I confess: I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. My interest in pro sports is pretty much limited to whether or not anything good comes out of the big game’s annual crop of Super Bowl commercials. We got a couple winners this year, but Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has declared one ad not only a failure, but an outrage, as well.

Pepsi ran this commercial, in which a black man on a park bench smiles at a pretty white woman who sits down nearby, and his wife angrily throws a Pepsi Max can at his head, which instead hits the woman when he ducks.

Lee’s reaction:

“In this month of African-American history where we’re trying to celebrate what is good and great, it certainly seems ridiculous that Pepsi would utilize this kind of humor,” she said. “It was not humorous. It was demeaning — an African-American woman throwing something at an African-American male and winding up hitting a Caucasian woman.”

Jackson Lee said she has a sense of humor and believes in the First Amendment. She also said the Super Bowl is a great time for “fellowship” with family members.

“That is why I’m so disappointed with the Pepsi advertisement that showed a demeaning role for African American women, in an ad that showed a can being thrown and being utilized to wound someone else or hit someone else,” she said.

“I think that we can come together in a much better way, sell Pepsi, and as well talk about good nutrition,” she said. “But, frankly, I consider this insulting, and so did many other women of all colors.”

Many? Name five. It’s a little hard to pin down the Congresswoman’s objection—is she coming down on the very concept of slapstick humor, or simply that Pepsi would dare depict black people up to the same sort of shenanigans that America has been laughing at white people doing for years? Is it that the woman’s victim wasn’t also black? Is it that a woman was depicted as a violent hothead? (And while Lee doesn’t allude to this, some other, really radical black leftists would also likely complain about seeing a black man attracted to a white woman. Wasn’t the goal a color-blind society?)

While Shelia Jackson Lee and whoever keeps sending her to Washington were freaking out, sane people instantly recognized that the commercial was playing with one of the oldest, most common tropes in comedy: the jealous wife whose impulsive attempts to punish her husband’s wandering eye get them both in trouble. Normal people who watch this sort of thing don’t fixate on the skin colors of the actors, or stop to think, “How dare they suggest I’d act like that!” or “Hey, they’re legitimizing violence!” Among normal people, the ad most likely elicited lighthearted warnings from wives and girlfriends to their significant others to watch their step.

Sheila Jackson Lee is right that Super Bowl Sunday is an opportunity for friends and family to come together, but in going nuts over an innocuous bit of entertainment, all she’s ended up doing is sowing division.

I confess: I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. My interest in pro sports is pretty much limited to whether or not anything good comes out of the big game’s annual crop of Super Bowl commercials. We got a couple winners this year, but Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has declared one ad not only a failure, but an outrage, as well.

Pepsi ran this commercial, in which a black man on a park bench smiles at a pretty white woman who sits down nearby, and his wife angrily throws a Pepsi Max can at his head, which instead hits the woman when he ducks.

Lee’s reaction:

“In this month of African-American history where we’re trying to celebrate what is good and great, it certainly seems ridiculous that Pepsi would utilize this kind of humor,” she said. “It was not humorous. It was demeaning — an African-American woman throwing something at an African-American male and winding up hitting a Caucasian woman.”

Jackson Lee said she has a sense of humor and believes in the First Amendment. She also said the Super Bowl is a great time for “fellowship” with family members.

“That is why I’m so disappointed with the Pepsi advertisement that showed a demeaning role for African American women, in an ad that showed a can being thrown and being utilized to wound someone else or hit someone else,” she said.

“I think that we can come together in a much better way, sell Pepsi, and as well talk about good nutrition,” she said. “But, frankly, I consider this insulting, and so did many other women of all colors.”

Many? Name five. It’s a little hard to pin down the Congresswoman’s objection—is she coming down on the very concept of slapstick humor, or simply that Pepsi would dare depict black people up to the same sort of shenanigans that America has been laughing at white people doing for years? Is it that the woman’s victim wasn’t also black? Is it that a woman was depicted as a violent hothead? (And while Lee doesn’t allude to this, some other, really radical black leftists would also likely complain about seeing a black man attracted to a white woman. Wasn’t the goal a color-blind society?)

While Shelia Jackson Lee and whoever keeps sending her to Washington were freaking out, sane people instantly recognized that the commercial was playing with one of the oldest, most common tropes in comedy: the jealous wife whose impulsive attempts to punish her husband’s wandering eye get them both in trouble. Normal people who watch this sort of thing don’t fixate on the skin colors of the actors, or stop to think, “How dare they suggest I’d act like that!” or “Hey, they’re legitimizing violence!” Among normal people, the ad most likely elicited lighthearted warnings from wives and girlfriends to their significant others to watch their step.

Sheila Jackson Lee is right that Super Bowl Sunday is an opportunity for friends and family to come together, but in going nuts over an innocuous bit of entertainment, all she’s ended up doing is sowing division.

Since today is the actual day of The Game We Dare Not Mention By Name For Copyright Reasons (let’s just say that it’s a bowl game that’s super), I thought it would be fun to take a look at the NFL.

Bill Maher had something to say about the NFL last week. In a terribly unfunny Huffington Post column, Mr. Subtlety made his case that the NFL is so successful and popular because it is basically a socialist organization. Or something like that:

With the Super Bowl only a week away, Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That’s right, for all the F-15 flyovers and flag waving, football is our most successful sport because the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poor teams… just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers.

…football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don’t want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they’d like it if some kids didn’t have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their Dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens “achieving the American dream” is easy for some, and just a fantasy for others.

That’s why the NFL runs itself in a way that would fit nicely on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard – they literally share the wealth, through salary caps and revenue sharing – TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it 32 ways. Because they don’t want anyone to fall too far behind. That’s why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call “punishing success.”

I think that we, on the Right, would more likely call it “a bizarre business model.” But whatever. It works. The fact that I’m writing about the NFL today instead of, say, Barclay’s Premier League Soccer speaks volumes. (Yeah, I’d never heard of Barclay’s either. I just saw it on ESPN’s Bottom Line.) But I digress.

The truth of the matter is that you’ll find plenty of NFL players and coaches who espouse conservative views or support candidates who are on the Right. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list, but it’s a good sampling of conservatives who have been part of the NFL.

We’ll start with a former player who lent his endorsement to some home state candidates…

Since today is the actual day of The Game We Dare Not Mention By Name For Copyright Reasons (let’s just say that it’s a bowl game that’s super), I thought it would be fun to take a look at the NFL.

Bill Maher had something to say about the NFL last week. In a terribly unfunny Huffington Post column, Mr. Subtlety made his case that the NFL is so successful and popular because it is basically a socialist organization. Or something like that:

With the Super Bowl only a week away, Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That’s right, for all the F-15 flyovers and flag waving, football is our most successful sport because the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poor teams… just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers.

…football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don’t want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they’d like it if some kids didn’t have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their Dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens “achieving the American dream” is easy for some, and just a fantasy for others.

That’s why the NFL runs itself in a way that would fit nicely on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard – they literally share the wealth, through salary caps and revenue sharing – TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it 32 ways. Because they don’t want anyone to fall too far behind. That’s why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call “punishing success.”

I think that we, on the Right, would more likely call it “a bizarre business model.” But whatever. It works. The fact that I’m writing about the NFL today instead of, say, Barclay’s Premier League Soccer speaks volumes. (Yeah, I’d never heard of Barclay’s either. I just saw it on ESPN’s Bottom Line.) But I digress.

The truth of the matter is that you’ll find plenty of NFL players and coaches who espouse conservative views or support candidates who are on the Right. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list, but it’s a good sampling of conservatives who have been part of the NFL.

We’ll start with a former player who lent his endorsement to some home state candidates…

After NFL commissioner Roger Goodell raised doubt about whether Rush Limbaugh should be permitted to become a partial owner of the St. Louis Rams, Rush was dropped from the consortium seeking to purchase the Rams:

“I’ve said many times before we’re all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about,” Goodell said at a league owners meeting. “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not.”

Meanwhile, it turns out that the radical leftist George Soros, the mult-billionaire financier of the Shadow Demcratic Party, has caused no similar objections in his reported bid to become an NFL team owner.  Yet, as discussed last night on Sean Hannity’s America, Soros admitted to being a Nazi collaborator in his youth and, as an adult, does not look back with any guilt about what he did. 

From a December 20, 1998 “60 Minutes” interview Soros did with CBS News’ Steve Kroft:

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

Mr. SOROS: Not–not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t–you don’t see the connection. But it was–it created no–no problem at all.

KROFT: No feeling of guilt?

Mr. SOROS: No.

Soros’ crimes have turned from Nazi collaboration as a youth to the financial world as an adult. He is a felon, having being convicted of insider trading in France in 2002.

Soros’ left-wing views are far more extreme than anything that Rush Limbaugh has espoused on the right.  But that is not the issue.  Neither Soros nor Limbaugh should be denied the economic opportunity to use their money to purchase an NFL team or to use their money for any other lawful purpose. However, Soros is apparently being given a free pass  by the NFL owners’ cartel regarding his Nazi collaborationist past for which he still feels no guilt, as well as for his felony conviction. Rush, on the other hand, has been blackballed for nothing more than what he said on the radio – and even for things he never said but for which he was falsely accused.

It is time to investigate the NFL cartel and remove its antitrust  exemption under The Sports Broadcasting Act, which has allowed the NFL to continue to negotiate collectively for TV rights.  They have abused their exemption in blackballing an American-born citizen for simply expressing his controversial views on the air.

Quarterback Donovan McNabb, whom Rush Limbaugh said was "overrated"

In today’s NewsReal, Paul Cooper and Joseph Klein have offered some fine analyses of how the leftist media have willfully distorted Rush Limbaugh’s views about race. Those views have suddenly become newsworthy because of Rush’s current effort to purchase the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams, whose roster, like the rosters of NFL teams generally, is mostly black. Six years ago Rush was excoriated for his infamous on-air observation that the media were overrating the skills of then-Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb because of their own desire to see an African American dominate the quarterback position. At the time, high-profile leftists like Al Sharpton and Howard Dean called for Limbaugh to be fired immediately.

Less well known — in fact, scarcely known at all — is the fact that soon thereafter a white member of the print media made precisely the same points as Rush had made, yet unlike Rush, he was not smeared as some kind of narrow-minded racist who resented the success of a black athlete. The writer was Allen Barra, and his piece, titled “Rush Limbaugh Was Right,”  appeared in Slate – hardly an organ of conservative thought. The article is well worth a read, even six years later. Some of Barra’s money quotes include the following:

“… In his notorious ESPN comments last Sunday night, Rush Limbaugh said he never thought the Philadelphia Eagles’ Donovan McNabb was ‘that good of a quarterback.’

“If Limbaugh were a more astute analyst, he would have been even harsher and said, ‘Donovan McNabb is barely a mediocre quarterback.’ But other than that, Limbaugh pretty much spoke the truth. Limbaugh lost his job for saying in public what many football fans and analysts have been saying privately for the past couple of seasons….

“In terms of performance, many NFL quarterbacks should be ranked ahead of McNabb. But McNabb has represented something special to all of us since he started his first game in the NFL, and we all know what that is.

“Limbaugh is being excoriated for making race an issue in the NFL. This is hypocrisy. I don’t know of a football writer who didn’t regard the dearth of black NFL quarterbacks as one of the most important issues in the late ’80s and early ’90s…. So far, no black quarterback has been able to dominate a league in which the majority of the players are black. To pretend that many of us didn’t want McNabb to be the best quarterback in the NFL because he’s black is absurd. To say that we shouldn’t root for a quarterback to win because he’s black is every bit as nonsensical as to say that we shouldn’t have rooted for Jackie Robinson to succeed because he was black….

“[I]t is equally absurd to say that the sports media haven’t overrated Donovan McNabb because he’s black. I’m sorry to have to say it; he is the quarterback for a team I root for. Instead of calling him overrated, I wish I could be admiring his Super Bowl rings. But the truth is that I and a great many other sportswriters have chosen for the past few years to see McNabb as a better player than he has been because we want him to be.

“Rush Limbaugh didn’t say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn’t say anything that he shouldn’t have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now. I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn’t hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?”

Bill O’Reilly was in good form last night, defending (against attacks by race-baiters) Rush Limbaugh’s right to c0-purchase a National Football League team, the St. Louis Rams.

O’Reilly’s guest on The Factor was a Detroit sportswriter who was unable to back up his claims that Limbaugh had made blatantly racist comments on his radio program.

Predictably, the practiced demagogue Al Sharpton is now getting into the act.  Sharpton reportedly wants to meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about Limbaugh, who Sharpton contends should not be allowed to buy the football team.

Sharpton has pointed out that back in 2003, when Limbaugh was working as an analyst for the ESPN sports network, the broadcaster opined that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was getting special treatment from the media because of his race.

Were Rush’s comments provactive?  Yes.  Racist? Absolutely not.

Rush was asserting that members of the press, for fear of being branded as racists, had been afraid to give an honest assessment of a player (McNabb) whose performance at that time was nothing special.

Ironically, Rush’s critics have typically embraced leftist policies like affirmative action, which have planted, in the minds of many Americans, seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of black achievements in many realms outside the world of sports. Yet when black conservatives such as Clarence Thomas have spoken out against affirmative action, they have been excoriated by leftists of all skin tones. Jesse Jackson, for one, condemned Thomas’s Supreme Court vote to place limits on affirmative action programs as:

“a brutally violent act” that, “in effect, stabbed Dr. King,… paving the way back toward slavery.”

Along with Al Sharpton, Jackson led a prayer vigil outside Thomas’s home to protest the Justice’s decision.  Likening Thomas to a Klansman, Jackson asserted:

“At night, the enemies of civil rights strike in white sheets, burning crosses…. By day, they strike in black robes”.

That’s certainly racially charged rhetoric, but I would defend Jackson’s right to express his views even while strongly opposing their content.  The last time I checked, this was still a free country.  Jackson can say what he wants.  Sharpton can say what he wants.  Black conservatives should be able to say what they want. And so should Rush Limbaugh, without being boycotted by the National Football League and prohibited from spending his own money on a football team.