Chris Graham | In defense of Boss Limbaugh

Yep, I’m doing it. I’m sticking up for Rush Limbaugh.

(I’ve got a can of Lysol handy. OK, it’s across the hall with the folks at the Artisans Center of Virginia. One of the staff has swine flu.)

Ahem. I don’t like the way the NFL treated the Boss when word started getting around that Limbaugh was a member of an investor group looking to buy the St. Louis Rams.

The basic approach was as if Limbaugh had the swine flu and had just sneezed into his hand.

I mean, I get it. Limbaugh is a controversial figure. He wants the president to fail. He has said NFL games look like gang wars between the Crips and the Bloods, said that the media overlooked the supposed failings of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb because it was “very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”

That has about as much with him being a minority owner in a football team as me being the editor of a news organization that bills itself as “the progressive voice of the Valley” impacting my minority ownership of the Waynesboro Generals baseball team.

Which isn’t to say that right-wing critics haven’t tried to make hay with that. One sent an e-mail to one of my fellow co-owners on Opening Night claiming that I was a Christian-basher among the smears and misrepresentations and advising the ownership group to wash its hands of me.

The response of my fellow co-owners was much different than the one Limbaugh faced from his potential partners in the Rams. They backed me 100 percent.

Now, this was just one guy, and it’s not as if this one guy in particular even carries any clout; he doesn’t. He’s not the head of the NFLPA, not the commissioner of the NFL, not the owner of an NFL team.

But as much as I disagree with Limbaugh for, well, everything he does or stands for, really, I think he deserved the same treatment from his partners that I received from mine.

(Quick, pass the can of Lysol.)

 

– Column by Chris Graham