Diane West - First they came for Rush Limbaugh

Diane West's column in the Washington Examiner on Sunday, 18 October 2009, bears some serious thought.  Rush Limbaugh has been demonized by the leftist press and race hustlers such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  But, Keith Olbermann not only has a nightly spot on MSNBC, but he also is co-host of NBC's Football Night in America prior to Sunday Night Football.  This non-distracting paragon of virtue has done the following:

• Said Rush Limbaugh's claim that he had paved the way for Glenn Beck "is like congratulating yourself for spreading syphilis."
• Attacked Michelle Malkin this last week by saying "total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk, fascistic hatred without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it."

Such a man is supported by the NFL, but Rush Limbaugh would be too divisive and inappropriate.  Diane West says that this characterization of Limbaugh by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay marks "the day the demonization of conservatism achieved not consensus, but normalcy, and the day the marginalization of conservatives became not a public sport but a civic duty."

She goes on to say that "Limbaugh's critics were so desperate to make a racism charge stick, to tag Limbaugh as untouchably 'controversial,' that they resorted to demonstrable lies -- statements Limbaugh never made -- and purposely un-documentable innuendo."

But with the successful transformation of Limbaugh the potential team owner into Limbaugh the expendable "distraction," his brand of opposition -- a plain-speaking adherence to a conservatism best described as Reaganesque -- has been judged unfit, unworthy even, for the sports-loving mainstream and sentenced to the margins.

And that is what is most disturbing about this story.  Conservatism in our time has been publicly defined as extremism.