RUSH: What do you think about this as a new name for the Redskins? How about the Washington Redbones, and RG3 brings the Boners up to the line of scrimmage 3rd and 5.
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RUSH: Now here’s Barack Obama. Now, in fairness this is his answer on the Redskins thing. He was asked this. He did not call a press conference to make this a big issue. He was asked the question. But, remember, now these are willing accomplices. So I doubt that he was blindsided with the question. It was Julie Pace, the AP White House correspondent, and she asked him if he thought that maybe the Redskins ought to change their name.
OBAMA: I’ve gotta say if I were the owner of the team and I knew that, uh, there was a name of my team — even if, you know, it had a storied history — that, uh, was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think, uh… I’d think about changing it.
RUSH: Now, paleface Lanny Davis has been hired by Daniel Snyder, which is a smart hire, by the way. Paleface Lanny Davis used to work for Clinton. He was out there defending Clinton on TV during the Lewinsky scandal, and he launched both barrels yesterday. “Look, what is this widespread, ‘sizable group of people’ that are offended? We can’t find them,” and there isn’t a widespread offense. What we have here, at best, is 10% of people who say that they are offended by this name.
This is being totally driven by the media.
This is not being driven by fans.
It’s not being driven by people in football.
It’s totally driven by leftist activists in the media.
It’s not even being driven by Native Americans, but I have a couple other names that I would like to suggest because you know what’s gonna happen? They are not going to let go of this. Dan Snyder says, “I’m not changing the name.” But some NFL owners are going to take him aside at the meetings in Washington tomorrow and are going to start applying the pressure, unofficially. They don’t stop this. Once they get their hooks into something, they don’t give it up.
How about the Washington Redliners?
Look at the marketing possibilities! “We’re gonna draw a red line in the sand right there at the 50 yard line. You cross that, I’m gonna kick your butt! I like it. (announcer voice) “The Redliners head to the line of scrimmage with RG3…” Or how about the Washington Thinskins (in honor of the people who are upset about all this)?
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RUSH: This is George in Ormond Beach, Florida. Great to have you, George. Thank you for calling, sir.
CALLER: Rush, great to talk to you, after 20 years. I guess you’ve got to get through occasionally, right? Anyhow, what I want to ask you, with all the nonsense about the Redskins and the change of name, do you think that Obama and the liberals are going to make the state change the name of Oklahoma?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: You don’t think so?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: Well, what if I kind of tell you a little bit about it. The name Choctaw, I mean, the Choctaw name for Oklahoma means “red people.”
RUSH: Choctaw means “red people”? Well, I know there’s a Choctaw bridge. There’s a guy, Billy Joe Tolliver, who jumped off of it.
CALLER: No, the state of Oklahoma, Oklahoma means “red people.”
RUSH: Oklahoma means “red people”?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Well, but I don’t know that anybody’s offended by that. I don’t think the media knows that yet.
CALLER: But they should know it because we should change the name.
RUSH: But
CALLER: Why would Oklahoma get a name like that?
RUSH: The media doesn’t even know where Oklahoma is.
CALLER: Well, they know where Oklahoma is, but they don’t know what the name means.
RUSH: They don’t care what Oklahoma means. They don’t know where it is. They don’t care what happens there. It’s a Republican state.
CALLER: You’re right. They don’t know where it is.
RUSH: They need a visa —
CALLER: Well, they don’t know what that is, either.
RUSH: to get to Oklahoma. Now, I understand your point. There are all kinds of names out there. But that’s a state that is being named in honor of. Just like the proponents of Redskins will tell you it’s in honor of. It was never intended to offend anybody. Folks, this is all happening in the media. The only place you read about this is in the sports pages. This AP babe gets a hold of Obama and asks him about it. Of course, what’s he going to say? He can’t come out and be ambivalent and he can’t come out and say he supports the name because the whole point here is chaos. The whole point here is attack tradition and institutions.
That’s the whole point of the left, just upset every applecart they can. But this Redskins thing, this is clearly, and it always has been a media thing. The Redskins fans are not upset. The Redskin donor class, season ticket holders, they’re not upset. The Redskins players are not upset. RG3 doesn’t care. There’s nobody upset. Other NFL teams are not upset. Now, the NFL meetings, the next scheduled meetings are tomorrow in Washington and there is nothing on the agenda to deal with the name of the Redskins.
However, the media says that some owners who are getting nervous about the negative PR are going to take Dan Snyder aside and start working him over on the idea that at some point they’re going to have to deal with this because this is a situation that is untenable. But Snyder is making it as clear as he can make it that he’s not changing the name. He went out and hired cheap big paleface Lanny Davis of Clinton fame to be the front man on this in terms of PR. Lanny Davis. Number one Clinton defender during Lewinsky. And Lanny Davis is out there with all kinds of polling data from everywhere that shows there isn’t anywhere near a majority.
There’s not even a small minority upset about this. And to find a small minority, you have to spend a whole lot of time agitating people. It’s not something they’re walking around thinking about. It just isn’t. With everything going on in the country, the name of a Washington football team is not something that’s on the front of everybody’s mind. And most people are not offended. Even the commissioner, Roger Goodell, “Well, if even one person’s offended, we must listen.”
I thought there was no politics in football. I thought the media was supposed to keep politics out of football. But that is really all this is. Media driven, media led, media trying to demonstrate the power they think they’ve got, the influence they think they have, pressure that they think they can bring to bear on something. This is an exercise in flexing muscles as much as it is anything else.