or those of you who follow the minutia of the news, the sports
mega-conglomerate ESPN network has gotten itself in a spot of
bother over its hiring of conservative icon and inexhaustible
gasbag Rush Limbaugh to co-host its NFL pre-game show.
For those of you who follow the minutia of the news, the sports mega-conglomerate ESPN network has gotten itself in a spot of bother over its hiring of conservative icon and inexhaustible gasbag Rush Limbaugh to co-host its NFL pre-game show. So far as can be determined, Limbaugh’s deep knowledge and understanding of professional football consists of the sincere belief that it is all the fault of Bill Clinton; nevertheless, he was placed among actual former players of the game to provide … well, that part is unclear, although there is speculation that ESPN felt the time has come for football to embed itself into the larger sociological context of America and be subjected to the same partisan politics as, say, social security or funding for education.
Since fellow commentator and former 49er quarterback Steve Young is well-known to be left-handed, perhaps the suits at the network believed it was important to get someone on the panel equally well-known for flinging from the right, making Limbaugh the perfect, if utterly clueless, choice.
Well, almost. No sooner had he found his chair amidst the flock of jocks and begun to grasp the basic terminology, such as the fact that in football “pad” does not indicate what one does to one’s expense account, than he forgot the play, scrambled out of the pocket, and tossed up a Hail Mary observation that a certain highly-regarded quarterback was receiving excessive praise from a liberal-biased sports press just because he is one of those Negro persons. Thrown for a loss under a swarming politically-correct defense, ESPN was forced to abandon its attempt to inject Fox-style fair and balanced social commentary into the game and to put Limbaugh on injured reserve for the season with a hyper-extended tongue.
But myself, I think ESPN is onto something. This is the age of crossover careers, of rank amateurs masquerading as experts, of the term “outsider” rising to the level of a cardinal virtue. And there’s proof that it works: look at Dick Cheney – never spent a day of his life in the business world before he goes directly from being Secretary of Defense to being CEO of Halliburton, and look at them both today. He’s a multi-millionaire and Halliburton is raking in billions in federal contracts to construct Iraq from the sand up. Is this a great country or what?
So I say, go for it, ESPN. Let’s have more Limbaughs telling us what we need to know about the politically-charged world of sports. There’s an empty chair at the pre-game table; how about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Although there is no evidence that he has ever actually lead anyone anywhere other than as a testosterone-fueled fictional character on a sound stage, he could give fans valuable insights into running a team, based on his highly-advertised “leadership.”
Or ESPN could hire Jerry Falwell to let us know before game time which teams God has decided will win today; think of the hours that would save us having to actually watch the contests. Or John Ashcroft could offer the sage advice that since numerous NFL players adopt Islamic names, with a disproportionate number at the wide receiver position, by rounding them all up and shipping them to Guantanamo for an indeterminate time – just to be on the safe side; you never know what a person with an Islamic name might be up to – we could tilt the odds in favor of the running game.
I mean, having people with real skills and realistic plans running the show in various fields of endeavor is just so, you know, nineties. We need to get into the moment, to bring areas like professional sports out of their cocoons and into the world at large, where the primary focus is on deceiving people into believing that the poseurs at the top have at least a vague idea what they’re doing. Hell, it works for the White House; it certainly should work for ESPN.
