With that comment and a bevy of other incendiary statements the good Reverend Jesse Jackson has thrown down the gauntlet in his battle to keep Rush Limbaugh from ownership of an NFL franchise. Jackson is joined in his efforts by the Tweedledum to his Tweedledee, the right Reverend Al Sharpton.

Limbaugh is looking to partner with the St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checkettes to buy the hapless St. Louis Rams football team. Limbaugh has the dough and Checkettes involvement in St. Louis sports should boost fan support by reducing (but certainly not eliminating) the possibility of moving the franchise to another city. Limbaugh is a Missouri native growing up a hundred miles down the road from St. Louis in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He is also a football fanatic and a remarkably successful businessman. Checkettes is a major league sports veteran having been the youngest chief executive in the history of the NBA after he was named president and general manager of the Utah Jazz at the age of 28. Checkettes has served in numerous sports related positions including CEO of Madison Square Garden and owns Sports Capital Worldwide a consulting and investment firm for sports franchises.

Successful businessmen with a passion for sports. Sounds like a great pair of professionals for NFL team ownership, right? Well, not in this seedy world of political correctness at all costs.

Jackson and Sharpton are desperate to regain at least a modicum of significance in the age of Barack Obama. Both of these veteran pot stirrers have been neutered in their efforts to remain in the headlines and, more importantly, in the heads of the black community. Every grab these two publicity hounds have made for front page coverage have fizzled thanks to the historic inauguration of a black president. They don’t matter, and they don’t like it.

Limbaugh steps into this catfight with some baggage of his own, not the least of which is his remark as commentator on ESPN that Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb was overrated and the only reason he received so much attention was that the press was desperate for a black quarterback to succeed. ESPN disavowed any concurrence with that opinion and Limbaugh resigned rather than retract. There was much discussion and accusations of racism after the comment but nobody dared address if it was true. Was it provocative? Yes. Was it true? Absolutely!

But this campaign to thwart Limbaugh’s efforts is not about racism. It’s about giving two tired old show ponies a chance to strut their stuff in front of an audience again instead of shipping them off the glue factory. Limbaugh is outspoken and sometimes brash in his conservative message. But he is never, I repeat, never racist. If anybody has made a living, and a pretty good living at that, by being divisive and pitting one racial group against another it has been the pandemic duo of Jackson and Sharpton. It is their only claim to fame. A fame they both desperately want to rekindle.

The J&A team have been supposedly joined in their efforts by NFL Player Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. Smith delivered a prepared statement last Sunday, but as is the case with many lawyer’s statements it’s tough to make out exactly what he’s trying to say. “I have asked our players to embrace their roles not only in the game of football but also as players and partners in the business of the NFL,” Smith said. “They risk everything to play this game, they understand that risk and they live with that risk and its consequences for the rest of their life. 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.”

I’m not sure I understand what point Mr. Smith is trying to make, but I’m pretty sure Rush Limbaugh would not increase the risk NFL player’s face in the field. And if the NFL Players Association truly want to be partners in the business of football maybe they should ante up the capital to buy the Rams.

As for the ugly part of history, if Mr. Smith is talking about slavery, it was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation.

And once again by free agency.

It hasn’t taken long for the political party in control of both houses of congress and the White House to find some new way to claim they are the victim.

They tried to claim they were the victim of partisanship, bad luck and a lack of understanding by the press and public during the confirmation process for new Obama cabinet nominees. But you can only repeat the poorly premised excuses regarding cavil objections to the nominee’s deceptive and inaccurate income tax filings for so long before you stop sounding like a compurgator and begin sounding like a defense attorney making a plea bargain. After Tim 1040 Geithner was confirmed as Treasury Secretary the Dems tried to pass off a few more nominee mea culpas before abandoning the whole “They didn’t know the gun was loaded” defense and forced the high powered tax cheats to fall on their swords and quietly fade away.

Then they tried to claim that they were the victim of partisan politics when Republicans en mass refused to support the $1.2 trillion in new earmark riddled spending. But rather than keeping the particulars of those packages in view long enough to let the public consciousness seize the euphoria of hope and change, allowing John Q. Citizen to actually begin reading the line items of this fallacious financial free-for-all, they decided to abandon that publicity stunt as well. “We need to put an end to the partisanship in Washington” swiftly faded into “We just need to move on”.

Now comes the new president’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel with the latest edition of victim lamentation. And it’s not even a politician or official member of the opposing party that is causing such lachrymose. The newest target in the Democrat’s cross hairs is the conservative intransigent Rush Limbaugh.

Not that Limbaugh hasn’t been the target of Democrat disparagement before; I’m guessing his picture has been one of the most requested images in the Democrat character assassination firing range for a number of years. But that was when they were the underdog fighting against the oppression of those that would keep the sun from shining. It appears that Democrats now find themselves in the unfamiliar position of complete control of both the legislative and executive branches of government but still in need of retaining their status of victim.

Rahm Emanuel, the bare knuckles political pugilist of Chicago and Illinois Democrat politics, has taken the lead in attacking Limbaugh for openly admitting that he wants the new president’s socialistic agenda to fail. At a recent Conservative Political Action Committee, Limbaugh repeated his position saying “What is so strange about being honest and saying, I want Barack Obama to fail, if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?”

A conservative desiring failure of this most liberal president’s policies? Stop the presses!

For his part, Emanuel did the Sunday morning talk show circuit claiming “Our goal….is to continue to reach out, and it’s our desire that Republicans would work with us and try to be constructive rather than adopt a philosophy of somebody like Rush Limbaugh who is praying for failure” (cue ominous musical crescendo here).

After much haranguing about the Democrat’s desire to end partisanship and the president’s commitment to put an end to earmarks, when asked about the blatant partisanship displayed in the recent $412 billion dollar spending package added to the $1.2 trillion total in new earmarked spending Emanuel kept to the script and claimed that was yesterdays news and we need to just move on. That’s “last year’s business” he said. He was also remarkably quiet regarding the 16 earmark projects he is personally responsible for in this spending package. Among the projects bearing Emanuel’s name include a million dollars for the Chicago Adler Planetarium, another million for street rehabilitation in a strongly union Chicago suburb and money for a Children’s Museum. So much for an end to ramrod partisanship and earmarks.

The obvious intent of Democrats pinning the mantle of Republican spokesman on Limbaugh is clear. They have lost their convenient whipping boy in George Bush and now desperately need to remain victims in the eyes of the society of victims they have created as their loyal base. “We understand your struggle against oppression. We are oppressed too.” is the message they are trying to send. Pay no attention to the fact that Democrats have been in control of congress and therefore had ultimate control of the budget for the last two years prior to the current economic collapse.

It’s tough holding the reins of power where you are judged by your accomplishments or failures rather than your rhetoric. It’s hard being responsible.

Unless you can also be a victim.

If you listen to the Washington DC bureau of the Chicago Tribune you couldn’t help but think that the conservative right was falling apart from the inside out.

Tribune writer Frank James was apparently able to pull himself away from checking Sarah Palin’s underpants receipts from Victoria’s Secret and typing his story with one hand to write a piece quoting Mort Kondracke.

James seems to relish in reporting that Kondracke recently wrote a column for Roll Call, a DC newspaper for which Kondracke is executive editor, calling for conservatives to “fire Rush Limbaugh and his ilk” as the national voice of the conservative movement.

Calling Kondracke a Republican, James goes on to state that calls for Limbaugh’s removal have happened in the past but to no avail. “Maybe this time will be different” said James.

It is apparent that Mr. James has spent too much time checking Palin’s expense report to have seen Mort Kondracke on his regular appearances on Fox News, or perhaps he doesn’t know what channel it’s on having never seen it. Anybody who has watched the discussions involving Kondracke knows that he is far from a Republican. Mort Kondracke is an avowed centrist who supports just about any fence sitter from either party. He regularly gets his fanny handed to him in the closing segment of the Fox News show because he frequently misstates actual events to support his ill-conceived hypothesis.

I don’t dislike Kondracke. As a matter of fact there are times when I actually feel sorry for him going up against such bright minds as Charles Krauthammer and looking completely foolish. The argument Kondracke uses in his column to oust Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are equally as embarrassing.

In his article titled “First Steps to GOP Recovery” Kondracke makes it sound as if the conservative movement in America has lost its relevance and is headed for a bleak and painful death. Then again he said the same thing about the liberal wing of the Democratic Party a few years ago. That, of course, was before the Democrats were able to elect the most liberal President in the history of the country.

Kondracke notes that Republicans lost minority and Latino voters this past election without taking into consideration the fact that a minority was running as the Democrat. As I’ve said before, the Republicans could have run Abraham Lincoln against Obama and lost minority and Latino votes. The story also goes on to show just how ridiculous supposedly smart people can be when they think that by silencing the messenger they will silence the message.

If conservatives didn’t agree with the ideas of these commentators they wouldn’t support them. Limbaugh is the most listened to radio host in the country; Seam Hannity has his national radio show along with his now solo one hour show on Fox News television. Laura Ingraham has a nationally syndicated radio show and according to tracking polls is the 5th most listened to personality on the radio. Limbaugh alone makes tens of millions of dollars every year from advertisers looking to get a piece of the Limbaugh pie. These people are not paid by tax dollars. They are all paid by advertisers because they have huge audiences. Does Mort think that by pulling them off the air the audience’s viewpoints will magically change?

The whole thing would border on the preposterous if Kondracke actually believed it, but I have some serious doubts about his sincerity. I think it is far more likely that Kondracke saw an opportunity to get his share of national attention and sell more newspapers. And to that end he was probably successful.

Why would I doubt Mr. Kondracke’s veracity?

Here is a look at the headline from the piece he wrote today – “Believe It or Not, Rush Limbaugh Was Right on Stimulus”.

I’m guessing Mr. Frank James and the Washington DC bureau of the Chicago Tribune missed that one.

They’re probably busy with inspecting Panty-gate receipts again.

I’m guessing that was the line used by teachers at the Edison Middle school in Green Bay as they began to listen to the school PA system piping in their local WTAQ radio station for coverage of the Obama presidential inauguration.

WTAQ is the local station that carries the Rush Limbaugh radio program for the greater Green Bay area. Either unaware of this fact or for some other reason the school chose to tune to WTAQ for the coverage. Having not been in Green Bay at the time I can’t say for certain that WTAQ was the only radio station carrying the inauguration, but my guess is that they could have tuned in the festivities on just about any frequency number up and down the AM dial.

Anybody familiar with the Limbaugh program knows that he often interjects his own comments into live feeds of news coverage. He has done it on numerous occasions in the past and as could be expected did the same during the swearing in ceremony.

As the young students, faculty and administrators listened to the oath of office being administered they heard Limbaugh make the comment “There it is, folks! There it is: history in the making, with a botched oath”. From the reaction that this comment has created throughout the mainstream media it is unlikely the Republic will be able to recover.

I do not agree with El Rushbo on everything he says or all the positions he takes, but I appreciate him above all other conservative commentators for two main reasons. First, I get the humor and tongue in cheek comments. It may be a little dry or wry for some people but I get it and I enjoy it. Secondly, and for me most importantly, Limbaugh and his staff are never short of facts. The opinions Rush proposes on his show are usually backed up by a cornucopia of facts, both current and historic, that support his viewpoint. I have never heard him raise his voice in anger or create a shouting match with his intended target or with someone expressing a dissenting view.

In stark contrast I hearken back to the sad display on the O’Reilly Factor between the host and Congressman Barney Frank. The shouting match that ensued made for a comical video clip but the entire purpose of exposing Frank’s responsibility for his videotaped support of the Democrat blocking of oversight into Fannie May and Freddie Mac was lost . I firmly believe had Limbaugh conducted that interview the American people would have been given an opportunity to see the truth rather than a school yard cat fight. But it is exactly for that reason Big Barney would never agree to an on-air interview by Limbaugh.

Limbaugh’s innocuous yet factual comment regarding the glitch in the delivery of the oath of office is being widely and wildly criticized by the majority of alleged news organizations. Limbaugh is being blamed for the fact that his radio program was tuned in and turned on as if it was done by his own hand.

I would hope that WTAQ was chosen as the Edison Middle School radio station of choice out of ignorance to the fact that it was actually the Limbaugh Show on the air. My fear is that there is a deeper ulterior motive.

I shudder to think that this may actually be used as a means to further promote the latest and greatest in free speech gun laws, the Fairness Act.

The inappropriately named Fairness Act is the Democrats attempt to silence free speech by forcing media outlets to “balance” conservative speech with an equal amount of liberal counterpoints. Never mind the fact that these media outlets are private enterprises that survive solely on advertising revenue, and if liberal talk radio was profitable they would already be doing it. If you don’t believe that liberal radio is a bad business model just look at the books of Air America.

The very un “Fairness Act” is like a gun law in that it assigns blame to the product and unconstitutionally attempts to restrict it. Democrats are desperate to silence dissent and will use any means necessary to do so. As we progress further into the new era of hopes and dreams that desperation will only increase as tangible results will replace rhetoric as the unit of measure of success.

To be sure, Rush Limbaugh is a powerful force with a far reaching influence. But his reach is not far enough to turn on the radio at Edison Middle School and his power is only in the facts he reports and ideas he presents.

For the record, the oath was both historic and botched. That’s why the new president took it a second time the next day.

The outrage should not be about what was said on the Limbaugh program, but rather why these educators are so upset by him simply stating a fact.

Seems kinda silly, eh.