Rush Limbaugh's football dream

Rush Limbaugh's American dream, said Bryan Burwell in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is the St. Louis Rams' worst nightmare. The conservative talk-radio giant wants to realize every fan's fantasy and buy part of a team—the Rams—but his "racist demagoguery" would anger African-American players and embarrass the team and the National Football League. "His money might be green, but his words are colored with hate and intolerance."

"Rush-haters" should be giddy that Limbaugh wants to buy the Rams, said Geoffrey Norman in National Review. St. Louis "holds the longest current losing streak in the NFL," so "there would be hot servings of schadenfreude" for liberals on football Sundays. But a Limbaugh-run team likely "wouldn’t be a loser for long," as Limbaugh—who's a fan, not a football genius—would surely hire solid professionals and watch them turn the team around.

"It is possible that Limbaugh could be an effective owner," said Dawn Knight in The Washington Post, "and at 0-4, the Rams obviously need something to change." But "to me, football is like church, and I'm for the separation of church and state." I wouldn't want a scrappy liberal like James Carville to own a team—and I suspect that "Limbaugh's strong political views" could "have a negative impact on the team, at least at first."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

That's putting it mildly, said CBSSports.com columnist Mike Freeman, also in The Washington Post. This is a man who once said NFL games look like Bloods vs. Crips, without weapons, and that slavery had its merits. And his last flirtation with football—as an ESPN commentator—ended in disaster when he said that Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media "has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well." Oh, well, at least if Limbaugh gets a team, those of us who write about football will have plenty of material.