{"id":8354,"date":"2014-09-18T17:34:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:34:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-09-18T17:34:35","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:34:35","slug":"liberals_use_old_playbook_to_assault_nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/09\/18\/liberals_use_old_playbook_to_assault_nfl\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals Use Old Playbook to Assault NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Let\u2019s talk about the NFL<\/a>, the latest developments here. A couple of things first. Claire McCaskill. A classic, classic liberal Democrat politician: Moisten the finger, put it in the wind, see which way the wind\u2019s blowing and then get behind it and then start pandering and meandering all over the place without making any sense whatsoever. Claire McCaskill says that “sports leaders put victory over decency.” <\/p>\n

Sports leaders put victory over decency. You know, the same thing could be said about the Democrat Party, Senator McCaskill. The Democrat Party puts victory over decency. Let\u2019s conduct a poll, Senator McCaskill, and let\u2019s ask the American people which is the sicker culture: Washington, DC, or the American professional sports leagues. The Democrat Party or the NFL. <\/p>\n

Where, really, is there strikingly noticeable corruption, Senator McCaskill? Might it be in the Democrat Party with all the voter fraud and all the extra-constitutional attempts by the president to break the law on amnesty and Obamacare and whatever the hell else? You want to talk about victory over decency? How about the whole War on Women thing that you people have created? An out-and-out lie! <\/p>\n

<\/a>There is no Republican War on Women.<\/p>\n

Republican women, Republicans period, are not against sex; they\u2019re not against women having sex lives. It\u2019s absolutely absurd, what they\u2019re trying to get away with here! The entire Democrat Party agenda is sick. It\u2019s made up of baseless, false character assassination, character-destroying accusations about their opponents. The Democrat agenda long ago stopped being about the good things you\u2019re gonna do for the country because there aren\u2019t any. <\/p>\n

Six years of evidence has accrued about what the Democrat Party agenda does to this country. Okay, so let\u2019s divert everybody\u2019s attention, and let\u2019s start focusing on the National Football League, where, yeah, all this stuff\u2019s going on is not good. But the incidence of sexual abuse, spouse abuse, all of these criminal acts in the NFL is 13% what it is in the general population.<\/p>\n

Yet, the Democrat Party and the sports Drive-Bys are doing everything they can to make you think that the worst examples of all of these social diseases exist in the National Football League. They don\u2019t. They exist in far greater numbers in the general population, but that doesn\u2019t matter because there\u2019s an election coming up here. We were repeatedly lied to about Obamacare, Senator McCaskill. <\/p>\n

We were lied to about shovel-ready jobs with the first stimulus. We were lied to about Fast and Furious. We are lied to about Benghazi. We were lied to about the IRS — and the IRS was targeted against us, Senator McCaskill, conservatives! We\u2019ve been lied to repeatedly about the economy and jobs. We\u2019ve been lied to about doctors, supposedly amputating limbs on patients just to get the money when it doesn\u2019t happen. <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been lied to about every damn thing that matters, by this administration and the Democrat Party. You want to conduct a War on Women? The champion of women in this country and the Democrat Party is Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy, and you want to talk to us about the War on Women? You celebrate sexual abusers. You celebrate and put \u2019em at the top of your ladder of prestige sexual adulterers, and you preach to us about the War on Women? <\/p>\n

All we do is respect them and try to understand them, and I say that affectionately. That\u2019s one of life\u2019s great pursuits. It is. Oh, can\u2019t say that anymore.! That\u2019s sexist and bigoted, because it implies that women can\u2019t be figured out. Well, okay. Maybe Jay Carney\u2019s figured \u2019em out. I\u2019ll ask him. Maybe Jay Carney can explain women to me. Maybe Bill Clinton can do it, whoever their heroes are. <\/p>\n

We are $17 trillion in debt. The Constitution is threatened every day by the Democrat Party, and Claire McCaskill wants to go out and try to convince you that the culture of sports is what\u2019s tearing the country apart? Sorry. It may not be a pretty sight, but the culture of sports is not what\u2019s tearing this country apart. We\u2019ve seen the facts about criminal behavior in the NFL compared with the rest of society. <\/p>\n

The NFL fares far better. <\/p>\n

The culture of sports is competition. The culture of sports is meritocracy: Best team wins. The culture of sports is becoming the best you can be! The Democrat Party doesn\u2019t stand for that anywhere, except in electoral politics. The Democrat Party wants to beat up on the NFL. The NFL is about hard work. The NFL\u2019s all about diversity. The NFL\u2019s about definative results, you win or you lose. <\/p>\n

In the NFL, there isn\u2019t any affirmative action. Well, there wasn\u2019t. The NFL is about people pursuing their dreams, trying to be the best they can be at a job not everybody can do. They\u2019re all being tarred and feathered now by people like Claire McCaskill who want to come along and tell us that “sports leaders put victory over decency.” Please. You could just as easily be talking about the Democrat Party: Victory over decency. <\/line><\/p>\n

Gloria Allred. This takes the cake. There\u2019s a story on ESPN. ESPN did a profile of the Chicago Bear wide receiver Brandon Marshall. In 2006 or 2007 I believe it was, Brandon Marshall… He\u2019s bipolar. He\u2019s had some… I don\u2019t want to say “mental issues,” but I don\u2019t know the proper term. “Mental issues” will suffice for now, but he had them dealt with. He went and got help, therapy, a number of things.<\/p>\n

But in his past, 2006-2007, was a case of spousal abuse. So ESPN, who\u2019s got their show Behind the Lines, Inside the Lines, Down the Lines, I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s called. They did a profile of Brandon Marshall, and they went back and they said, “It must be fair and it must be thorough.” So, of course, they had to go back and touch on this. Brandon Marshall said, “You know what? They\u2019re lying about me.<\/p>\n

“I should have never have agreed to that. They\u2019re telling lies about me.” Brandon, what was your first clue? It\u2019s the media. It\u2019s a profile? What do you think, they\u2019re gonna fawn all over you? At any rate, the woman who was the victim of his abuse in 2006 or 2007… Well, actually I don\u2019t think the woman has it. <\/p>\n

Gloria Allred popped up in Atlanta and is now demanding that Goodell resign, “citing the league\u2019s failures in dealing with domestic violence and citing a particular case which dates back more than five years. Speaking at an Atlanta-area news conference, the Los Angeles-based Allred said of Goodell: … ‘I think he should resign because of the way investigations have been conducted in the past.\u2019 …<\/p>\n

“On Wednesday, Allred recalled the allegations of Rasheedah Watley against Pro Bowl wide receiver Brandon Marshall in 2006 and 2007. At the time, Marshall lived in Atlanta with Watley. Police reportedly responded to numerous calls by Watley alleging abuse by Marshall, but Marshall never was convicted of any crime (charges were dropped in one instance, Marshall was acquitted in another). And in 2012, Watley\u2019s civil suit against Marshall was dismissed.”<\/p>\n

And here comes ESPN reliving all of this as though it\u2019s current. “Marshall was given a three-game suspension in August 2008 for violating the NFL\u2019s personal-conduct policy following an arrest related to an alleged incident with Watley, but that suspension ultimately was reduced to one game. On Wednesday,” after a whole lot of nothing, “Allred sat at a table, flanked by the self-described best friend of Watley on one side, and Watley\u2019s father Clarence on the other.<\/p>\n

“The friend, Kristeena Spivey, recounted incidents of abuse suffered by Rasheedah Watley. Clarence Watley said that the NFL and Marshall\u2019s team at the time, the Denver Broncos, were made aware of the incidents and said they would follow up, but never did.” Rasheedah Watley didn\u2019t show up at her own press conference yesterday. It was Gloria Allred, Rasheedah Watley\u2019s “best friend,” Rasheedah Watley\u2019s father. <\/p>\n

“Allred said she has no plans to sue the NFL, but rather wants the league to change its procedures for investigating claims of domestic violence.” So Gloria Allred has a news conference about a woman who didn\u2019t show up and is all fit to be tied now demanding that Goodell resign. Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites. <\/p>\n

I want to take you back, \u2019cause it\u2019s all starting to pan out now — and I don\u2019t mind. I don\u2019t mind showing you how, when I told you what I predicted was gonna happen is beginning to happen. This August 6th, two years ago, 2012<\/a>, talking about my theories, predictions on how the NFL would be targeted by people that wanted to go after it.<\/p>\n

<\/a>RUSH ARCHIVE: If you\u2019ll just stop and think about it, you\u2019ll know I\u2019m right when I tell you that everything is politics to the left. Everything. There\u2019s not one thing in our culture or lives that they do not politicize. Now, where would this country be…? Stick with me here for a second, folks. Where would this country be without contact sports? Where would we be without, say, the Second Amendment or motorcycles? Pick anything. What\u2019s really going on… This is not exclusively about football. It\u2019s not self-contained and it\u2019s not unique. It isn\u2019t just about football. Football is just the latest iteration of what the left is trying to do. In New York, it\u2019s being done with trans fats and 16-ounce sodas. Before that, it was done with smoking and cigarettes, tobacco and all that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I said yesterday that the defining characteristic of liberalism is force. They use bullying, brute force to get what they want. They don\u2019t mess with the arena of ideas and debate and trying to win the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans, because they know they never will. They are not a majority way of thinking. So they only have one way. They use brute force, they intimidate.<\/p>\n

And they literally get people to give up and cow down and give the left what it wants for some peace, some security, some silence, until they get agitated about the next thing, and then they\u2019re off and running. If it\u2019s not 16-ounce sodas, it\u2019s trans fats. It\u2019s global warming and then it becomes tobacco and cigarettes, then Joe Camel, and then all of a sudden that\u2019s become the NFL. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the name of the Redskins. Now it\u2019s Goodell. Now it\u2019s sexual abuse or Ferguson, Missouri. Now we\u2019ve gotta make sure that cop gets convicted or there\u2019s gonna be race riots. That\u2019s been promised in Ferguson, Missouri, by the way. So here\u2019s Gregg Easterbrook. Actually, I gotta take a break \u2019cause I got more than one Easterbrook sound bite and I can\u2019t squeeze them all in here in this particular segment. <\/p>\n

But proof, validation of my most recent contentions coming up. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Gregg Easterbrook. Ah, he\u2019s a good writer. He\u2019s wrong on global warming and climate change, but he\u2019s a great writer. He has a great column on ESPN every Tuesday called TMQ, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Last night he was on The NewsHour on PBS, and he\u2019s got a new book, The King of Sports: Football\u2019s Impact on America. First question, “Gregg, what\u2019s the threshold that has to be crossed where there are serious financial consequences to all of this upheaval in the NFL?”<\/p>\n

EASTERBROOK: If people begin to say that football is the new cigarettes — and you\u2019re starting to hear that. If football becomes perceived as a woman\u2019s issue — nobody saw that coming — and especially if football —<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: What do you mean nobody? Hold it a second! Stop the tape! Take it back to the top. What do you mean, “[N]obody saw that coming”? This is my exact point. I did see it coming, and when everybody was calling me crazy for warning about it, that\u2019s how long I have been. You just heard the sound bite I played two years ago comparing it to the way they went after tobacco. Woman\u2019s issue? Nobody saw that coming? Here\u2019s the whole bite now. I will not interrupt.<\/p>\n

EASTERBROOK: If people begin to is that football is the new cigarettes — and you\u2019re starting to hear that. If football becomes perceived as a woman\u2019s issue — nobody saw that coming — and especially if football, people turn their attention to the fact that the vast majority of football is played at the youth and high school level by people who legally are children, that\u2019s where the health harm of football is done. If public high schools begin to drop out of playing football — and there\u2019s some indication they will — that, over a period of years, could change the NFL\u2019s economics very radically.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And then he added a new angle to all of this, and that is class warfare.<\/p>\n

EASTERBROOK: It\u2019s the perfect game for the United States. I call it the king of sports because it expresses what we are as a nation: It\u2019s too loud, it\u2019s too crazy, it\u2019s too violent. It\u2019s the perfect game, and it\u2019s a fascinating game to watch. I love it. But when you add the sociological impact — the distorting effect that it has on high school education, the fact that NCAA football has at the big public universities — and then add in that the public subsidizes the production of NFL profit. Roughly a billion dollars a year goes to subsidize the construction and operation of NFL stadiums, where almost all the revenue generated is kept by the super rich. You have these sociological impacts, and suddenly the fact that the game is a fabulous game doesn\u2019t seem so great anymore.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, and they say nobody saw this coming. But a perfect game, perfect game for the US: Loud, crazy, violent. Perfect game. Actually he\u2019s got a point there. I also think that there\u2019s a factor in that that has made it a target of the left, that it is, in fact, too American for many of the people on the left.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I still have a roster of really interesting\/funny\/provocative audio sound bites about the latest upheaval in the NFL. Another domestic violence case: Jonathan Dwyer, Arizona Cardinals, played the past four years in the Steelers. He is a running back. His case is from back in June, but it has serviced. Adrian Peterson has gone from the team indefinitely \u2019til his case has been adjudicated in the legal system. <\/p>\n

The Panthers and Greg Hardy, the 49ers and Ray McDonald, and whatever else is waiting to pop. Gloria Allred is demanding that the commissioner resign. So here\u2019s Leigh Steinberg. Leigh Steinberg\u2019s a famous, famous sports agent. You all know the Jerry Maguire story. He\u2019s the formative character, the model character there. He was on CNN last night with Don Lemon.<\/p>\n

We got some interesting Don Lemon sound bites coming up. Leigh Steinberg, a well known agent. His first client, by the way, Steve Bartkowski, who was a quarterback at UC, University of California Berkeley, and after that successful venture, Steinberg built up a huge, huge stable of clients. It was Steinberg, in fact… I remember it was a Rush to Excellence Tour in Houston back in the early nineties when the Oilers were still there, and I happened…<\/line><\/p>\n

It was a Saturday night appearance. I stayed over because the Oilers were playing the 49ers. This was during the Joe Montana\/Dwight Clark era. And I had not met Steinberg. He was in the press box, and he came up and introduced himself to me. He was as nice as he could be. He just sat down. We were watching the game, and the Oilers had built up a huge first-half lead on the 49ers.<\/p>\n

Steinberg said, “Don\u2019t sweat it, they\u2019ve got it all under control. You\u2019re gonna see a second-half comeback that you\u2019re gonna be talking about forever,” and he was right. The 49ers just looked like a different team the second half. Anyway, there was a really hard hit pretty serious injury, and Steinberg turned to me and said, “You know, these guys? These guys are so tough.” He says, “You know, you and I, we wouldn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n

“We wouldn\u2019t last a play out there, especially if we\u2019re on the offensive line.” Now, it\u2019s something you know instinctively, but you don\u2019t stop to think about it.” When he said that, I actually stopped and thought about, \u2019cause I did play one year of organized football, junior year in high school. No. Was my senior year? Sophomore year. I mean, that\u2019s nothing. It was tough at the time, but it was nothing. <\/p>\n

But he was right. It is tough. So I\u2019ve always had a different perspective the game ever since then. Anyway, Leigh\u2019s had his ups and downs, but he\u2019s now back and is opining on these things. Don Lemon said to him last night, “Okay, seems to be common defense now. Many people have been raised with corporal punishment. It\u2019s the way it happened for these kids. They were raised this way, it\u2019s the way they\u2019re raising their kids, and they don\u2019t see what\u2019s wrong with it. In fact, they think it kept them in line. Does it hurt the NFL that players speak out and defend Adrian Peterson for the way that he is raising his child?”<\/p>\n

STEINBERG: The players will get this right, the league will get this right, and we\u2019ll see a program just like what they did with breast cancer and they\u2019ll take over a leadership role, and they\u2019ll become a leader here in a dynamic way.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. So what Lee Steinberg is saying here is that there is gonna be Spousal Abuse Month in the NFL to go along with Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the NFL. Now, there is a color for this now. I think it\u2019s purple, isn\u2019t it? (interruption) Isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m not joking. Isn\u2019t there a ribbon that\u2019s supposed to signify consciousness raising for spousal…? (interruption) Well, look it up. You\u2019ve got time to look it up in there. I\u2019m hosting the show. <\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s right. Anyway, Steinberg, get this: They “will get this right, and we\u2019ll see a program just like what they did with breast cancer and they\u2019ll take over a leadership role, and they\u2019ll become a leader here in a dynamic way.” Let\u2019s say that happens. Do…? (interruption) I told you it was purple. I… (interruption) No, it\u2019s not black and blue. Don\u2019t say that. Don\u2019t make me say that! Oh, geez.<\/p>\n

Snerdley just said he thought the color would be black and… This as you remember, which I guess is… (interruption) No, purple is a combination of black and blue. Little red thrown in. See what my staff does to me, folks? My staff is the one takes me over to the edge there, and they sit in there and they yuk and laugh about it, while they hope to see me go over the edge and barely, barely hang on.<\/p>\n

They just love it. So, okay, Steinberg says we\u2019re gonna have the same kind of thing. What is spousal abuse awareness in the NFL, what would it be? They do a whole month of it? I don\u2019t know. Okay, Don Lemon was who was asking the questions. Now, this is… Well, you\u2019ll see here. <\/line>We had to go back two days ago. Two days ago, Don Lemon, just to refresh your memory… Don Lemon is our all-time favorite CNN anchor. <\/line><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a close race with our all-time favorite CNN reporter. That would be Nic Robertson. We love Don Lemon, and we hope nothing ever happens to Don Lemon. CNN is cutting people left and right. They\u2019re cutting budgets and they\u2019re letting staff go, and we hope Don Lemon survives all of it. Don Lemon\u2019s the guy that asked a transportation expert if a black hole<\/a> might have swallowed the missing Malaysian airliner.<\/p>\n

Now, he admitted that it was an out-there explanation or possibility, but could it have happened? He asked it. And, of course, the transportation expert answered it as diplomatically as you can imagine. So two days ago, Don Lemon was defending corporal punishment because that\u2019s how he was raised. This is Tuesday night, CNN, Situation Room.<\/p>\n

LEMON: I have to say that, uh, when I was a kid, I would have to go and get the switch off the tree, and if I brought back a switch that wasn\u2019t big enough, then my grandmother my dad or my mom would go get a bigger one. Now, listen, I\u2019m not condoning what Adrian Peterson is alleged of doing. But, you know, people do discipline their children. People do punish their kids, and corporal punishment happens in this country. It happened almost every single day for me as a kid in Catholic school, and I think a lot of people see that as sort of a parent\u2019s right to discipline their children.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. So you could construe that to be almost a defense for corporal punishment. Spanking, for those of you in Rio Linda. Corporal punishment is not… They don\u2019t go and get, you know, a sergeant or someone in the military to come in and discipline the kids. Corporal punishment means spanking. They don\u2019t call a military guy over to do it. <\/p>\n

I just need to make sure that the people in Rio Linda are up to speed and don\u2019t get lost here. So a he\u2019s defending it and Michael Wilbon defended it. He said, “Oh, yeah. I had to cut my switch. I was raised this way.” Wilbon said<\/a> (summarized), “If there were more of this in the black community, if there were more corporal punishment, if there were more Adrian Peterson-like dads out there, a lot less trouble.” <\/p>\n

He said it. Now, he can say it without all kinds of grief descending on him. Now, the bite you just heard was two days ago. It\u2019s Tuesday night, Don Lemon defending corporal punishment. In the space of two days, in 48 hours, somebody got to Don Lemon and changed his mind, or changed the way he views corporal punishment. Don Lemon got his mind right. This is last night on CNN.<\/p>\n