RUSH: Okay. So ESPN hires Stephen A. Smith. He was a columnist for one of the Philadelphia papers. He was an NBA specialist, an expert. He was hired by ESPN many, many moons ago by. He’s been at ESPN for years, and he had his own show late in the afternoon, I think over at Madison Square Garden, a little theater there somewhere.
Anyway, he’s been on ESPN a long time. ESPN hired him. They moved to put him on the morning show on ESPN2 with “Skip” Bayless, and they did that ’cause it’s an opinion show. They wanted Stephen A. Smith to mouth off, and then when he did, he got in trouble. It’s an amazing thing. Networks hire opinionated people and say, “You gotta be who you are, bud!
That’s why you’re here.”
They go out, they be who they are, and then if the political correctness police — i.e., the feminazis or the race industry or whatever speak up — then all hell breaks loose and sayonara, you’re gone. The thing that’s happened here with Stephen A. Smith is he’s been suspended for a week for “controversial comments” about domestic violence in the NFL, specifically as it relates to the Ray Rice case.
It is amazing. The suspension of two games and three games without being paid is viewed by apparently “the cognoscenti,” the politically correct, low-information crowd as being way too insufficient. “The NFL did not make nearly a big enough statement here,” and all kinds of analogies have been made to suspensions for what people consider much less problematic behavior.
One of the excuses that has come from the NFL is, “Hey, you know what? Our policy manual doesn’t have anything in there for domestic abuse. We’re flying blind on this. We’ve got a policy manual on substance abuse or DUI or performance enhancing drug abuse or whatever but we don’t have anything in the manual for what happens when you cold cock your spouse. So we’re starting from Ground Zero on this.”
“Well, you didn’t start big enough,” they say.
Stephen A. Smith got in trouble by saying that sometimes women engage in behavior that can be provocative, and that was the no-no. That doesn’t matter, because in no instance, in no circumstance, never, ever should a man lay hands on a woman, in a violent way. Doesn’t matter. There is never any excuse for it.
Now, I was reading the Monday Morning Quarterback website today, which is an offshoot of Sports Illustrated, and the writer had been castigated by people that read the website for not coming down hard enough on Ray Rice when he wrote about the incident last week. I mean, he really got hid hard by readers. Some of them claim to be canceling their subscriptions of Sports Illustrated now because this is just…
“I can’t believe you gave Ray Rice a pass,” and he alluded to something that he says he can’t prove and hasn’t seen. He’s only heard it talked about, that there is video from inside the elevator that nobody has seen. The only video that’s been seen is of Ray Rice dragging the fiancee unconscious out of the elevator.
But apparently, I read today, where there are people who claim that the league has seen the video of what happened in the elevator and that it might have been a factor in the suspension. But this is all speculative. And I’m not speculating; I’m just reporting to you what I happened to read today. And it’s been speculated that because of what’s on the video from inside the elevator, that the suspension was not worse than it was.
Now, that would lead people to conclude that something went on in there that would — well, I’m nnot even going to go there. There’s nothing to be gained by going there. However, I think Whoopi Goldberg and a number of other public figures have come out and essentially said what Stephen A. Smith said, but they have been ignored. Nobody is getting on their case.
Stephen A. Smith has been suspended for a week and forced to make an apology read from a teleprompter. Stephen A. Smith, by the way, in the past has shown conservative tendencies, which I think is a factor here (which nobody’s mentioning). I don’t want to end up tarring and feathering him because of that, but you think Barkley would be…?
I mean, what Barkley said… (paraphrased) “The women of San Antonio are just a bunch of fat pigs. Anybody gets involved one of them is insane!” Hey, that’s just Chuck. He’s just a funny guy. Well, Frank Deford, who is NPR, Morning Edition, a former Sports Illustrated writer, today said that maybe Roger Goodell is just not good enough to lead the NFL in today’s divided America. Here’s the sound bite…
DEFORD: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s piddling suspension of Ray Rice of the Ravens for a mere two games for his apparent violent attack upon his fiancee, has been met with shock and disappointment. The larger question is whether Goodell is good enough to serve as the leader of the NFL. In today’s divided America, what other entertainment, what other institution means so much to so many people across all our class, educational, racial, and ethnic spectrums? Reeeeally, don’t we need someone of greater stature at the helm of the NFL, someone who appreciates that he should — if only symbolically — be the steward of all football America? It is the power of football today that begs for a leader with greater perspective and sensitivity.
RUSH: Wow. So now the NFL is just another political institution, and we need…? Like who, Bill Clinton? Who would have the stature to lead the NFL in this day and age, across all of our class, educational, racial, and ethnic spectrums? We’re talking about the NFL! We’re talking about… I know it’s a Big Business and so forth, but…
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, you talk about hypocrisy. Here’s Roger Goodell, not good enough now to lead the NFL. He so let everybody down. He didn’t suspend Ray Rice enough — for an alleged, by the way. From the same people who hoist Bill Clinton up on some pedestal and make him look like the best S.O. — son of a gun that’s ever lived. Roger Goodell is no longer good enough to lead the NFL, but give us Bill Clinton any day for anything.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, so let me see if I have this straight. Frank Deford and the cognoscenti and the intelligentsia of the American sports Drive-Bys want to impeach the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, and they want to impeach the commissioner of the NFL because he’s not bringing us together. Well, that’s what Deford said. He wants to impeach Goodell. He’s not good enough to lead the NFL in today’s “divided America.”
So obviously Goodell is not bringing us together. Well, substitute B. Hussein O. for Goodell and see how it sounds. Has B. Hussein O. brought us together? Could it possibly be said that Obama is not good enough to lead America during this era of our class and educational and racial and ethnic spectrums? I think it’s patently obvious that B. Hussein O. cannot and does not unify us and all of our spectrums.
But, no, we can’t touch him!
No way!
But we gotta get rid of Roger Goodell ’cause he not good enough to lead the NFL, and he didn’t come down hard enough on Ray Rice, who’s also scum. Ray Rice is also a reprobate! Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a hero and sits on the highest pedestal of the Democrat Party — and there isn’t any “alleged” in front of what Clinton did, is there? Isn’t it amazing how this goes?
And then Stephen A. Smith, throw him in there, and he’s gotta go because even though ESPN wanted opinionated comments, they didn’t want THOSE opinions. Do you ever wonder who are these politically correct people that manage to get their way all the time? Who are these people? Where are they? Just who is everybody afraid of? Take your pick of any incident that happens and the feminazis get mad or what have you.
Everybody — corporations, individuals, political parties — they’re all scared to death of political correctness. Yet everybody I hear criticizes political correctness. Everybody I hear rips it to shreds. Everybody I know thinks political correctness is a bunch of crap. Yet everybody’s afraid of it. Who are these people? Who’s ESPN afraid of? Who got to ’em? No, I’m serious. Are they nameless, faceless citizens sending in e-mail?
Who are they?
Who are these people that everybody lives in such abject fear of offending, and why? It would be one thing if everybody was supportive and an advocate of political correctness, but everybody I hear decries it. Everybody I know thinks it’s BS. Yet everybody reacts to it; everybody’s scared to death of whoever these people are, and I don’t know who they are.
Is it one person? Is it 10? I’m not making myself clear. I’m being serious. Who is it? Who got to ESPN and scared ’em to death over what Stephen A. Smith said? Who? Who did it? Was it the media? Well, they are the media. Who got to ’em? Who gets to any of these people, or is it just an assumption that’s being made at upper-level management that this is the wise the thing to do?
Do you think, folks, that the vast majority of people in this country are of the political correctness movement and are running around offended at virtually everything said or done and spend all day long letting people know? Or is it a relative few number of people able to make themselves look like they’re hundreds of thousands?
I mean, I’m genuinely serious here. I mean, I see all this reaction to political correctness, but I never see… Well, that’s not really true. I mean, the media has got its share of social warriors. They’re always dumping. That’s probably it, the media. It always comes back to the media.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yes, I have. Snerdley just asked me a question. And I probably ought not announce this, but I did. You know, I’ve been a huge NFL fan, as you people know, especially those of you in the Stick-to-the-Issues Crowd. And over the years I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the league, and I have gotten to know my share of owners and general managers and so forth. And Snerdley wanted to know, “Do you talk to ’em about stuff?” And I said, “Yeah.” I know what he meant. I have a couple of ’em I know fairly well and I’ve cautioned ’em, warned ’em, whatever, I’ve said, “You guys, I don’t think you know just how big a target you have become. I don’t think you know. Some of you may not even know that you’re a target at all.”
I have a feeling that that’s still the case, although it has to be changed. They have to be aware now of the fact that the American left has targeted them as the next behemoth that must be corralled for whatever purpose, either get a lot of money from ’em, use them to institute social policy that they want replicated throughout society. I said, “Your days of being just a sport that is not connected to anything going on politically in the country,” I said, “Those days are over.”
And the reason I told them this is because they always have a defensive — no, it’s not a defensive posture. It’s hard to explain. It was just a willing, almost blindness to what liberalism is. And now it’s all being borne out. And when you call for the impeachment, get rid of the commissioner because he’s not good enough to lead the NFL in a divided America, what does that have to do with anything? So the purpose of the NFL is to what? Reflect society as the left wants it to be, and if it doesn’t, there’s going to be hell to pay? And so we need a commissioner who is good enough to make sure that the league represents all the things the left thinks are important? Doesn’t know beans about football?
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