Michael Wilbon

Rush Limbaugh was convicted of racism in a kangaroo court of "objective" media and dropped as a potential owner of the St. Louis Rams football franchise. His accusers claimed he once said slavery "had its merits" and that the assassin of Martin Luther King deserved a "Medal of Honor." The story circulated on the Internet and was eventually picked up by the major media, including both CNN and MSNBC.

But no one bothered fact-checking. In fact, his accusers and those media that repeated the accusations never stopped to ponder there was no need to fact-check this, so obvious were the fabrications.

Start with this reality: One could clearly dismiss these quotes as fabrications based on the simple fact that Rush would never have uttered them, since he doesn’t believe them. Period.

Add to it this second piece of common sense: Were Rush guilty of uttering this garbage back in 1998, would we really be discussing it for the first time in October of 2009? Common sense tells us that if he made these comments on his show, his advertisers would dump him so quickly he’d be out of a job by sundown.

On Sunday, ESPN host and sportswriter Michael Wilbon said conservative talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh is "univerally reviled by African-Americans."

As amazing as it may seem, this was at least the second time Wilbon made this statement on national television.

Unfortunately, the person he said it to Sunday -- Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources" -- didn't bother challenging him about just how absurd a thing this is to say (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

The bottom of the front page of The Washington Post on Friday highlighted in bold, dark gray type part of Michael Wilbon’s sports column: "Limbaugh, every day and very publicly, judges people, turns thumbs up or thumbs down on someone's candidacy or worthiness. Now he's been judged: Thumbs down, not interested."  The Post’s front page did not emphasize that Wilbon spread the fake "slavery had its merits" quote on national television, since that wouldn’t reflect very well on the professionalism of journalists at The Post.

Wilbon tries to say that Limbaugh may be a nice guy in person, but on the radio, he "gave cover to bigots everywhere under the guise of conservatism." Then he says he doesn’t want to provide examples, because he already demonstrated he spreads fake ones without much checking  (as he did on his ESPN show Pardon the Interruption last Friday):

We've already seen CNN's Paul Begala, affectionately referred to as "The Forehead" by Rush Limbaugh, and one ESPN personality, Fred Roggin, taking shots at Limbaugh on the heels of news of his interest in the National Football League's St. Louis Rams.

But it was just a matter of time before the usual culprits on the left would attempt to make an issue of it, in what seems to be an effort to gin up some reason for the talk show host not to have an ownership stake in an NFL team. And, MSNBC's Ed Schultz isn't waiting for pointers from the left-wing blogosphere to set the "Stop Rush's Bid for the Rams" agenda. He took it to Limbaugh on his Oct. 6 program immediately.

"There's also some comical football news out there," Schultz said. "The drugster's talking about buying the St. Louis Rams. That's right, the leader of the Republican Party is bidding for ownership of a team that's been giving more money to Democrats than any other team has over the last 10 years, at least that's what the survey says. He'll have to do something about that I'm sure."