Rush and Reality Don't Mix

This isn't the leftist Hollywood regime doing the dissing. It's not special interest groups or lobbyists trying to persecute the right. The socialist communist hippie-loving media has nothing to do with the latest slap to Rush Limbaugh's substantial face. This is the NFL. The owners. The players. The business. They don't want Rush Limbaugh to be an owner of the St. Louis Rams or any NFL franchise.

A story like this exposes Rush for what he is: a melodramatic caricature of the Republican Party whose sensational opinions and exaggerated tactics have become untethered from reality.

Rush Limbaugh is a professional incendiary in the same mold as Vince McMahon and the chest-beating, steroid-ridden hulks who wrestle for him. He is an entertainer, a promoter, a showman whose business depends on controversy. And that's all well and good when the audience willingly suspends disbelief to give credence to their overblown senses of moral outrage toward the heels and inspiration drawn from the downtrodden champions of America. You can forgive the WWE its over-the-top shtick because (believe it or not) the majority of their fans know perfectly well it's fake.

But way too many Rush fans and detractors don't realize he's an act. They don't realize the conservative muscles he's flexing have been enhanced by a little drug called Showbiz. This sad truth became painfully evident when Rush's name entered the public discussion as a possible head of the GOP. The Repubs might as well have called on Dr. Drake Ramore from Days of Our Lives, because Rush ain't a real person. He's just a character on the radio.

Rush's fictional quantity comes into sharp relief when he tries to enter an industry where the main commodity is something other than opinionated shock and awe. He didn't last a month as an ESPN analyst for Sunday NFL Countdown. And he didn't last a week as a potential minority owner of the St. Louis Rams before another team's owner (and a host of players) said, No thanks.

This has nothing to do with Limbaugh's stance on the issues. Wait, what am I saying; Rush is fictitious! This has nothing to do with the stances on issues Rush Limbaugh pretends to have. It's simply a matter of fact that no business wants to be that closely associated with a guy whose primary goal in life is to get rich by making people mad.

Let's get it straight. Rush Limbaugh: not real. Glenn Beck: fake as Formica. Keith Olbermann: manufactured in the land of make believe. Feel free to be entertained by these people. But please don't call them informative. That's like going to Triple H for advice on conflict resolution.

So please, Rush, go on back to your little pretend island where being an opinionated, fire-breathing rabble rouser is viewed as heroic. Even the NFL's gargantuan gladiators who tackle and crush each other for a living find you too disruptive for their reality. Too bad the XFL went out of business.