Starting in left field, Keith Olbermann: He's embraced by MLB and the NFL while Limbaugh was shunned

Via-Daily News

S,E Cupp

There are three occasions upon which I feel the most patriotic.

One is always when I return to the United States from a trip abroad. Another is when I vote. And the third is when I attend a baseball game.

Nothing says "America" like our national pastime. For a few yawning hours, chronological time becomes primordial time, and within those walls of sacred stadiums, space becomes holy. And the Boys of Summer do what they've been doing for nearly two centuries. They play ball.

But over the years, nefarious characters have threatened to sully baseball's good name. Chick Gandil persuaded the Chicago White Sox to throw a few games back in 1919. Peter Edward Rose had a bit of a gambling problem. And, of course, there's everyone's favorite recovering opportunist - Jose Canseco, the Danny Bonaduce of baseball - and the long line of performance-enhancing abusers from Mark McGwire to you-know-who.

Now there's another menace lurking in the shadows of the dugout, someone so ugly, so vindictive, so polarizing that with every word he utters he is bastardizing whatever sanctity remains of the game.

His name is Keith Olbermann.

Last week, From the Right Radio, a small, grass-roots broadcast outfit based in Indiana, launched a Web site called RespectTheGreatGame.com to bring attention to the fact that Olbermann (pictured above), one of MSNBC's most controversial commentators, is blogging for MLB.com, the official Web site of Major League Baseball.

There you can sign a petition asking Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig why, exactly, "America's pastime is working with hate speech merchant Keith Olbermann."

If you think this sounds a little fringy and paranoid, well, you be the judge.

Olbermann accused then-President George W. Bush of being on a "Nazi kick" and foisting "fake threats" on a "frightened nation." He's called conservative commentator Michelle Malkin "a big, mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it."

He's said that Fox News was waging a "religious jihad" for its pro-life views. He's called Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees."

On his MSNBC show, "Countdown," his vitriolic brand of political commentary is epitomized by a "Worst Person in the World" segment, in which he viciously attacks some political or cultural arbiter he finds offensive. The target, quite often, is a conservative Christian.

So how is it that someone like Olbermann gets paid to partner up with Major League Baseball - and the National Football League, while he's at it, as a member of NBC's "Football Night in America" team - but a controversial conservative commentator like Rush Limbaugh can't even buy his way into the NFL?


Is Olbermann's baseball knowledge that unique, in a country full of nerds? Is it really that Limbaugh is "worser," as Olbermann would say? Or is it that there's a jarring double standard in sports and the media when it comes to political correctness?

Folks involved in ousting the conservative radio talk show host from his bid to buy the St. Louis Rams focused on a 2003 incident when Limbaugh suggested that the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed in the NFL.

For this, NFL players union head DeMaurice Smith accused Limbaugh of inciting discrimination and hatred. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, "I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL - absolutely not."

So let's get this straight. Limbaugh is too conservative for football, evangelical minister the Rev. Franklin Graham is too Christian for the National Day of Prayer, and Islam is too touchy for "South Park."

Meantime, Olbermann's misogyny, race-baiting and fear-mongering makes him a perfect voice for America's national pastime?

I would support Olbermann's right to buy a baseball team if he wanted - just as I did Limbaugh's. But why has MLB given him its imprimatur to speak for the game? And why has the NFL, which wouldn't touch Limbaugh with a 10-foot pole?

Unless Major League Baseball - which has fought mightily to recover its reputation and reconnect with everyday fans in recent years - wants to tarnish its storied reputation once more, it needs to realize that Olbermann and his extreme political views make him the "Worst Person in the World" for America's game.



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