(Watching the New Orleans Saints whip the New York Giants yesterday was like watching your best friend get beat down on a playground. You want to help, but you’re glad you didn't. ‘Cuz you know you would have caught a beat down, too.)
Rush Limbaugh was punted from a group of businessmen se
eking to buy the NFL’s St. Louis Rams franchise and I let out a cheer.Limbaugh is an ignorant and divisive blowhard when it comes to race, politics and culture and there’s no place for him in a game and industry allegedly based on hard work, teamwork, merit, fair play and diversity.
I also would like NBC to bar Keith Olbermann from having anything to do with Sunday Night Football. He knows the game, no doubt. I was a fan of his when he and Dan Patrick were together on ESPN. However, Olbermann has moved from sports to politics and has settled nicely into the role of essentially being the left wing’s version of Bill O’Reilly, which is fine during the week.
However, from noon Sunday until midnight Monday, football dominates the landscape, transcending the boundaries of politics, race, gender and ethnicity. During the Sunday night game on NBC, I do not want to be reminded that America is divided on health care reform, the war, the economy.
I watch football to escape. I want Coach Tony Dungy to explain the intricacies of the Cover-2 defense. I want Rodney Harrison’s take on blowing up the Wild Cat offense. I want to watch old players and geeky fans quarrel about the best teams, quarterbacks, etc.
Rush and Olbermann are polarizing personalities and I think they are fine for the swamps that pass for cable news networks. In the electronic bog, they can spew their rhetoric and quip all they want without ruining my game.
I don’t like my politics and sports to intersect unless we can get Rush and Obermann to duke it out in an iron cage match.
The winner takes on Nancy Grace.
God help the winner.
