The Washington Post is such a liberal newspaper that its sports columnists spout liberal bias. In an online Post chat on Friday, Thomas Boswell lamented the low standard of civility set by the "crazy things" Rush Limbaugh says as a St. Louis Rams fan lamented the prospect of Limbaugh owning the Rams:

Worse Owner Than Snyder?: I'm originally from St. Louis, where word is out that Rush Limbaugh is trying to buy the Rams! If that happen, well, you know those shirts that say I'm rooting for -whatever team] and whoever's playing the Yankees? Someone is going to make a fortune selling the above, with "Rams" substituted for "Yankees." If I weren't a big, tough guy, I think I would cry.

Tom Boswell: Limbaugh's old quotes on the air are already coming back to haunt him on this NFL part-owner thing. It's just stunning. You can say a lot of crazy things in politics, apparently, and nobody calls you on it, but when you start getting involved with something really important __like the NFL__ people say, "Good Lord, you can't say THAT."

What happened to our politics when our standards for civility, accuracy and decency when sceaming [sic] at each other about sports are MUCH HIGHER than they are for presidential elections?

At least someone suggested Boswell not go "Katie Couric" on the audience and talk about their personal life. This is not the first time Boswell's lit into Limbaugh. From a Brent Bozell column in 2000 when ABC considered adding Limbaugh to the Monday Night Football broadcast booth:

"This week, our trend toward the celebrity-as-universal-expert may have reached a comic peak. ABC thinks maybe Rush Limbaugh can become the next Howard Cosell." Limbaugh, Boswell sneered verbally, "appeals to the right demographic: divorced, couch-potato, gun-worshiping, angry white guys. Sorry, I mean patriotic American males ages 25 to 34."

All that was just the buildup to Boswell’s big cheap-shot finish: "Could [ESPN’s baseball coverage] use another voice in the booth? If Al Michaels gets Rush Limbaugh, maybe, someday, Jon Miller could be lucky enough to team up with John Rocker."

Back in 1992, Boswell really let loose, on our entire socioeconomic system as a house of ill repute:

"It's indecent, during a recession, for ballplayers to make a million dollars a man while the people in the stands, or watching on TV, can't pay the mortgage. Of course it's indecent. Welcome to capitalism, the best little economic whorehouse on earth. The rich squeeze the rest of us until our screaming gets loud enough to make them step back from the trough for a couple of years. What is the deficit except 10 years of checks written by the rich on the bank accounts of everyone else?"-- Tom Boswell in a March 22, 1992 Washington Post Magazine profile of Baltimore Orioles star Cal Ripken.

Multiple hat tips to Tom Johnson, who has read and enjoyed Boswell for years.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.