One day after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell noted the NFL's "high standards" and expressed concern about "divisive" language hurting the league, Rush Limbaugh was dropped from a group of investors looking to buy the St. Louis Rams. Goodell's comments followed similar remarks from DeMaurice Smith, new head of the NFL players association and a lawyer who worked on the Obama transition.
Now that Goodell has asserted himself as the arbiter of acceptable political speech for the NFL, perhaps he'll take another look at Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson, singer for the Black Eyed Peas. As we noted yesterday, one of the group's most popular songs is "Let's Get Retarded." And one reader points out, in the lyrics to the song "Where's the Love," the U.S. government includes "terrorists" just like the ones we're trying to stop overseas, and the CIA is like a street gang:
Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin'
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK
The NFL voted to allow Fergie to become part owner of the Miami Dolphins earlier this week. So it's not really "divisive" speech that troubles the NFL, apparently, but a certain kind of "divisive" speech.
As noted, there is a standard at work here, but it's not a high one.
