RUSH: Bob McNair, who is the owner of the Houston Texans, do you remember what Bob McNair said during the kerfuffle about players kneeling during the national anthem, disrespecting the American flag? McNair made a comment that he thought the inmates were running the prison and it was time for the owners to reassert themselves and their control over league, because, after all, they are the owners.

Well, everybody assumed that McNair was talking about the players and that the players were the inmates and that McNair wanted to put ’em back in prison. And then they said, “See? See? This guy McNair, he’s a racist.” Now, Bob McNair’s 80 years old. I think he is a Republican. But he has said all along he was not talking about players. He was talking about league executives. He was talking about people whose names we never even see. The junior executives who have more power than the owners do.

He wasn’t talking about the players. And he said he now regrets apologizing. It was in a Wall Street Journal interview. “The main thing I regret is apologizing. I really didn’t have anything to apologize for.” But he got caught up in the whole idea he was talking about players. And of course the phrase is you don’t let the inmates run the asylum. But when he said prison instead of asylum it gave the leftists a beeline to say, “See, he’s racist, ’cause about 75% of the league is African-American and he thinks they’re in prison or should be, obviously the guy’s a racist.

So he apologized because they were trying to slough the racial motive off on him and he maintained he was never talking about the players. He was talking about executives who actually were trying to obstruct various desires and initiatives the owners were trying to push within the league.