“Too much at stake.”
“Unbelievable.”
“This is wrong. I don’t feel good about this.”
“Really depressing to think what could happen.”
Those were some of the more dramatic reactions from the ESPN team covering last night’s controversial ending to the NFL’s “Monday Night Football” game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers.
On his Tuesday broadcast, conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh said there is much of that reaction that is applicable to America’s political culture.
“Now you know how we [conservatives] feel watching the mainstream media every day.”
“Here’s the thing: Look, folks, you know me, I mean there’s no bigger football fan than El Rushbo,” Limbaugh said. “You know that. I got up today, and I see that the No. 1 subject on Twitter is this game last night. Everything going on, there are more people, for example, talking about this game last night than vote on ‘American Idol.’ And I got to thinking about, what’s everybody mad about? The referees are incompetent. Well, as I said yesterday, doesn’t Obama say give everybody a fair shot? Doesn’t Obama say we must be tolerant? Doesn’t Obama, and the left in general, don’t they promote the advancement of the incompetent based on the fact that they’re incompetent? Screw standards in testing. We don’t need to go find the best. That’s unfair, in fact. In fact, if somebody’s better than somebody else, we’re going to penalize them. Outcome-based education — remember that? Two plus two is five. It is, if you think so, rather than humiliate you and tell you you’re wrong.”
And when those standards are tampered with for sake of fulfilling an ideology, outcomes like last night’s game are the result, he said.
“The left has been messing up with standards,” Limbaugh said. “They don’t like standards, particularly standards of excellence, because not everybody attains it, and they want equality of outcome. So here we, but here’s another thing. How many of you — and I’m serious, now — how many of you are genuinely livid over this?”
Limbaugh compared the sentiment of those upset about last night’s bad call to what he considered another unfair arbiter — the news media covering conservative politics.
“Why are they upset? Because the referees are not people that know what they’re doing,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference. If the referees are cheating or if they’re incompetent, the fact is they’re still getting it wrong and somebody’s ending up with the short end of the stick every Sunday, in at least very game at least one or two times.”
“And driving in this morning, something hit me,” he continued. You and I and every conservative — and I don’t want to make too big a deal out of this, but I think it’s a good analogy — you and I every day of the week for the last 50 years have dealt with this. You people out there who are livid over the incompetence of these refs, livid over that call last night, welcome to the real world. Now you know how we feel watching the mainstream media every day.”
And that, he said, was done purposefully to effect outcomes, particularly in the contest between President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
“The mainstream media purposely gets things wrong, purposely doesn’t call Obama out on his mistakes, purposely tries to paint Romney or any conservative in a bad light, joins the effort to destroy the careers of conservatives, oftentimes,” he said. “And there’s nothing we can do about it. And we’re told don’t complain because it isn’t manly, it isn’t mature, it’s reality — you got to deal with it and move on. Well, hello.”