Fallout of the NFL’s Rush Shutout

A liberal friend writes to ask, so what’s the big deal about the NFL’s rejection of Rush Limbaugh?

So one quote wasn’t true–somebody did some lousy research, or, yes, worse, made it up. But what about the rest?

This line of defense has become familiar from those who would defend the NFL exclusion. So let me try to explain why the defense will only enflame and intensify the outrage on the conservative side.

As conservatives see it, the manufacture of racial hoaxes has grown into a lively little cottage industry over the past couple of decades.

This John Leo column summarizes a barrage of incidents in 1999-2000,

Here’s a list of incidents in 2006-2007.

The fall of 2007 was a particularly rich season, with three dramatic incidents in October and November:

• A black professor at Columbia Teachers’ College who had been accused of plagiarism hung a noose on the door of her own office. She used the incident to accuse the university of institutional racism.
• A Jewish student at George Washington University drew swastikas and racial slurs on the door of her own dorm room.
• November 2007: a Baltimore black firefighter under investigation for cheating on his qualifying exam likewise hung a noose in his firehall, prompting a federal civil rights investigation.

The back-to-school season in 2008 likewise inspired a black undergraduate at Trinity College, Connecticut, posing as a white, to post racially inflammatory comments in a student web forum. The comments prompted 200 students and faculty to join a campus rally against racism the following day.

That same month, a Muslim girl at Elmhurst College falsely claimed to have been assaulted and pistol whipped.

Altogether, we are looking at a roster of perhaps a hundred incidents over the past decade. Sometimes these incidents result in disciplinary action (the girl in the pistol whipping was expelled from school and faces charges of filing a false police report). As often, the disciplinary actions dribble away without consequences.

The pattern was set by the most spectacular of all fake hate crimes: the Tawana Brawley case of 1987. (For those who have forgotten the details, Wikipedia (for once!) has a reasonably reliable and fair account of the incident here.

And who was the co-author of the Tawana Brawley hoax? The then-obscure Al Sharpton, along with Alton Maddox and Vernon Mason, New York City lawyers. And who has now joined the fake-evidence charge against Limbaugh? Al Sharpton once more – now a respectable member of society, a participant in Democratic presidential debates, and a solemnly consulted television guest.

At a time when liberals and Democrats from President Carter on down are suggesting that opposition to President Obama is racially motivated, this Limbaugh incident vividly highlights to conservatives how often accusations of racism are concocted for political purposes.

More than a few conservatives will suspect that the White House political operation was somehow involved in the Limbaugh-NFL story. Conservatives are busily convincing themselves that the Obama White House uses the most outrageous thug tactics against its political opponents. Sean Hannity has repeatedly suggested on air that Obama critics will face audits by the Internal Revenue Service.

(By the way: In the Hannity mental universe, I probably count as a RINO, if not an outright Obama apologist: “Vichy Republican” is the disgusting phrase used by some in the right blogosphere. Yet as it happens, I am being audited by the IRS this year myself. Where do I file my application for status as a conservative martyr?)