Intellectual Defenestration

My, what thin skin you have!

Clark, Dean Urge Rush Limbaugh Firing

The Clark campaign, in a letter to ESPN president George Bodenheimer, said: "There can be no excuse for such statements. Mr. Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants, but ABC and ESPN have no obligation to sponsor such hateful and ignorant speech. Mr. Limbaugh should be fired immediately."

Later, Dean said in a statement, "There is no legitimate place in sports broadcasting for voices that seek to discredit the achievement of athletes on the basis of race."

Sharpton said he would call for a national boycott of the network this weekend if Limbaugh wasn't fired.

"I'm going to call for ESPN to terminate Rush Limbaugh as we've seen other networks terminate people for racist remarks in the past," he said. "I'm shocked that we're at Wednesday and we have not seen an apology from Mr. Limbaugh. We cannot sit back in silence. That would be consent and we would have lost self-respect."

Of course, by now everyone should know that Limbaugh gave up and quit. Two quick points before I get back to work.

First, Limbaugh's comments may have been wrong, ignorant, or arrogant (I don't care enough about football to know). However, they are not racist. Racism is "The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others." Limbaugh was not saying that McNabb was inferior in any means because he was black, he simply said that he wasn't as good as people were making him to be. He can't have been inferring anything about the relationship between being African American to being good at sports, because he was simultaneously praising the defense, which I suspect is not entirely Caucasian. If anything, he was accusing the media of being racist, as they were willing to overlook flaws because of McNabb's race.

Second, I think this is symptomatic of the pitiful lack of ability to have anything remotely resembling reasonable discourse in America today. Limbaugh has been saying stuff like this for 15 years on his radio show, but when he says it on a sports show, people do not respond by countering either of his assertions (i.e., McNabb really is as good as everybody says, or the media really is color-blind) or even by ignoring it as being an inconsequential remark from an inconsequential platform. Instead, they crap their pants and demand his head. How is that free speech? How can Clark call for Limbaugh's resignation and also make statements like "We are going to reach out to people and bring them together based on a concept of public service and contribution to the public good, the protection of our liberties, the right to speak out"?

October 2, 2003 05:17 PM