RUSH: All right, now, if you will indulge me, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to go to the top of the audio sound bites here because I want to get this out of the way once and for all. A bunch of news organizations have now retracted the use of their so-called quotes of mine that were totally fabricated
NORTON: Of course Rush should have been able to buy the team. The main vocal protester in this was Al Sharpton. Why does anybody listen to this moron? Al Sharpton, the guy has made more stupid public statements than Joe Biden after a propathol cocktail. He shouldn’t be allowed to talk about publicly ever again. He stinks.
BALDWIN: I’m almost shocked that I agree with Jim. But anyway, I just think that a lot of the context of what Mr. Limbaugh said was taken out of context.
RUSH: That was Stephen Baldwin and the comedian Jim Norton. Now, it wasn’t just taken out of context, it was wholly made up. During a roundtable on the Jay Leno Show on the same night.
LENO: Rush got sucker punched on this because initially he didn’t want to invest, and they told him, ‘Oh, this will be fine. You’ll have no problem.’ They all supported him. Then when his name was brought up and all these people started attacking, the owners wimped out and backed out. He didn’t want to do this originally, they talked him into it.
RUSH: Now, the owners didn’t back out. Some in my group got nervous. But the owners didn’t back out. The owners never got to vote on it. The whole process was short-circuited. I’ll get to that in just a second. Jesse Lee Peterson Wednesday night on Hannity, Fox News Channel, during his Great American Panel. Jesse Peterson, by the way, is the president and founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, and they discussed Fox, the NFL and me.
PETERSON: Fox News is having a major impact on the public by educating them as to what is going on. Barack Hussein Obama is in a rush to turn our country to a socialist society, so they’re trying to do it and they feel that this is the only chance that they have. If they don’t get it done this term they won’t have another chance. The choice is Rush Limbaugh, not Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, they don’t really have an impact in the black community at all, and what I’ve decided to do, if the NFL thinks that Rush Limbaugh is a racist, and I agree with Rush, that means that I’m a racist, too. If Rush is a racist, I’m a racist, they don’t want his money, they don’t want mine.
RUSH: Jesse Lee Peterson on Fox on Wednesday night. On October 13th, somehow this sound bite ended up being buried in this controversy. Shawne Merriman, who is not the poster boy for NFL virtue himself, Shawne Merriman, linebacker for the San Diego Chargers was on Fox Sports Radio’s Chris Myers and Steve Hartman Show. I was also on that show when I was out in LA weeks ago, and we talked about the NFL and they asked me who my favorite quarterbacks were and I threw McNabb in there. So they asked Shawne Merriman, ‘Would you have any problem playing for a team partially owned by Rush Limbaugh?’
MERRIMAN: I have to be honest, I wouldn’t have a problem with it because I think that he possibly could have said a few things that was on many people’s mind. He just, you know, one of the ones that, you know, made it vocal and put it out there. Maybe if we had a sit-down and talk and I seen a different person, maybe, but it really wouldn’t bother me as much.
RUSH: That didn’t get reported, did it? Now, at the time, October 13th — happens to be my mother’s birthday — at the time this is all going on, Merriman was living off those made-up, phony quotes. That’s what he knew. That’s all anybody knew, the totally fabricated and made-up phony quotes. Now, the next question from Myers and Hartman: ‘How much as a player do you actually know, Shawne, or care about your owner? I mean, I realize there are layers: coordinator, position coach, head coach, GM, president, whatever, all the way up. Some owners are very visible, some are far removed. Does that affect the player? Do you think about that?’
MERRIMAN: You want the owner to know that — or you want to feel that he cares, you know, about your well-being, about you going out there and being a good person on and off the field. So I think it’s a matter to a — to a certain point but it’s not like you have to deal with the owner every single day. You know, he’s not going through the playbook with you and, you know, you play good or bad he’s not going to be the one that come down and talk to you about the game, it’s just one of the things that’s how it is.
RUSH: So none of these quotes made it, did they, outside of this show? The Myers and Hartman show on Fox Sports Radio. By the way, those two guys know that whatever was said about me was totally fabricated and made up. John McCain, yesterday afternoon on ESPN’s Outside the Lines, Bob Ley interviewed McCain, Bob Ley said, ‘Rush Limbaugh, there’s a little bit of a philosophical daylight between the radio commentator and you, but still I’d like to get your thoughts on the one-week period that saw him go from being part of a group and then the sociopolitical and just national hue and cry about his participation. At the end of the week he’s out of the group. What do you think about that furor?’
MCCAIN: First of all, let me make it clear Rush Limbaugh never supported me, in fact was very critical of my efforts to secure the nomination of my party, so it’s not as if — I think I’m speaking objectively. I think it was wrong to exclude him from an ability to engage in the free enterprise system. I think that he had every right to make an investment and I don’t think it was fair to keep him from — put this kind of pressure on him because of his political views.
RUSH: Thank you, Senator McCain. That was yesterday afternoon on ESPN. Now to Michael Smerconish. Smerconish, it’s relevant that he endorsed Obama for president. He positions himself as a moderate. Maybe he is. But he has a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer about this and says that it was strictly business, why I was dropped, it wasn’t politics. He said the owners’ objection to Limbaugh wasn’t based on his politics, they overwhelmingly share his views. ‘Instead, the owners determined that it was just bad business to add to their ranks someone who would have kept them in headlines going forward while most choose to fly beneath the radar.’ This is the key thing. What happened here was the owners never got a chance to vote. It was so premature. I was part of a group making a bid, we were told there were two other groups, I don’t even know if there were any other groups. We don’t know who’s in the other groups. Only my name and Checketts’ name were leaked by somebody.
Now, the way it works is, you first have to be the winning bid, the Rosenblooms then have to want to sell the team after they hear the price, then after the team is sold, then you go and the NFL starts its vet process, and it’s like the Secret Service and the FBI coming after you. They vet everybody in the group. Well, I guess they don’t anymore because Fergie, who wets her pants and talks about sex and so forth on stage is a Miami Dolphins minority owner. So I guess they don’t vet ’em too carefully anymore. Some of the other Dolphins celebrity owners have got — I mean J. Lo has recorded a song with Ja Rule using the N-word all over it. She’s a minority owner along with her husband Marc Anthony. Fine amd dandy, I got no problem, I’m just saying maybe the vetting process isn’t what it is. But even after the vet process, after that happens, then 28 out of the 32 owners have to vote yay or nay on the ownership group. Usually the vote is primarily on the big guy, the 30% owner. The NFL requires that the owner own 30% equity of the team. I was not a 30% guy in this group. I was a, quote, unquote, minority, first time I’ve ever been one of those.
So Smerconish, I know he’s trying to get this right but the owners did not reject this. Roger Goodell did. Actually, before Goodell, you gotta go to DeMaurice Smith, who is Obama’s link to this, the Players Association guy, and this was a shot across the bow to the owners, because they got a collective bargaining agreement that’s going to expire, and they gotta renegotiate a new one, so the Players Association guy was just firing a shot across the bow, the owners, okay, we run this league, guys, you don’t. So the owners never got a chance. Now, I know a lot of owners in the National Football League. One of the greatest things about my success is that I’ve been able to meet people that I otherwise wouldn’t have met. It was the same thing when I worked for the Kansas City Royals. It’s why it was such a valuable experience. I’ve been able to meet people who are the best at what they do, and that is so inspirational, motivational, it’s a great thing. I know a lot of these people. I don’t want to get into anything more than that because it’s moot now. We have another sound bite here. This is Betty Liu, Bloomberg Television news.
LIU: Rush Limbaugh says his dismissal from a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams was a result of his conservative politics, but a quick look at some statistics may raise some doubt. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, NFL owners and their families have given 78% of political donations to Republicans, almost one-and-a-half million dollars in all since January 2007, and that compares to just over $400,000 given to Democrats over that same period.
RUSH: Now, this is a story that originated at a left-wing think tank, the Center for Responsive Politics. It just happens to fall into the news rotation. ‘Oh, Limbaugh says he was ousted because of his politics, these owners –‘ blah, blah, blah. These people talking about this don’t have an utter clue what they’re talking about. They are making it apparent they have no idea or understanding how the NFL operates in these matters. The color of the National Football League is green.