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RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, way, way back, we’re gonna go back maybe a year or more when the attention of concussions or the incidence of concussions in the NFL begot a bunch of concern, and there became an organized movement to ban football at various levels: high school, college, the NFL.

And it has manifested itself that there is now an entire political movement oriented toward changing and ultimately, if some of them get their wish, eliminating football. Because it’s just too violent and it’s too dangerous and it causes people severe injuries and brain concussions and this is not good and all of this.

During the course of all this I tried to make everybody as aware as I could of how politicized the sports media is. They’re just as politicized, just as liberal as the news media. And how there is an all-out assault on the NFL that the NFL may not even realize is coming its way.

As is often the case, I was met with some people that thought I was a little over the top on this. I can remember when I warned people that the SUV was gonna become a target of the environmentalists, they thought, “Come on, Rush, that’s a little overreach.”

I said, “No, look at the Sierra Club. I mean, they’re telegraphing their move.” And the SUV became a great target, became one of the big reasons for global warming and climate change. The same is happening with the NFL. Right here we have it in the New York Times today, November 4th, story by David Leonhardt: “Football, the Newest Partisan Divide.” Do you know how the story concludes?

Remember boxing? Oh, you don’t? Well let me tell you what happened to boxing, and then they talk about how it ended. And they’re predicting the same thing for football. Here’s a pull quote: “Blue America — particularly the highly educated Democratic-leaning areas of major metropolitan areas — is increasingly deciding that it doesnÂ’t want its sons playing football.” And that’s what the story is about. Educated, sophisticated blue state Democrats do not want their kids playing football. And they have a poll result here that says nationally only 55% of Americans support their kids playing football.

Boys participating in football is down 15% in Minnesota and Wisconsin, down 8% in Massachusetts, and the New York Times says this is only going to continue. And I remember how I was not taken seriously when I cautioned that this was on tap. I mean, I know the left. I know how they start things. I know how they never give them up. And they pursue things as much to demonstrate their power as they do the substance of whatever it is they’re promoting.

So, let’s go to the audio sound bites. This is NPR this morning, a program called The Takeaway with John Hockenberry, and he spoke with the managing editor of The Upshot, which is a New York Times website covering Politics and Policy, and they talked to the guy that wrote this story. This story runs in the Politics and Policy section. This story on the NFL runs in the Politics and Policy section of the New York Times’ website called The Upshot. We have two sound bites. In the first one, Hockenberry and the New York Times writer have this discussion…

HOCKENBERRY: Is there a divide here in America, or is this Limbaughian showbiz?


LEONHARDT: There is a divide. Rush is right, at least about some aspect of this. There isn’t a divide about watching football. Blue America and red America are both watching football in enormous numbers. But it’s clear that blue America — and particularly college-educated blue America — in many of the big metropolitan areas across the country is getting much less comfortable with the idea of letting their kids play. So you mentioned Minnesota and Wisconsin. High school participation in football is also falling in California, in New York, in Maryland, in Massachusetts, and when you line up all the states and look at them, you see a pretty clear pattern. High school participation in football is falling more in blue states than in red states.

RUSH: (whispering) “Which, as we all know, are…” I’m speaking if the NPR-approved manner of broadcasting. “The thing we all know is that the blue states are made up of educated, sophisticated Americans, naturally, and they have seen the light — and, as such, their children not allowed in increasing numbers to participate in this barbaric, unnecessarily violent sport. You can see it everywhere. (gasp) It is Limbaughian. Rush is right. There is a divide.”

I could do NPR if I had to. If all else failed, I could do NPR. Anyway… (interruption) Well, I don’t know. Snerdley asked, “What is this? Is it rich kids, poor kids, white kids, black?” I don’t know. It says, Snerdley, Blue America — college-educated, blue America. Children of college-educated, blue America are not playing football. It’s down 55%. Now, would that demographic eliminate some kids, the children of college-educated, blue America? (NPR impression) “Well, it could well be if you’re talking college-educated, blue state Americans. It could well be.

“Well, it could well mean that we’re not talking about many African-Americans. Not that there’s anything wrong with uneducated African-Americans, but we’re talking about where they live, blue states and so, quite possibly, we are talking primarily about white children of sophisticated, educated blue state Americans. Yes. Uh, any other questions for me? (gasp) Or does that cover it?” (interruption) Well, here was this… (interruption) One more sound bite here. Again, this is on NPR today, The Takeaway with John Hockenberry speaking to the managing editor of The Upshot, David Leonhardt, about football in America.

Hockenberry says, “Okay, are you suggesting…?” Listen to this question now. You just heard this: College-educated, sophisticated blue state parents’ kids are increasingly not playing football. The next question is: “Are you suggesting that Republicans are pro-concussion?” That is the question that the author of this New York Times piece is asked: “Are you suggesting that Republicans are pro-concussion?”

LEONHARDT: I am not. We asked the Rand Corporation to do a poll on this, and what they found is that there’s only one group that is notably less comfortable, and it’s Obama voters with college degrees. Democratic voters without college degrees look a lot like Republican voters with or without college degrees in terms of their level of comfort with football.

RUSH: (laughing)

LEONHARDT: There’s sort of a classic pattern here, whether it’s smoking, whether it’s seat belts, that start in a certain corner of society — a more educated, more liberal corner of society.


RUSH: I told you, folks.

LEONHARDT: And if the science continues to show that this is a real public health issue, it goes mainstream.

RUSH: I told you!

LEONHARDT: We’re seeing a change in which more liberal, more educated areas are saying, “We don’t want our sons playing football, even if we still watch it on Saturdays and Sundays.”

RUSH: That’s right. “We’ll go to the Colosseum, but the Christians will be given to the lions, not our kids. We’ll watch the Christians being given to the lions, but our children will not. Our children will remain in the citadels of sophistication and education.” Did you hear this? Did you? (NPR impression) “Democrat voters without college degrees, they look a lot like Republican voters — with our without college degrees — in terms of their level of comfort with football.”

Meaning: “Democrat voters without college degrees are just as unsophisticated, just as violent, just as brutal, just as mean-spirited and extremist as Republican voters, with or without college. So a Republican voter, whether educated or not, is still a barbarian and sends his kids out to the Colosseum to do battle with other gladiators and to hell with what happens. But the sophisticated blue state…”

I have to take a break. Unlike NPR, we have to earn a profit.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, so the question is, given the New York Times story on liberal, blue state, sophisticated, educated parents not letting their children more and more play football, what is the impact of the game? Well, that’s easy. If this is all right, the impact of the game is very simply expressed. (NPR impression) “Yes, well, the ultimate impact of this would be, quite clearly, that future football players — even all the way up to the pinnacle, the NFL — will be less and less the children of educated, blue state, sophisticated liberal Democrats.

“Those children will simply not experience the game, they’ll not play, and therefore the NFL will essentially be made up of blockheads: Uneducated, red state, conservative, Republican barbarians. Concussions. Concussions will be widespread. There will be fewer punters, of course, because the majority of kickers come from educated blue state sophisticated liberal parents. Kickers, of course (sigh), are eschewing the just repulsive violence that’s inherent in this game.

“So looking forward, uh, the game will become more barbaric and more brutish, more punishing, more brutal, more concussions as there will be fewer and fewer sensitive, educated liberals playing the game. That’s obvious.” So that’s the conclusion that you’d have to draw about the impact on the game. If liberal kids continue do not play the game, it’ll be left to the true barbarians of society: The children of educated and uneducated red-state conservatives.

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