According to DeMaurice Smith, the Executive Director of the NFL Player’s Union, “[Professional football] in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred.” Smith made this pronouncement in an email he sent to the NFL Player’s Union executive committee to express his disapproval of the news that conservative talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh had a minority stake in a group seeking to purchase the St. Louis Rams. While Smith waxed poetic about football’s duty to “unite” and “transcend,” those following his lead on speaking out against Limbaugh failed to address Smith’s long-running ties to leftwing Democrats. Smith contributed $3,300 to President Obama’s campaign last year, contributed thousands of dollars to at least seven other liberal Democrats over the years, and also worked as a Washington lobbyist for the powerful leftwing DC lobby group Patton Boggs and Blow. Considering his strong liberal political history and ties, the last thing Smith was advocating in his campaign against Limbaugh was “overcoming division and rejecting discrimination and hatred.” Smith’s intentions were, instead, polar opposite of the concerns in his widely publicized email. Unfortunately, the controversy quickly attracted the usual bottom feeders of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who never miss an opportunity to accuse a conservative of racism. The fire quickly spread into politics and sports sections across the country. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s own Bryan Burwell took the bait and wrote two columns on Limbaugh’s involvement in the bidding group in which he attacked Limbaugh and any member of Limbaugh’s audience without any regard for the truth of his statements. Almost as quickly as the issue surfaced, the bidding group kicked Limbaugh out for fears that the league owners would veto any deal. At a time when the Rams have gone a full calendar year without a win and the

Burwell’s columns from Oct. 7 and Oct. 14 declared that Limbaugh was too racist to have a minority ownership stake in the Rams. Despite the severity of his accusations, he didn’t even base them on his own observations, choosing instead to repeat the same “quotes” that proved Limbaugh’s racism cited by players following Smith’s lead and endlessly referenced by talking heads and sports writers opposed to Limbaugh’s potential NFL ownership role. The standard argument made by every one of them mainly involved four quotes – two of which were proven to be completely fabricated. The most offensive aspect of Burwell’s columns was that even though he was accusing someone of bigotry in a large, nationally-recognized newspaper, and hatefully insulted Limbaugh’s millions of listeners, at no time did he actually take the time to research Limbaugh on his own. Instead, Burwell blindly parroted the same talking points used by DeMaurice Smith and Al Sharpton and every other conservative-hating pundit covering the story. Even after learning that he had falsely attributed a particularly ugly quote to Limbaugh, Burwell hatefully remarked that he didn’t check the source because it sounded like something Limbaugh would have said. Taking that neither of Burwell’s columns on the issue contained a single original thought and the most egregious example at the core of Burwell’s “proof” of Limbaugh’s racism turned out to be completely fabricated, how in the hell would Burwell know whether anything sounded like something Limbaugh would say? Addressing ignorance with more ignorance, Mr. Burwell, doesn’t lead to a truthful, original opinion and if you won’t hold yourself to any level of journalistic integrity, your editors should, and if your editors won’t, the readers should by dropping subscriptions.


At the heart of the controversy was the allegation that Rush Limbaugh had said that slavery had its merits and James Earl Ray (the man who killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) deserved a posthumous Medal of Honor. No one can deny that these statements are beyond contemptible. However, there was one very big problem – Limbaugh never uttered one word of either remark. The two quotes were cited in discussions on major media outlets such as CNN, ABC, and MSNBC (okay, MSNBC isn’t that “major”) even though no one could accurately cite the outrageously offensive statements beyond their inclusion in a 2006 book by Jack Huberman titled, “101 People Who Are Really Screwing America.” The book claims that Limbaugh said, “I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets would be safer after dark.” Huberman also wrote that Limbaugh explained on the day that Martin Luther King’s assassin died, “You know who deserves the posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.” No one repeating these remarks in the major media outlets took the time to actually check their validity. Nor did they even wonder, if Rush had made these statements, how come they didn’t make news until now? Considering that just hours after Limbaugh told his radio listeners of his hopes that President B. Hussein Obama’s policies fail, pundits were criticizing him. It’s hard to believe that he could have endorsed slavery and commended James Earl Ray without drawing endless headlines. Of course, Burwell fell into the same trap. How could he avoid it? He was, after all, only faithfully passing along the same story he had heard others talking about.


Since “journalists” weren’t interested in tracking down the origin of the statements that they were widely quoting, bloggers took up the task. The blog at the UK’s Telegraph found that the quotes from Huberman’s book originally appeared on, wait for it…Wikipedia and Wikiquotes. They had been added to Limbaugh’s Wikipedia page in 2005 and listed in Wikiquotes at the same time. That same year, someone with the screen name “Cobra” was repeating the quotes on several different blogs and cited, you guessed it, Wikipedia and Wikiquotes as his source. (For the complete story on the origin of the false Limbaugh quotes, visit HERE) There is no question that the highly offensive remarks were never made by Limbaugh.


On October 7, Burwell’s Post-Dispatch column included the fictitious Limbaugh quote about the merits of slavery. After referencing the 100% made-up comment, Burwell insults anyone who listens to Limbaugh by stating, “I know how those words play out in Idiot America. They are accepted as gospel.” Who accepts them as gospel, Mr. Burwell taking that it’s not even a real quote? It would seem that only you and others attributing this comment to Limbaugh were accepting blind, ignorant hatred of conservatives as gospel. A week later, after bloggers had discerned the truth behind the statements, Burwell addressed the fact that the quote was not genuine. However, instead of apologizing for libeling Limbaugh and insulting his listeners, Burwell explained, “The quote was so in character with the many things Limbaugh has said before that we didn’t verify it beyond the book.” In case you missed Burwell’s point; even though Rush Limbaugh never even uttered one word of the quote falsely attributed to him, and despite the fact that Burwell has never listened to Limbaugh on his own, choosing instead to base his accusations on the sound bites taken out of context by the same people falsely quoting the conservative talk radio host as supporting slavery, Burwell didn’t consider it libel because in his mind it was something that Limbaugh would have said. That line of thinking is what led to wrongfully contributing the hateful remark to Limbaugh in the first place. Burwell’s absolute honesty about his willful ignorance of the subject of his columns is staggering.


After finishing with the fake quotes, Burwell followed the lead of everyone else criticizing Limbaugh and focused on the 2003 comment about Donovan McNabb. However, Burwell and others using the statement to demonize Limbaugh have never taken a close look at the remark before jumping so quickly to judgment. The quote came on ESPN in early October, 2003 when McNabb had played four seasons in the NFL. According to statistics from NFL.com, up to that point in his career, McNabb had a completion percentage of 55.83%, an interception percentage of 2.4%, and a lifetime passer rating of 77.05. To add context, Elvis Grbac had a lifetime passer rating of 79.6, Randall Cunningham’s rating was 81.5, and Brad Johnson’s was 82.5. While none of these quarterbacks are considered bad players, it’s difficult to argue that they were among the greatest in the game. Therefore, from comparing the numbers posted by quarterbacks who are incontrovertibly considered decent but not great to Donovan McNabb’s statistics in October of 2003, it’s not outrageous to claim that, yes; McNabb was overrated at that point in his career. In fact, anyone familiar with Philadelphia sports writers in 2003 would know that McNabb wasn’t even viewed by many local writers as a top-tier player. Once it’s established that he was indeed over-hyped, it seems that the only area open to debate concerns why he was over-hyped. This is where Limbaugh explained, “I think that what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.” Nothing in that statement belittles anyone because of race, ethnicity, or any other trait. He didn’t state that McNabb wasn’t a great quarterback because he was black – he only said that the many members of the media were exaggerating McNabb’s performance at that point in his career because they really wanted to see a black quarterback become a dominating player. Limbaugh’s claim that the media had over-hyped the first four years of Donovan McNabb’s career is not racist. Sports commentators, such as Bryan Burwell, spend their whole careers looking at players’ stats and determining whether or not they are over-rated. There is a very strong case that Limbaugh was correct in 2003. If Burwell wanted to debate Limbaugh’s proposed reason for the extra hype that would be an honest discussion. However, to blindly accuse him of racism is not only dishonest; it’s downright cowardly for avoiding a serious discussion.


Burwell also uses a quote made by Limbaugh during his radio show where he said, “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.” This comment was made regarding a league whose highlights over recent years include a player pleading guilty of obstructing justice in a double murder case, a star quarterback serving time for his brutal role in a dog fighting ring, and another former player is just starting to serve time for accidently shooting himself in the thigh with an illegal handgun in a nightclub. The criminal tendencies of some very prominent NFL players are impossible to deny and the unsportsmanlike conduct on the field is on very vivid display every weekend – or has Mr. Burwell never seen TO play? While Burwell sees Limbaugh’s statement as proof positive of racism, fellow liberal St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist, Bill McClellan explained, “But if [Limbaugh] has complained about football players reminding him of gang members, blaming it on their unsportsmanlike behavior, I am not so sure he’s off base…I am too lame to know if this behavior has to do with gangsta culture, hip-hop culture or what, but I find it offensive and I can’t imagine Roger Wehrli or Jackie Smith engaging in it. So that gang reference was the sort of thing that could make you think, “Maybe Limbaugh’s on to something.”” Bill McClellan could never be confused with a conservative. However, McClellan is the last of a dying breed of reasonable liberals. (While I disagree with just about everything McClellan writes, I admire his wit and evenhanded delivery – perhaps he could mentor Burwell on any future forays into the political arena.)


Burwell’s columns about Limbaugh further the outrageous idea that conservative principles are rooted in hatred and bigotry. Without knowing anything more about Limbaugh than what he has heard from the likes of liberal political hack, DeMaurice Smith, and professional racist, Al Sharpton, Burwell determined that there is nothing more to Limbaugh than the false racist caricature drawn by his political opponents and in doing so has labeled Limbaugh’s audience as equally contemptible. This is only accurately summarized as prejudice and discrimination. DeMaurice Smith was right that football is best when it transcends this type of thinking. It’s unfortunately that Smith didn’t truly mean what he wrote. It’s also too bad that Burwell didn’t read Smith’s email more closely. However, given Burwell’s track record on the topic, he would have only misquoted him if he had.