ESPN Guest: 'Racist' Rush Would Never Hire Black Coach

By Mark Finkelstein | October 14, 2009 | 20:07

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When it comes to slurring Rush Limbaugh in his quest to obtain an interest in the NFL's St. Louis Rams, someone's going to have to work hard to top Adrian Wojnarowski. The Yahoo Sports reporter today called Rush a "racist" and a "bigot" and implied he would never hire a black coach.

Wojnarowski spouted his slurs on Jim Rome's "Rome Is Burning" show on ESPN this afternoon.

ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI: People do not want a bigot as an owner. He's a racist. He's a bigot. He's shown it for years. He's made his career off in a large way off marginalizing black culture and African-Americans, and now he wants to buy into an industry where 70% of the players, the talent, the work-force is African-American and make money off of it? He doesn't get to do that.

In response, Rome didn't exactly leap to Rush's defense, but did pose this question.

JIM ROME: What do you base your base your comment that he's a bigot on? Those two quotes that are floating around right now that he has said do not really exist, or his body of work?

WOJNAROWSKI: His body of work. You go back years, now. He's showed maybe through the years, he has said, been less vociferous as he was early. But he has time after time after time been a polarizing, made racially insensitive remarks. I mean, are you going to allow him to make an NFL, an African-American NFL assistant, with the Rooney rule, who has to sit in his office for what's essentially going to be a token interview and patronize that guy?

The Rooney Rule is an NFL requirement that teams interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operations opportunities. Wojnarowski was clearly claiming that Rush would never hire a black coach. Wo-jo obviously isn't a Rush listener. Else he'd know that for the most sensitive position on his staff—that of call screener—Rush chose the inimitable—and African-American—James Golden, AKA Bo Snerdley, and that Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams are regular guest hosts behind the golden EIB microphone.