Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One (27 page)

Three years later, ESPN hired Limbaugh as an analyst for its flagship show,
Sunday NFL Countdown
. The broadcast team also included Chris Berman and three former NFL stars, Tom Jackson, Steve Young, and Michael Irvin. There was plenty of professional football expertise in the group. Rush was hired, as ESPN itself said, to stir debate and bring in viewers. He did his job. In the first month he was on the show, ratings went up 10 percent. On his fourth (and as it turned out, final) appearance,
Sunday NFL Countdown
had its biggest audience in more than six years.

The discussion on that last broadcast focused on Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, an all-star who was in the midst of one of his weakest pro seasons. Up for discussion was the question: Is Donovan McNabb regressing?

Limbaugh didn’t accept the premise. “Sorry to say this, I don’t think he’s [McNabb] been that good from the get-go. I think 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, black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

Tom Jackson and Steve Young disagreed with Limbaugh’s assessment of McNabb’s ability, which was, obviously, a matter of opinion. But neither they nor Irvin disputed that the league and the football media (much of which is a mouthpiece for the NFL and its teams) were working for racial diversity. At the start of 2003, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue actually announced a policy, known as the Rooney Rule, requiring teams looking for head coaches to include black candidates among those they interviewed.

The only guy on a football team more visible than the coach is the quarterback, and for decades quarterback was considered a white position. Even the great Warren Moon had to play in Canada for six years before finding a team that would take him. By the 1990s this was an embarrassment to the NFL, as well as a marketing problem. More than half the players and a great many fans were African Americans. The league wanted and needed black quarterbacks, but there wasn’t much of a supply, mostly because promising black high school quarterbacks had been routinely converted into running backs, pass receivers, or defensive backs at the college level. But there were black quarterbacks at traditionally black colleges. In 1995 Steve McNair of Alcorn State was selected number three in the draft by the Houston Oilers; by 1997 he was the starting quarterback. His success opened the way for others. In 1999 McNabb was the first black quarterback to be taken number two in the draft; two others, Akili Smith and Daunte Culpepper, were selected in the first round. Michael Vick was the first overall pick in 2001. By the time Limbaugh addressed the McNabb issue, there were ten black quarterbacks in the NFL, seven of them starters.

Like all football fans, Limbaugh was aware of the racial change in the premier position. He was a social commentator and he made a social comment. It hadn’t been off the cuff, either. Limbaugh later said on the air that he had planned it. “I weighed it, I balanced it, but you know what I decided? Look, they brought me in to be who I am. This is what I think. It’s a sports issue. It’s a sports opinion.”

At the time, Limbaugh’s opinion didn’t seem to disturb or surprise his fellow analysts. Only Jackson questioned him: “So, Rush, once you make that investment though, once you make that investment in [McNabb], it’s a done deal,” he said.

“I’m saying it’s a good investment,” Limbaugh replied. “Don’t misunderstand. I just don’t think he’s as good as everybody says he has been.”

“Rush has a point,” said Michael Irvin, who, like Jackson, is black.

“Well, [McNabb] certainly hasn’t matured,” said Steve Young, who is white.

That was Sunday. On Tuesday, the
Philadelphia Daily News
published an interview with McNabb. “It’s sad we’ve got to go to skin color. I thought we were through with that whole thing,” he said.

At first, ESPN Vice President Mark Shapiro defended Limbaugh. “Rush was arguing McNabb is essentially overrated and that his success is more in part due to the team assembled around him,” he said. “Rush is also arguing that McNabb has been propped up because the media is desirous to have successful black quarterbacks, much the same as others have claimed the media is desirous to have Chris Simms succeed because of his father [ex-quarterback Phil Simms]. We brought Rush in for no-holds-barred opinion. Early on, he has delivered.”

Shapiro spoke too soon. Three Democratic presidential candidates—Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, and Al Sharpton—called for Limbaugh to be fired. So did the National Association of Black Journalists. Tom Jackson said that he would no longer appear with Limbaugh. ESPN decided that it didn’t want controversy if it was going to be so controversial. On Wednesday the network issued another statement: “Although Mr. Limbaugh today stated that his comments had ‘no racist intent whatsoever, ’ we have communicated to Mr. Limbaugh that his comments were insensitive and inappropriate.” Limbaugh resigned and ESPN expressed its relief in a press release: “We believe that he took the appropriate action to resolve this matter expeditiously,”the league said.

When the controversy first burst, Limbaugh snapped back against his perennial adversary, the liberal media. “If you don’t say what the appointed, anointed superiorists and those who think that they are at the top of judgmentalism—if you don’t say what they want to hear, if you don’t say what they think is right, then not only are they going to disagree with you, then they’re going to demand that you not be allowed to say it, that you not be given a position or forum to say it because they don’t want to hear it. Now, that is discriminatory in itself.” But veteran Limbaugh listeners sensed that he wasn’t counterpunching with his usual ferocity. This impression was confirmed on Wednesday, when he left ESPN. Since when did El Rushbo throw in the towel? Mike Lupica of the
New York Daily News
thought it showed that Rush was all talk and no heart. “He did it because he couldn’t take the heat . . . He wants to be the rough, tough, truth-telling conscience of America. But the very first time he gets hit, he quits on his stool. Even some of the Democrats he hates so much can take a punch better than that.”

But there was something happening that Lupica and the other commentators knew nothing about. On the day he resigned, Limbaugh learned that the
National Enquirer
was about to publish a sensational scoop: Rush Limbaugh was a drug addict. Suddenly he had no time for football skirmishes. He faced personal, legal, and professional challenges that were far more important than the NFL. His destination was rehab. One thing it didn’t cure was his football jones. Five years later, he was still itching. After he negotiated his massive new contract, in 2008, he told me that he might want to get involved with the game again, although not as a broadcaster. “I’m more interested in owning a team,” he said. “Maybe I’ll buy the Eagles and make Donavan McNabb my quarterback.” I thought he was kidding but I mentioned his ambition in the
Times
profile.

Less than a year later, in May 2009, Limbaugh was approached by Dave Checketts, the former president of the New York Knicks and the founder of Sports Capital Partners Worldwide, which owns, among other properties, the St. Louis Blues hockey team. Checketts was putting together a group, with the aid of Solomon Brothers, to buy the St. Louis Rams. He invited Limbaugh to become one of the partners in the group.

“I was intrigued,” Limbaugh wrote in an op-ed in the
Wall Street Journal
. “I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn’t much care. I accepted his offer.”

Limbaugh’s warning was an understatement. When his connection to the Checketts bid was leaked, penalty flags fell all over the place. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who Limbaugh had been mocking for years as racial shakedown artists, struck back. Sharpton sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell asking him to block Rush.

Jackson agreed, adding that Limbaugh had gotten rich “appealing to the fears of whites” (which, considering Jackson’s own corporate scare tactics, was a bit much).

The head of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith, piled on. Smith, like Jackson and Sharpton, is a Democrat—in fact, he was a member of the Obama transition team. He wrote to his members that “. . . sport 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.” A few black players said they would refuse to play for a team owned by Limbaugh, and Smith cheered their heroic stand. “We also know that there is an ugly part of history and we will not risk going backwards, giving up, giving in or lying down to it,” he said. “Our men are strong and proud sons, fathers, spouses and I am proud when they stand up, understand this is their profession and speak with candor and blunt honesty about how they feel.”

Limbaugh knew going in that there would be opposition. But even he hadn’t anticipated the lengths to which some members of the media were willing to go.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
columnist Bryan Burwell called Limbaugh a racist and proved it with a damning quote: “Slavery built the South, and I’m not saying we should bring it back . . . I’m just saying that it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” Dave Zerin, the sports editor of the
Nation
magazine repeated this on MSNBC, and CNN anchor Rick Sanchez did the same on his show. At least a half dozen writers, including Michael Wilbon of the
Washington Post
, cited the slavery remark in print.

It got worse. Karen Hunter, an assistant professor of journalism at Hunter College, went on MSNBC and claimed that Limbaugh had lauded James Earl Ray, the murderer of Martin Luther King. She quoted Limbaugh: “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

Limbaugh never said these things or anything resembling them. They were inventions, pure and simple, taken from a book by Jack Huberman,
101 People Who Are Really Screwing Up America
. Grudging apologies followed. Rick Sanchez, for example, reread the “quote,” mentioned Limbaugh’s denial, and said, “Obviously that does not take away that there are other quotes that have been attributed to Rush Limbaugh that many people in the African American community and other minority communities do find offensive.”

In Boston, Commissioner Goodell told sportswriters that he, too, had a problem with Limbaugh getting into the game. “The comments that Rush made specifically about Donovan, I disagree with very strongly,” Goodell said. “They are polarizing comments that we don’t think reflect accurately on the NFL or our players. I obviously do not believe that those comments are positive and they are divisive. That’s a negative thing for us. I disagree with those comments very strongly and I have told the players that.”

Limbaugh had never said McNabb was a bad man or even a bad quarterback. He said that McNabb was overrated (a debatable sports observation) and the recipient of the goodwill and support of some journalists who were rooting for a black quarterback (which was perfectly true and in accordance with the NFL’s own expressed hope for racial diversity in all positions).

Checketts folded under the pressure and asked Limbaugh to drop out of the ownership group. Limbaugh refused; if Checketts wanted him out, he would have to fire him. So Checketts did. On October 16, Limbaugh told his audience the story. “I still love professional football. I’ll still love the people that play it and admire them, and I’ll probably end up remaining the biggest nonpaid promoter of the sport. . . . I am more sad for our country than I am for myself.”

That was debatable. Limbaugh was deeply hurt—you could hear it in his voice. As a capitalist he conceded that nobody has the right to buy a football team. And he should have known that there wouldn’t be much sympathy for a man who lives in a twenty-four-thousand-square-foot glass house. Still, it stung. Twenty years had passed since he had been rejected in New York by the elite fraternity of broadcasters he had once dreamed of joining. It had been a long time since he had put himself out there again, and now that he had, he had been rejected again. All his success, wealth, and power weren’t enough to get him in the door of the new club he wanted to belong to. Not only that: the blackballing had been public and cruel. Sharpton and Jackson and DeMaurice Smith (and, he believed, the White House) had successfully branded him a racist, while the media spread the slander and the men he thought of as friends, rich men like himself whose owners’ boxes he had shared over the years, sat by and let it happen. The NFL had been his church on every given Sunday of his adult life. Now he found himself excommunicated.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
n August 2009, when I saw Limbaugh in Palm Beach, he was in an upbeat mood. He had lost eighty pounds and was actually swimming laps, although he didn’t like admitting that he was exercising. He still thought he had a shot at buying the Rams. He was making more media appearances than he had in years—the following week he was scheduled to fly out to California to tape an episode of
Family Guy
, and he was booked to be one of the first guests on the new prime-time Leno Show. And he had a secret—he was in love.

Professionally he was at the top of his game. The
Atlantic
named him the second most influential commentator in America, preceded only by
New York Times
columnist Paul Krugman, a man with whom he shares a pugnacious, partisan style. A recent Gallup Poll reported that 40 percent of Americans now identified themselves as conservative, 35 percent as moderate, and just 21 percent as liberal. And politically, his just-say-no strategy was bearing fruit. Thanks to Rush, the president and his party were left alone as champions of a very unpopular health care reform initiative. Obama and the Democrats had been shrinking in the polls for months, but members of Congress, home for summer vacation, were shocked by the outrage that greeted them at town hall meetings. Irate constituents demanded to know why the federal government, which was trillions of dollars in debt, wanted to take over health care and provide “free” medical coverage to forty million uninsured citizens. These questions came directly out of Limbaugh’s daily talking points.