robert Gibbs; they\u2019re taking dictation from Stan Greenberg; they\u2019re taking dictation from the president of the United States. And you\u2019re upset that the general manager of a football team won\u2019t tell you what\u2019s going on with the draft? I can understand, Jason, you\u2019re writing about sports, but you brought the Iraq war into this. ‘Unchallenged leaders,\u2019 he says, ‘are dictators, and quickly turn unethical.\u2019 He\u2019s writing about football. He\u2019s writing about Scott Pioli because Scott Pioli comes from a dictatorial regime, the New England Patriots, and the dictator is mad Bill Belichick, and Jason\u2019s all worried that Pioli is in the mad dictator image of Belichick. ‘Unchallenged leaders are dictators and quickly turn unethical.\u2019 He\u2019s talking about a football team. The column amused me because King Obama, King Obama is in danger, or engaging in behavior that makes Scott Pioli and the dictatorial New England Patriots — (laughing). <\/p>\n

Jason, are you afraid the Chiefs might win and you won\u2019t know how they did it \u2019cause Pioli won\u2019t tell you? Or, Jason, do you want Pioli to fail \u2019cause he won\u2019t open up with you guys and he won\u2019t tell you how he\u2019s doing what he\u2019s doing. Then he concludes the piece, writing now to the fans who read his piece in the Kansas City Star, ‘It\u2019s in your best interest to demand better from us. Don\u2019t be fooled into believing we should go away or act as a propaganda machine for some newly elected, popular-in-comparison,\u2019 general manager. Of a football team! Now, he does throw Bush in that last sentence. Let me reread this since I missed this, cause it\u2019s parentheses. ‘It\u2019s in your best interest to demand better from us. Don\u2019t be fooled into believing we should go away or act as a propaganda machine for some newly elected, popular-in-comparison-to-Peterson (or Bush) leader.\u2019<\/p>\n

Jason, you\u2019re better than this. To say that George W. Bush had a lapdog media? I don\u2019t know how you would describe this media other than to say they are stenographers covering for Barack Obama. But here\u2019s the point, the bottom line of this. Now, I know Jason Whitlock is in sports, but do you get how angry he is? He\u2019s irritated that two of his brethren in sports talk radio said, ‘We don\u2019t need to question the Chiefs,\u2019 and that sets him off on 750 words, we damn well gotta question the Chiefs. He is exorcised over a potential dictatorship football team, but a similar scenario playing out in his country escapes him. I\u2019m just here to help, Jason, \u2019cause you know I love you. And, by the way, Jason supported me in the Monday Night Football gig. He really did. He thought it would help fat guys everywhere, and he\u2019s bigger than I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: A teachable moment comes from a town I lived in for ten years, Kansas City, Missouri. Well, I actually lived in Overland Park, but it\u2019s all part of the same metro area. I had a great time there. By the way, anybody who knew me in Kansas City for those ten years would say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTeachable Moment: Jason Whitlock - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/03\/11\/teachable_moment_jason_whitlock3\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Teachable Moment: Jason Whitlock - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: A teachable moment comes from a town I lived in for ten years, Kansas City, Missouri. 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