This will raise some eyebrows:
VV: I’m curious. What did you think of the Rush Limbaugh incident? I wrote an article [in Slate] essentially in support of what Limbaugh said, that Donovan McNabb was in fact overrated and that a lot of sportswriters were rooting for him to succeed because he was black. I admitted that it was certainly true in my case. My liberal friends were horrified. Several of them won’t speak to me now. That’s certainly an indication that in one form or another, the subject of race is still a hot button in sports.
LR: I think that’s true, and I thought of that when I heard about what Limbaugh said. Of course a lot of people, myself included, rooted for black ballplayers because they were black. I don’t know why that should be considered a controversial statement. That leads, inevitably, to overrating certain players. I’m not defending Limbaugh’s politics, but I think he just said out loud what some people were thinking. I don’t see anything particularly wrong with it.
VV is Allan Barra of the Village Voice, LR is Lester Rodney, described in the piece as “the sports columnist and sports editor for The Daily Worker, the largest and most influential Communist newspaper in the U.S. For more than a decade he was one of the leading agitators for the breaking of baseball’s color barrier.”
Communists to the defense of Rush Limbaugh. It’s a mad, mad, world out there.
(Via Max Sawicky)
Moe Lane
1) It is, indeed, a mad, mad world out there.
2) The Sawicky link doesn’t seem to be to the right post, but I didn’t see one that fit (on an admittedly quick scan).
3) It is, indeed, a mad, mad world out there. Just thought that I’d mention it twice. :)
greg
I’m still laughing at the fact that a communist newspaper has a sports section.
David Perron
I’m finding it a bit odd that promoting people to any extent because of race is completely unacceptable on the Left. Unless it’s done covertly, that is. Then it’s mandatory.
Francis W. Porretto
Ideological publications seldom do have sports pages, for two reasons:
1) It would take space away from rants about the ideology;
2) The sportswriters would sprain their brains trying to work the ideology into their reportage on the games.
Conservative commentator Florence King once wrote a description of the cooking and eating of a hard-boiled egg in the style of a pornographer. It was so funny that it was a life-threatening experience to read it. Someone should try writing the story of a tense baseball or football game in the style of a Marxist polemicist. (Or a libertarian polemicist, for that matter. Only the adjectives would change.)
Moe Lane
Objectivist home repair shows – or better yet, garden/landscaping shows.
Kimmitt
Rush was right, but he’s still a bigotted asshole.
I am torn between my knowledge that jail time is still an inappropriate response to addiction and the fact that if Rush is forced to endure Federal prison, that fact might result in badly needed reform of our drug laws, thus saving thousands of others from that fate. I’m glad I don’t have any say in that decision; what a Faustian bargain I’d be dealing with.
Kathy K
I think I need to go buy some meds on a streetcorner somewhere. I must need them. I have just found myself completely agreeing with Kimmitt.