By Gregg Doyel - CBSSports.com National Columnist --
Once upon a time Leonard Little drank until he was sloppy drunk, got into his Lincoln Navigator and killed a woman in a crash. He was sentenced to three months in jail for involuntary manslaughter, then served most of his four years of probation as a St. Louis Ram. Today he has a contract worth $19.5 million.
So here's my question:
Leonard Little can make a fortune as a defensive end for the Rams... but Rush Limbaugh can't sign his paycheck?
Don't get caught up in the minutiae of the Leonard Little analogy, either. My point isn't that Little should be eradicated from the NFL. Had he committed his crime under the watch of commissioner Roger Goodell, Little would've faced a different penalty than the eight-game suspension he received in 1999. He might have been suspended a whole year, like Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth, who is sitting out the season following his guilty plea in June for DUI manslaughter.
Stallworth will return next season. The Browns aren't sure they'll take him, but someone will. So here's my question:
Donte' Stallworth will be allowed into the NFL in 2010 ... but Rush Limbaugh won't?
That doesn't make sense to me, and I'm not a Limbaugh guy. No need to belabor that point, but I'm not. I don't listen to his radio show, I don't agree with his political views, and I don't understand why million of people would do either of those two things. But they do, and to each his own. It's a free country.
Or it was, until Rush Limbaugh joined the ownership group looking to buy the St. Louis Rams. Now, this country isn't free any more. It's free only if we like your viewpoints, or if we consider them to be something better than "divisive," which is the politically correct catchphrase being used to describe Limbaugh. He's "divisive," and on Wednesday he was bounced from the prospective Rams ownership group. Why? Because the blowing wind says the NFL shouldn't allow someone so "divisive" into its midst.
Never mind that Michael Vick turned Lassie into lunch, feeding family pets to ravenous pit bulls to stoke his fighting dogs' bloodlust, and after being convicted and imprisoned Vick was allowed back into the NFL. That wasn't "divisive," apparently. Millions of people in this country own dogs or were horrified by Vick's crimes, or both, but he wasn't "divisive" enough to be kept out of the NFL.
But Limbaugh is. Because words have power.
Barf.
I'm not attacking Vick. Nor am I defending Limbaugh. I'm attacking, and defending, America. And now that you've read this far, you're starting to waver, right? I understand that you started this story in complete disagreement with the premise. I do. On the surface, the idea of race-baiting Rush Limbaugh owning part of an NFL team is so absurd, so ludicrous, that it seems offensive. My reaction after hearing the news last week was a desire to write an angry screed condemning him as an owner and daring the NFL to stand up to the bully. My reaction was visceral, and instinctive. It's probably a lot like yours.
But I wrote nothing, and time has passed, and the extra time allowed me to think -- not react, but think. Contemplate. Ask myself what it would mean for Limbaugh to be allowed to own the Rams, and more importantly, what it would mean for him to not be allowed.
And the latter part scares me.
Not allowing Limbaugh to own the Rams because people disagree with his politics, or because they disagree with the hyperbolic way he expresses his politics, is frightening. Not today, of course. Today it's fine because our capitalistic free market is closing its doors on the "divisive" Limbaugh -- but tomorrow it could close its doors on me. Or on you.
Do you see? Not to get all sixth-grade civics class on you, but either you have principles or you don't. If you have principles only when those principles are on your side, guess what? You don't have principles.
Never mind that the Rams would've been a disaster under Limbaugh's ownership. Players with meaningful options elsewhere -- white and black players alike -- surely would have avoided St. Louis. The franchise would've been left with whatever free agents were left, probably turning the already awful Rams into a Double-A team compared to the rest of the NFL's major leagues.
Or not. Maybe the Rams would have won with Dave Checketts and Limbaugh. Maybe they would have overcome. Who really knows? The point is, the NFL has allowed killers and dogfighters to play. The NFL has allowed drug-deal facilitators like Jamal Lewis and drunken drivers like Jared Allen and wife-abusers like Michael Pittman and head-stompers like Albert Haynesworth and recidivist criminals like Pacman Jones and Chris Henry and Tank Johnson. But the NFL won't allow Rush Limbaugh?
Because of his divisive words?
