Why Rush Must Sue
by Bob Parks
Conservatives, Dittoheads in particular, make many demands of Rush Limbaugh. He’s considered a spokesman and a champion of their political philosophy, and one who articulates it to millions every day. But now that he’s been dropped by a group seeking to acquire the St. Louis Rams football team because of statements taken out of context (and in this case, simply made up), he needs to punch them all in the mouth.
li·bel
2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means (3) : the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4) : the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel
Obviously, this is what we have here.
Whether it be football players reciting or reacting to statements made by so-called media professionals that cannot be fully attributed anywhere, Rush Limbaugh needs to take this to the next level because if the media (that berates “bloggers” for not having editors of “filters”) believes they can just pull an incendiary quote out of the air and make it stick to someone who never said it, no one is safe, especially coming from thin-skinned news anchors and pundits who believe they’re shielded from retribution simply because they are the press.
So why should Rush sue? Because he can probably prove some serious damages.
All one has to do is look at what the monetary worth of the-then St. Louis Lambs was, and contrast that with what the Rams were worth in the days when they were “The Greatest Show on Turf”. We could be talking billions of dollars in increased and higher-priced ticket sales, merchandising, television rights for local broadcasts, increased national exposure on Sunday and Monday nights.
Because Rush’s partners jettisoned him and the baggage the media thrown his way, even as a minority partner, the potential monetary losses could be huge.
With that, he’d need to go after everyone who repeated the “slavery” quote, including the man who orginally composed it, the media entities who ran it without checking it’s authenticity, the news and sports punditry who publicly reacted to (and based negative opinions on) the false quotes, the commissioner of the National Football league and Indianapolis Colts owner who publicly declared Rush Limbaugh guilty before proven innocent, and at least admonish those players (whom he had the most admiration of) who accepted that guilty charge and made their own pre-trial closing statements.
In order to clear his name, and as we’re talking the potential loss of serious millions, Rush Limbaugh could conceivably own a significant part of CNN, MSNBC, and toss a lot of irresponsible hacks out on their asses. That’s how much we could be talking about.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson cannot be allowed to continue dictating what good taste and permissible speech in America is. Just the fact he said he was going to talk to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the situation is laughable. Who is Sharpton to get an audience in the first place, just because he decided to interject himself into a manufactured controversy after the media called their favorite race-issue consultant?
And as I said earlier, if Rush doesn’t take these lying slanderers out back once and for all, they will do it again to anyone with a Republican last initial.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism professors (moonlighting as cable news experts) cannot be allowed to go to any old website containing a post with no attribution and use that as a basis for character assassination. Partisan pundits can’t hide behind freedom-of-the-press to repeat false quotes just because they don’t like another persons’ success at articulating an opposing point of view.
Race hustlers cannot be allowed to interject themselves into a false controversy and anoint themselves as speech arbiters, especially when they were given a pass on false comments (including ones that cost people their careers.
News anchors cannot be allowed to work on a news set after they knowingly read a false quote and their way of apologizing is to ring up other quotes out of context. The very football players, who claim to be this potential victim of a Rush Limbaugh, can’t just go to the media and repeat false quotes because of what could’ve been.
The media also has to believe in fairness and equality.
Should any media personality decide to go back and create a story based on fabrications, they should also be worried about their own skeletons, right Mr. Sanchez? They are the first to get all bent when they receive criticism for malicious damage of someone else’s reputation. They’re always too good to apologize; it’s beneath them.
Now’s the time for them to find out what it’s like to have your life destroyed. It’s time for the message to be sent that the arena of ideas is just that. Should they decide to play loose with the rules, they must suffer the same consequences as the dozens of others they’ve had their way with.
Rush Limbaugh has an obligation, not only to us but himself, to sue everybody involved in this sham.
