RUSH: Okay. Let me get started here because lots to cram in here in our final hour. I checked the e-mail during the break. “Rush, you know, I liked what you said about your reaction to the CBS Thursday night NFL pregame show, but do you really think that it’s ruining the game?” Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that it will. But they don’t have to ruin it to damage it. I’m sorry, I don’t care how rabid you are, you can’t find a more rabid football fan than I was. But I’m telling you, I’m not. This season something’s happened and it was not purposeful. I don’t want to watch that stuff I watched last night. That’s not why I tune into a football game.

Football for me is still something I wish I could have done, therefore it’s a fantasy. It’s an escape thing for me. It’s a way for me to spend some hours forgetting everything. It’s not that anymore. Now it is that football players are batterers, there’s an endemic, a pandemic, there’s an epidemic of spousal abuse in the NFL. I saw it on TV last night. I also heard that it’s an epidemic all over the country and that we’re all doing it and that we’re all participating in it and it’s just horrible, it’s terrible, it’s rotten and so forth. And once you start battering the league as a league of spousal abusers, well, the politics is gonna follow.

We got a microcosm of society here, a small population of people in one sport, in football, who are being tarred and feathered here. We got senators signing a letter calling for a one-strike ban on players, no second chances. This is a serious issue that’s being politicized for who knows whatever reason by subjecting it to football. You know, if they’re serious, if they’re serious about this, we gotta stop making heroes out of people like Ted Kennedy.

If they’re serious about this, we gotta stop making heroes out of people like Bill Clinton. If you want to engage in spousal abuse, if you want to beat up women and prosper, become a Democrat and run for office and get elected and you’ll be protected. These are the same people that want terrorists protected at Club Gitmo. These are the same people that want open trials in New York City for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. But I’m being told the worst reprobates in the world today are playing football for the National Football League.

By the same token, Bill Clinton is the star of the Democrat Party. There isn’t any consistency here. There’s all kinds of abuse of women taking place throughout our society. But the only place we seem to care about it is the National Football League. If it happens at the hands of a Democrat politician, well, we’re either not gonna know about it or we’re gonna sweep it under the rug or we’re gonna try to understand that he’s right on abortion and so it excuses whatever else he does to women.

The 24-year-olds won’t know why I said this about… (interruption) Mr. Snerdley is saying the 24-year-olds, the Millennials, are losing me because they don’t know why I’m including Bill Clinton in this. I guess that’s right, because they were told that a BJ in the Oval Office is no big deal. That’s right. Do you think they know what Ted Kennedy did? (interruption) They don’t know about Chappaquiddick? You don’t think they know? Okay, well, a woman died at
Chappaquiddick. I don’t know how many women accused Bill Clinton of abusing them, and the women were destroyed.

The Clinton camp, for you Millennials, had a unit called “bimbo eruptions,” and its existence, the purpose was to destroy the reputation of women who accused. If we’re being consistent, go after Janay Palmer, not Ray Rice. Is my whole point here. If we’re gonna say about Paula Jones, “Well, it’s what you get, dude, you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park and it’s what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get trash.” Fine, then let’s say that about Janay Palmer. Let’s be consistent here.

Do I need to go through the list here of Democrats who’ve engaged? John Edwards, do they tried to cover that up and keep it under the rug, all because these guys had the right view on abortion. Maybe that’s what Ray Rice needs to do. Join Planned Parenthood. Start raising money for Planned Parenthood. Get out of jail card. And if it’s this bad, you know what? Every NFL wife who’s been abused should step forward. We gotta get to the bottom of this. We’ve got to solve this. Bill Cowher said so last night, Deion Sanders said so, James Brown said so. One incident is too much. The league cannot stand for this.

There is a reason they’re targeting football here, folks. What I don’t get is why the media — well, I understand it. It’s their livelihood, too, that they are assaulting. And this institution is an institution that makes millionaires out of young African-Americans. You would think it would be appreciated and loved. Maybe that’s why it’s a target. Who knows.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Mike, Niagara Falls, New York. Hi, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Congratulations, Rush. It is a pleasure and an honor to speak with the five time award winner.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I appreciate that.

CALLER: Yes. I believe that Roger Goodell and his current NFL problems is a classic case of liberals and the media devouring their own or throwing them under the bus as soon as one cause trumps another. And I think Roger Goodell has only himself to blame on this one. I think the twist is in the original sentencing of Ray Rice. I mean, they’ve had, you know, domestic violence going on forever in the NFL, as reported by the media —

RUSH: Well, but they’ve never had a policy for it, and that is key here.

CALLER: Okay. And he went with the two weeks because I think in light of everything that’s happened recently or in the past year, starting with Trayvon Martin, Donald Sterling, the Ferguson shooting, he didn’t want to be seen as coming down too hard on the case of Ray Rice and then having the Sharptons of the world drop on his head. So he had to do something to appease people, so a two-week sentence, go to classes, be a good boy, that was good enough. Now all of a sudden the second video comes out, which I don’t think he had any idea was going to. He knew it was going on before this, and now all of a sudden he’s being jumped on by everybody because of course the domestic violence is gonna trump the racist one in this case, and he has really taken it on the chin.

RUSH: Okay. So let’s review your theory. Your theory is that we have the most politically correct commissioner in all of sports under assault by the political correctness police. What he did, he sees what’s going on. He sees Trayvon Martin. He sees what happened in Ferguson with the gentle giant. He sees that Obama jumps into these cases. He sees that Eric Holder jumps into these cases. And so here comes Ray Rice, no policy in the NFL for punishment of spousal abuse. So he fines him $500,000 and suspends him for two games because he doesn’t want to appear racist in coming down hard on a black guy. Is that your theory?

CALLER: Exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. I’m nervous and trying to say it, but that’s exactly it, and now the second video comes out, and he’s gonna take it on the chin because they’re throwing him under the bus.

RUSH: Well, there is a legitimate argument about this video, ’cause it existed, and there’s so many questions. Goodell claims he hasn’t seen it, but the AP has proven to the media that somebody in the NFL office got it.

CALLER: Well, and you have pointed out on so many occasions, how high up that security force is. They knew this was happening in the video, and I would be surprised if they saw it and they passed this information on to him, but he had one cause to go with —

RUSH: But —

CALLER: — and now he’s getting bit by the second one.

RUSH: The only argument against that is these are smart people. They have to know this video is gonna come out. And if they know this video exists and they know it’s gonna come out, and from the minute that suspension of two games was announced, the political correct police went batty. It wasn’t enough. So he changed the policy for future violators to six games. Then the tape goes public and he gets rid of Rice. But the crux of your theory is that he knew what was going on from the get-go but wanted to go easy on Rice to be seen as understanding and not persecutory of a black guy.

CALLER: And now using the liberal defense of “I didn’t really know what was on the other tape.”

RUSH: Well, see, that’s gonna be tough, because here’s why. He can’t win with that defense because somebody in the NFL did see it, and then the question becomes, well, if somebody — it’s a woman on the tape that the AP played the press, there’s a voice mail, a woman acknowledges receiving the tape, the video. So somebody in the NFL got it. If they didn’t run it up the chain so that Goodell would see it, then what does that say about the way the office is being run? If they did run it up the pole and Goodell saw it and is denying it, that’s another problem. But still, your original theory, I can see why you might think that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To Hays, Kansas. This is Tom. Thank you for calling, sir. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: It’s a pleasure, Rush. Hey, I’ve got about three thoughts here. Number one, this whole War on Women thing, I just can’t see how that can even work, especially in the marriage place, because look at it, 99% of the guys that are married have got to agree with their wives. To make the marriage work, it seems like about 99% of the time the husbands have got to agree with their wives. If they don’t, there’s ramifications.

RUSH: Yeah, but —

CALLER: So there’s no War on Women right there.

RUSH: Oh, you’re saying there is no War on Women. Doesn’t matter.

CALLER: No.

RUSH: The low-information, look, the women bought into it. Women did vote against Republicans because of it. It did work. I’ve got a story coming up. Obama and the Democrats are losing the female vote. I’ll tell you why in just a second. The War on Women, as a political thing, is thought to have worked with some women. It’s insane, but it’s thought to have been successful.

CALLER: Oh, it is. It’s just amazing. And then number two, with commissioner Goodell, I think that in the back of his mind, if he were to have started firing these players involved in domestic abuse — it’s been going on for years that we that we know about, some of it we don’t hear, but most of the ones that we do hear about seem to be the black players. I wonder if, in the back of his mind, if he were to have been firing these guys since day one when he got in there, that the media, everybody else around him, would have considered him a racist.

RUSH: Okay, you’re the second guy, the second caller in a row we’ve had advance the theory that Goodell went soft on Ray Rice ’cause he’s black and in the current climate, got the gentle giant, Trayvon Martin, Sharpton, Jackson running around, the path of least resistance for Goodell is a short suspension, big fine. The problem with that is that 79% of the NFL is African-American players. The second problem with that is that Goodell, when it comes to any other kind of suspension, has shown no mercy. This guy suspended players a whole year.

Jonathan Vilma of the New Orleans Saints was thrown out of the league for a year in this bounty business that the Saints had. Other African-American players with substance abuse violations — and, by the way, it’s all been by the book. The NFL has a book. There is a manual that metes out what — and it has to be negotiated with by the players union — what the punishments are for various stages of violation. First-time offender, some offenses can’t be dealt with in the NFL ’til the legal system deals with it. It’s really pretty tightly controlled and in the manual.

There wasn’t anything for domestic abuse in the NFL, which I find amazing because James Brown told me it’s an epidemic last night. James Brown, CBS, it’s epidemic, it’s all over the league. It’s happening, but apparently it’s not been happening enough for the league to have a policy on punishment for it. That’s why I think all the wives in the NFL who have been abused have a duty to come forward. Right. Anyway, if you’re right, and I don’t think the evidence is there because if Goodell was gonna go soft on players ’cause they’re African-American, there’d be evidence of that, and there isn’t.

TIME magazine put this guy on the cover, the commissioner of the NFL, they put him on the cover with the title “The Enforcer,” after suspending coaches and players for a full season from the New Orleans Saints. So I don’t think he’s shown any reluctance at all to deal with players regardless. I just think there wasn’t a policy. ‘Cause what you’re saying is that if it had been a white player he would have been suspended six games from the get-go, and I don’t think that’s the case. Only time will tell. He’s got more problems than that.

Gary Myers, leftist, far left sports Drive-By writer for the New York Daily News, one of the people who said that I was unfit to be in the NFL, has a story today claiming that the owners are really not inclined to fire Goodell. They’re more worried that he’ll quit, saying, “Look, I got enough money. I don’t have to work anymore. I don’t deserve and need this kind of abuse. I’m outta here.” Goodell made $44 million in salary and bonus last year. He’s built this business, a $10 billion business. The owners love him. (interruption) That’s a good question. What is the endgame and how does it go away?

It doesn’t go away! This is my point. The game’s forever changed. What else does the left glom onto that they ever let go away? It doesn’t go away. They’re creating an image of the people who play this game, and they’re doing it eagerly. You got an owner who’s a racist because of the name of his team. He won’t change and make the media happy there, so you got a Redskins owner who is a racist pig. They’re not gonna let go of that ’til they get the name changed. And even after they get the name changed, then they’re gonna go after the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves. They don’t let go of this stuff.

On this spousal abuse business, this is the feminists, this is the female vote, they’re never gonna let this go. That’s what ticks me off about it. (interruption) Yes. You’re talking about the fans. The fans’ emotion will run dry. They’ll bleed the emotion dry. But have they let go of global warming? Have they let go of anything? They don’t let go of anything.

So this will manifest itself in whatever other kind of ways. Eventually this particular case of spousal abuse will be dealt with and whatever happens to Goodell is gonna happen, whenever this investigation ends and whatever it turns up, they’ll be an adjudication. But the die will have been cast, the image will have been set, and the media is just gonna become cops, examining all kinds of behavior by the players, off field and on field to make sure it comports with what the left thinks American culture ought to be.

I don’t know. This is what this is what ultimately bothers me about this. They don’t let anything. There is no endgame. There’s no endgame to liberalism, period. You can’t deny that it’s not all political. But it certainly has political components, and it has political energy in it and political points of view, in some part, are driving this. Not totally. I mean, spousal abuse is real. Spousal abuse by itself is not political. But it can easily be converted. This is what concerns me, as I say.

And then the last thing we need is the freaking Senate conducting hearings into this. You can see it already. I challenge you to go to any of your favorite football websites and find football news first, second, or third. Anyway, we’ll see. I just don’t think there’s an endgame. You can’t have a pregame show like that last night and there be an endgame. That’s a starting point last night. That’s another thing, another El Rushbo Undeniable Truth of Life. The left never solves problems. They just create new ones.

No problem ever gets solved. Everything that becomes a problem creates new problems that they discover that have to be fixed. And that’s because they can never be happy, no matter what they get, no matter how much, how about the budget gets, how many tax increases they get, it’s never enough. Don’t doubt me. Never enough.