That’s what Sports Illustrated asks. ESPN says:

An ESPN spokesman said Tuesday that Limbaugh doesn’t do interviews and added that he didn’t think the comments were racially biased.

“He was comparing McNabb’s performance on the field to his reputation in the media,” spokesman Dave Nagle said.

Nagle said that with Limbaugh on the show this season, ratings for Sunday NFL Countdown are up 10 percent overall, and 26 percent among the 18-to-34 male demographic. Sunday’s show drew its biggest audience in the regular season since November 1996.

“ESPN hired Limbaugh for his passion and his ability to express opinion and spark debate as a football fan,” Nagle said. “In just one month, he has certainly delivered.”

Wow. Twists your stomach doesn’t it?

Note: I updated the title of this post. I can’t stoop the same level as Limbaugh

More at slacktivist.

Rush Limbaugh goes and does what ESPN is paying him to do – encourage controversy at others expense. But guess what – I’m not tunning in. And I will encourage my friends and family to tune out in protest. Get this quote:

“I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL,”…”The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well; I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team, that he really didn’t deserve.”

Better yet: See it for yourself.

What bullshit is this?!? Read the rest by Les Bowen in The Daily News.

Phil Sheridan, in the Inquirer, lets Rush have it in one of the best takedowns of him I have read anywhere.

Here’s your mistake, Rush. You stepped out of your radio comfort zone, where “Dittoheads” either echo your twisted view of America or you can cut them off. You stepped into a place where your bluff – and that’s all it ever has been – is easily called.

The only thing tough about this is deciding where to begin. How about with “the media”?

Conservative sleight-of-hand artists like Limbaugh love to use the label “the media” (alternately “the liberal media”) as a kind of blanket insult. Well, guess what, Rush? You’ve got a nationally syndicated radio show. You have your own Web site. You had a national TV show. Now you’re on ESPN every Sunday morning.

You.

Are.

The.

Media.

Was that slow enough for you to grasp? You are the media. You’re a part of them, anyway. Just like this paper and the others that have covered McNabb since he came to the Eagles in 1999. Just like the radio stations that thrive on Eagles coverage and just like ESPN, which has set the bar for overpromoting athletes so high that no other outlet will ever come close to hitting it.

More at Atrios, Paddling to New Zealand, and The Rittenhouse Review.

Make sure to Let ESPN know how you feel! While he has a right to pontificate, you have a right to let the station know how you feel.

Oh, it’s in some papers (WashingtonPost), but it’s not registering on TV. Website postings are not enough.

There is meat to this story:

rc3.org
The Pennsylvania Gazette
Oiliver Willis
Daily Kos
Talking Points Memo
Political Wire
slacktivist
suburban guerrilla

Will the mainstream pick it up? Not simply as website updates, but during prime-time network news? Indepth? Or will it be a blurb to that comes and goes? Tonight will be telling.

Where were these candidates for governor during the regular election? Where was all this passion? How was it so bottled up? Where will it be after this is over?

Is this recall election a fad?!?!

I’m not a Californian and I’m talking out my ass. Maybe this NYTimes story can answer my questions. Probably not.

I realize to some that this news is a few days old, my weblogging schedule not what is once was. There is something you should know, if you are not aware…

The poverty threshold for a family of four is $18,392. For individuals the amount is $9,183. The percentage of people in severe poverty, those with incomes below half of the poverty threshold, increased to 14.1 million from 13.4 million.

That “threshold” is ridiculously low. In whose pipe-dream world is a family of four, earning $25k a year, no, even $30k a year, not in poverty?!? A family of four can live off of $18,392? What world is this? Oh – yeah – the third world!

The first thing any compassionate conservative should do is raise that threshold to a reasonable level. I would expect no less from any true liberal. If there are any anymore.

Read Nickel and Dimed for a dose of reality.

You know. The one that was on Fox. At 8PM the other day?

Answering to the news that “the United States is about to cut the number of employment visas it offers to highly qualified foreign workers from 195,000 to 65,000, Patrick Duffy, attorney in the human resources department at Intel Corp., said,

“We expect that we will continue to sponsor H-1B employees in the future for the simple reason that we cannot find enough U.S. workers with the advanced education, skills, and expertise we need,” he said.”

How about more investment in public education?

I am very impressed with Microsoft’s commitment to fund a High School here in Philly.