RUSH: We got a lot of NFL fallout today, folks. The singer Rihanna — you a big Rihanna fan, Mr. Snerdley? You know, that’s one of these sad things. I have never heard a Rihanna song. She came along and got big after I lost my hearing, so… (interruption) Well, it’s sad from the standpoint I can’t comment. I have to ask other people if she’s talented or not because I can’t tell. What I’m hearing is that she’s not particularly — (interruption) well, she may not be, but she’s clearly written about as a superstar. Well, hey, here’s the news — and there’s so much NFL fallout today — this is just a smidgen of it.
She is furious with the NFL for pulling her song from a pregame show, last Thursday night’s Steelers-Ravens game. She was going to be featured in the pregame show, and she has taken to Twitter to tell CBS and the NFL what she thinks about that. They pulled her song that was to play before the Ravens game on Thursday because apparently they thought it would be in bad taste, given her fame as a victim of domestic violence and the Ray Rice business. Wasn’t she domestically abused by the singer Chris Brown? (interruption) Is that right? (interruption) No, no. But the abuse happened.
Okay. So Chris Brown beat her up or something and CBS and the NFL thought, “Maybe we want to stay away from that.” In fact, some people are saying that Rihanna might be thinking the NFL pulled her song because she has reconciled with her abuser. That’s what some people are saying, that CBS pulled the song, the NFL pulled the song because she got back together with her abuser and that’s not in the game plan. I mean, no, no, no. That’s not the image we want, Janay Palmer notwithstanding. That is not the image that we want. Anyway, she’s ticked about it and letting everybody know in no uncertain terms.
Adrian Peterson, running back, Minnesota Vikings suspended from Sunday’s games after it was learned he was indicted for child abuse by whooping one of his sons with a twig that drew blood on various areas of the four-year-old boy’s body. The Vikings clearly don’t know what to do. The NFL traditionally, in matters like this, have said, “You know what? The players will play and we will withhold our action, our suspension, our penalty, whatever we decide to do. We’ll withhold that ’til the legal process.”
Well, a lot of people said, “Screw that. That means you’ve got wife beaters on the field,” and they point to a guy in San Francisco, and they point to a guy in Charlotte, the Carolina Panthers. And the activists are saying, “What do you mean you wait for the legal process? We don’t need to wait for the legal, this guy did it, and you refused to take action against ’em ’cause they’re good players.” The NFL’s feeling the pressure, and the Vikings.
And then it was revealed that a second child of Adrian Peterson’s might have similarly been abused during a whooping or a spanking. Now, Peterson’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, who represented Roger Clemens in his case against the US Congress, perjury and so forth (paraphrasing), “Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute,” Hardin says. “That second case never happened. People are making this up.” So now the Vikings don’t know what to do. “Do we let the legal process play out? We don’t want to convict the guy before he’s actually convicted by the legal system.” They don’t know what to do. So gonna they’ve reinstated him. He’s gonna play on Sunday.
This is making everybody very nervous. The league is getting nervous. Women’s groups, feminist groups are getting very, very nervous about this. And it’s clear what happened, when you open the door… look, I don’t mean to sound arrogant, folks, please. I really am not an arrogant guy, but this is what happens when you don’t have a firm stand on anything, when you go out and try to please every whiner and moaner and complainer. When you go out and turn the whole month of October over to pink. Come on.
May I ask you women a serious question? ‘Cause I need to ask you. I’m not a woman, and so I can’t really put myself in your position. And I’m not a male lesbian, so I can’t put myself in your position. But does players wearing pink and pink robins and so forth on the field, does that actually attract you to the game of football in October?
Does the fact that players might be wearing pink shoes or pink towels or maybe the markings on the field, the penalty flags are pink, does that say to you women, “You know what, I’ve changed my mind on this game. I’m actually gonna watch the NFL ’cause of that pink stuff in October.” See, I think it’s a little — I don’t know — insulting. But I’m not a woman, so don’t know. (interruption) Well, it is attention drawn to breast cancer. So you appreciate it.
You appreciate the symbolism that it represents, and that is that the league is aware of and concerned about and focusing on breast cancer. So that’s what the pink means to you, so you’re supportive of it. Does it make you want to watch games more than otherwise? Well, anyway, that’s going on.
So the NFL, we announced yesterday, has hired four different women, in four different areas of expertise, to join the league at the executive level to assist them and advise them going forward on how to limit the fallout and the damage, and how to construct policies going forward that will be more acceptable to the public and help the NFL recapture whatever, if anything, it has lost here.
Now, one of the women hired is named Cynthia Hogan. She is a “veteran Democratic operative Cynthia Hogan, who served as a key Senate aide behind the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, as its new Washington office head. She will be the leagueÂ’s first female top lobbyist and comes on board after the NFL engaged in a protracted job search that included several rounds of interviews and dozens of candidates.”
Again, Cynthia Hogan. “She served as counsel to Vice President Joe Biden and also served as staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden was in the Senate.” Which means she probably doesn’t have a whole lot of love for Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito or John Roberts.
“Since leaving BidenÂ’s office last summer, she has been serving as a consultant. She will have a broad range of issues in her portfolio, including the NFLÂ’s political action committee. Hogan, who was hired to help the NFL regain credibility on domestic violence issues, is expected to make an assessment of the NFLÂ’s Washington presence and will examine the strategy and personnel both internally and externally, according to an NFL insider.”
Now, she’s just one of the four. But a Democrat operative who spearheaded, as a Senate aide, the Violence Against Women Act. We’ll just have to wait and see. We’ll wait and see how this manifests itself.
I want to go to the audio sound bites. Let’s start with number 16. Kirsten Gillibrand yesterday on the Huffing and Puffington Post. The political reporter, Laura Bassett, interviewed Kirsten Gillibrand. They were talking about the Ray Rice story, and we have two sound bites from Kirsten Gillibrand. Here’s the first.
GILLIBRAND: All of the fans, young boys and girls watching this, are watching the NFL say it’s okay to beat your wife. It’s unacceptable. It’s not just about Roger Goodell and this one player. There are hundreds of players who are beating their wives, committing assault, committing rape across all sports, and we have to hold them all accountable.
RUSH: Pretty broad allegation there, sports fans. A pretty, pretty broad allegation here: “Hundreds of his players who are beating their wives, committing assault, committing rape across all sports, and we have to hold them all accountable.” It isn’t just Roger Goodell and Ray Rice. There’s rape. There is assault. There are wife beat-downs. It’s all over the place out there.
Here is the next sound bite. The question was asked. This was from a labor leader. “To win this election…” Let me set this up, ’cause this is… Labor leaders are Democrats. Kirsten Gillibrand is talking about insults that she has received, and this is one. She’s talking about a labor leader who told her, “Kirsten, to win this election, you need to be beautiful again.”
GILLIBRAND: That labor leader’s comment was so devastating, ’cause I just had a baby. I’ve just been appointed. I have a lot to learn, so much on my plate, and this man basically says to me, “You’re too fat to be elected statewide,” and at that moment if I could have just disappeared, I would have. If I could have just melted in tears, I would have, but I had to just sit there and talk to him, and I switched the subject, and I didn’t hear another word he said. But I wasn’t in a place where I could tell him to go f(bleep) himself.
RUSH: Oh. Well, why not? Why does it have to be a specific place before you can tell…? Labor leaders are who? They’re Democrats, right? Labor leaders are Democrats. So a Big Labor leader, a big Democrat, says, “Kirsten, Kirsten, you don’t have a prayer. You’ve gotta get beautiful again.” The implication is clearly, “You’re not beautiful now. You were once, and you gotta go back to being beautiful.”
She’s recounting how offended she was by this Democrat labor leader. Up next Michael Wilbon. Now, this NFL business, the case of Adrian Peterson, child abuse via spanking. Ray Rice and Greg Hardy and Ray McDonald, wife or spouse abuse. According to Kirsten Gillibrand, there are hundreds of players doing this, committing assault, committing rape.
As is usual, by the way, just a brief aside: The NFL is filled with a lot of good people. The NFL is filled with a lot of players who are good citizens, who are responsible. In large part, you never hear about ’em. They’re chasing their dream. They are fulfilling a life’s dream by playing in the NFL, trying to get as good as they can. They’re trying to win a championship.
You don’t hear about them, and you get broad-based statements like this. The entire league is now being tarred and feathered. And, of course, it’s gonna be accepted. Any time a US senator says this kind of stuff, nobody stands up and tells the US senator that they’re wrong about this. Instead, you react to it and try to change the senator’s mind. So then you try please all these different critics, and you end up with a kaleidoscope of policies that are impossible to keep up with.
But these problems… Like I was reading Phil Mushnick in the New York Post on Sunday. He had an interesting observation. Every one of these guys that has been accused of or found guilty of spouse abuse, wife beating, child abuse, whatever, they all come from colleges. They’re all college educated! So what’s going on there? It’s not the NFL that turns these people into who they are.
They arrive there being who they are. So where is it that they’re learning to behave this way? And that’s what nobody wants to tackle, I think. I don’t think anybody really wants to get to the root issue. What they want to do is pretend that all of a sudden when players get to the NFL, they’re gonna be in awe. “It’s the NFL. I need to shape up! I need to get my act together. This is the big time. This is the NFL.”
It doesn’t happen, obviously, in some of these cases. So the NFL is relying on just their own stature and uniqueness to straighten people out, but they’re arriving this way, and they all come from college. Now, I don’t know how many classes they attend, I don’t know how many degrees they actually get, but they are in college. They arrive this way.
If you really want to get to the bottom of why all this is happening, you’re gonna have to be honest and deep in your cultural examination. I don’t think anybody’s interested in that. Now, this is Michael Wilbon. He’s the cohost of Pardon the Interruption with Tony Kornheiser on ESPN. He was not on ESPN saying this. This sound bite comes from the Kornheiser radio show. And they were talking about Adrian Peterson being in trouble for hitting his son with a switch.
WILBON: I think the decline in behavior in America is directly traceable to the lack of whippings with switches.
KORNHEISER: (snickering)
WILBON: Your grandparents or your parents would send you out to pick your own switch. You’d go out, you snatch it off the tree, you cut it down, what ever you do, depending on where you are. It’s such a common thing. It’s like baking a pie.
RUSH: So what we have here is Michael Wilbon saying, “Hey, you know what? The decline in behavior in America is directly traceable to the lack of whippings, the lack of switches. Your grandparents, your parents would send you out to pick your own switch. You’d go out, you snatch it off the tree, you cut it down, whatever you do, depending on where you are.
“It’s such a common thing. It was like baking a pie.” It happened to all of us, he’s saying, and his theory was it worked. In his case, it kept him straight and narrow. He was properly punished, in his view, so he’s saying nothing wrong with it here. And in fact, if there were more of this kind of discipline, there might be less of this kind of behavior going on in the NFL.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Bill in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m glad you waited, Bill. Welcome to the program. Great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. Twenty-plus-year-listener, first-time caller. It’s an honor.
RUSH: Great to have you here.
CALLER: Listen, that sports analysis that you had mentioned before that talked about spanking, he’s absolutely right. There’s been more damage, I believe, in the society of America from not spanking children than there is from spanking children.
RUSH: Grab sound bite 18. You’re talking about Michael Wilbon. He was on the radio yesterday talking about the arrest of Adrian Peterson, and child abuse.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Let’s listen to the sound bit so people know what you’re talking about.
WILBON: I think the decline in behavior in America is directly traceable to the lack of whippings with switches.
KORNHEISER: (snickering)
WILBON: Your grandparents or your parents would send you out to pick your own switch. You’d go out, you snatch it off the tree, you cut it down, what ever you do, depending on where you are. It’s such a common thing. It’s like baking a pie.
RUSH: So you agree with it. You think the lack of corporal punishment discipline is directly traceable to the aberrant cultural rot and behavior of today?
CALLER: Yes, sir. Here’s what’s happened, Rush. You take a child who’s been raised for 20 years, never to be corrected, never to be spanked, never to be told, he could do anything he wants, and then put him out in society, and he continues doing what he wants. And society says, “No, there’s rules to be reckoned with,” and that’s how come we have so many young people in jails today and prisons, for that one reason right there. They don’t know how to act. They’ve done what they’ve wanted for 20 years.
RUSH: Well, you may have a point. Let me take a break here because I’m up against it on time, but I knew a lot of people were gonna think that Wilbon had a point. Let me take a break. We’ll continue with this after we get back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, let me make a point here about something. On the one hand, we have Adrian Peterson — number 28, of the Minnesota Vikings — who was suspended last Sunday from playing in the National Football League because he is under indictment for child abuse. He grabbed a switch, and he whooped his kid, and there was blood, and there were bruises, and he was charged with child abuse and negligence.
Okay?
He’s suspended, and the world is outraged. The nation is fit to be tied. “How dare this man continue to be allowed to play in the NFL?” That same day and the next day, Michael Wilbon goes on TV and says (paraphrased), “Hey, no problem. The reason all of this aberrant behavior is taking place is because we stopped doing what Adrian Peterson did,” and not a peep!
We’ve played the sound bite twice. Nobody… I’m not aware. Now, I may be in the dark on this. And admittedly he didn’t say it on ESPN; he said it on his buddy’s radio show. But he went out and basically supported, at least in premise, what Adrian Peterson’s accused of. Adrian Peterson has the wrath of the nation come down on him.
He’s forced out of the league for a game. Wilbon comes along and basically says, “Yep, we need more of this, and the reason that we got so many problems is because we stopped disciplining kids this way,” and people are twiddling their thumbs. Now, what if I had said it, Mr. Snerdley? What if any conservative had gone on Fox and said, “You know what? What Adrian Peterson did ought to be a lesson!
“The fact that we’re no longer allowed to discipline our kids the way he did it is the reason why we’ve got all this aberrant behavior. Do you think that conservative would still be on the air? No freaking way. Now, Michael Wilbon is a well-known, acknowledged, celebrated liberal in the world of sports. So he can say whatever he wants, and nobody even has a reaction.
In fact, we had a call saying he’s exactly right. I just think it’s a… I’m not disagreeing. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not. I just think it’s an incredible double standard about who can say what, according to the arbiters — and who are the arbiters in this? Who is it that says, “It’s okay for Wilbon to say that, and even be praised for it,” and says, “But, you know, a guy like Newt Gingrich couldn’t say it”? Who is that arbiter.
It’d be the Drive-By Media, wouldn’t it, and a lot of Democrat politicians, right? (interruption) Liberal women in the liberal media? Maybe. Well, frankly, I don’t know that liberal women are leading the outrage against Adrian Peterson. (interruption) I think everybody is. You think it’s predominantly women? (interruption) Well, maybe so. I just think it’s an amazing double standard, who can say what.
It’s clear that if you are an accredited minority liberal, you can pretty much say whatever you want and be praised for it and everybody be told, “You’d better listen to what that man just said! There’s some serious intelligence there.” Let your average conservative say anything in the exact same way, and that man is finished. Career gone, reputation ruined, and if there are any sponsors associated with it? (laughing) Katie, bar the door.
Here’s Barry in Salt Lake City. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. Thank you for having me on your program.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: I just wanted to make a comment. I’ve been watching with a lot of interest the Michael Brown case as well as the Ray Rice case. In both cases, you know, I’ve been wondering, you know, in the case of Michael Brown, you know, the treatment of that clerk or the owner of that store. And then, you know, with Ray Rice being able to, you know, physically harm his fiancee and knock her to the ground.
I just was appalled, as many were. But recently I flew out to Atlanta and jumped in my rent-a-car, turned on the car, and on the CD that somebody left previously that had rented it was, I guess, what you would refer to as black rap or black gangsta music. I went through that and was absolutely shocked and appalled by when I heard.
On the 16 tracks I think half of them referred to their listening audience as F-ing N’ers and they called their women hos and bitches. I guess my question to you is, you know, do you believe that there’s an impact on the black society, especially men, that listen to this stuff from, you know, the time they’re in there tweener years, you know, all the way, you know, to their adulthood? It’s gotta have an impact. Like I said, I was appalled.
RUSH: Was this your first encounter with such lyrics?
CALLER: Yeah, I have…? I mean, I’ve heard little bits and pieces, but to sit and listen to a CD full of it, I was absolutely appalled. Yes. That was my first encounter.
RUSH: Well, I have asked a lot of people about this. I’ve asked black people I know, African-Americans I know, and you’d be amazed at the diversity of reaction there is to it. There are those who say, “Come on, it’s music. People say movies impact people, and they don’t. Nah-nah-nah. It’s just entertainment.” Other people say, “Oh, yeah! It’s intended to. This stuff is part of…”
I’ve had it explained to me great detail, and they’ve said, “You’ll never understand it because you’ve never grown up where these people grew up, and all that rap music is is a reaction to the circumstances and the oppression from the cops and everybody they face in these neighborhoods, and it’s how they are expressing their anger and outrage over it.”
I said, “Well, what about…?” Brace yourself for this, Barry. I said, “What about the bitches and hos business?” (chuckling) I almost can’t tell you this one!
He said, “Well, did you ever stop to ask yourself why those lyrics are written and sung?”
I said, “Well, I always thought it was just sign of disrespect.”
“Do you ever think maybe there are some?”
I’m listening to this, and I said, “Whoa!”
He said, “Do you have any idea what black men go through?”
I said, “This is all news to me. This is Greek.”
So my point is that, depending on who you ask, you’ll hear it justified, you’ll hear it explained, and you’ll also hear it ripped and criticized. You’ll hear it blamed, as you have implied. You think, “My God, you can’t hear this stuff growing up and not be influenced and impacted by it in any number of ways.” I don’t think there’s a universal answer to, “Does it?” Because clearly a bunch of people listen to it and they’re not impacted that way by it. Not everybody that listens to that stuff —
CALLER: However, you look at the birthrates of the children in the black community, it has risen by probably 20% in the last 10 years. It’s astounding.
RUSH: You mean the single parent birthrate?
CALLER: Single parents, yeah, without fathers.
RUSH: It’s like 73%. Seventy-three percent.
CALLER: I have the utmost respect for a black man or a black woman that has risen above that, is a professional, colleague or what have you, my boss, I absolutely respect those people. But it has to have an impact. I just can’t believe it does not.
RUSH: Well, common sense would lead you to believe that. But then again, on the other hand, it doesn’t affect everybody listening to it, obviously, by definition. There are plenty of people who grew up listening to it that are not impacted. That stuff has a huge white audience, too. Are you aware of that?
CALLER: That’s probably true. But you could say the same for pornography, and look what it’s done to society. No impact, that’s not true. We know it’s not true. Logic dictates it’s not true. That’s my opinion.
RUSH: What I was told on the bitches and ho references, what this guy was basically telling me, “You’ve gotta think chicken and egg here. You know, did bitches and hos start with these men just writing these disrespectful lyrics, or did the lyrics result from the way they’ve been treated?” And I said, “Man, I never thought of it that way.”
CALLER: Yeah, well, where are their mothers? You know, as a parent I would never, ever allow my children to listen to garbage and tripe like that. I just wouldn’t.
RUSH: Well, it’s not new. This stuff actually first surfaced as a discussion item, what was the group, N.W.A.? (interruption) And it was Kill the Cops? (interruption) Kill the Police? (interruption) F the police. F the Police. It was N.W.A. Barry, Charlton Heston, back when he was alive, of course he couldn’t have done this dead, he actually went to a Time Warner shareholders meeting and stood up and read some of the lyrics in the music that they were producing and publishing and releasing and asked the executives, “Are you people aware of the filth that you are selling? Would you let this be listened to by your kids?” And of course nothing ever came of it. But, you know, this and the effect of the Columbine shooting was originally blamed on The Matrix, movie on the matrix.
A lot of people agree with you. This stuff can’t be listened to in a vacuum. It has to have some kind of impact on some people somehow. There are all kinds of different answers. I just remember what I cited earlier today, that every one of these people accused in the NFL right now comes out of college. The NFL does not turn them into this. This is one of the things I think everybody has to understand. They show up this way.
Whatever it is that is shaping their personality and informing it, creating it, they arrive at the NFL in their early twenties with these attitudes already intact, and they come out of college. I’m not blaming the colleges for it, but college is supposed to take those rough edges away. College is supposed to teach civilized socialization, all kinds of other things in addition to book learning, as they say. Anyway, Barry, I appreciate the call.