Is NFL Players Association using Rush Limbaugh to gain edge in contract talks?

We suspect Mr. Limbaugh during his broadcast yesterday put his finger exactly on what is going on here. He said that NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith was using Mr. Limbaugh's controversial status as leverage against the league owners in the union's difficult negotiations over a collective-bargaining agreement.

Earlier this year, the NFLPA's Mr. Smith and several player reps visited our offices and made clear their determination to win the negotiation with the league's owners. Fair enough. The group made a strong and businesslike case for their position. Mr. Smith was wrong, though, to send an email to the league's players earlier in the week, urging them to speak out on the Limbaugh bid, arguing that football "rejects discrimination and hatred."

After this, opposition to Mr. Limbaugh emerged from Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay and, most disappointing of all, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Mr. Goodell implied in a statement that Mr. Limbaugh's off-the-cuff comment in 2003 about quarterback Donovan McNabb (that the media wanted a black quarterback to do well) violated the league's "high standard."

We suspect Mr. Limbaugh would be happy to withdraw the 2003 remark, but to elevate it to racism, hatred and disqualification from doing business with the saintly NFL beggars belief. On the evidence, the NFL is the most forgiving league in sports. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, just for starters, must be thankful Mr. Goodell's "high standard" doesn't mean a lifetime ban from the NFL.

What happened here, and is happening elsewhere in American life, is that Mr. Limbaugh's outspoken political conservatism is being deemed sufficient reason to ostracize him from polite society. By contrast, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who fires off his own brand of high-velocity, left-wing political commentary but lacks Mr. Limbaugh's sense of humor, appears weekly as co-host of NBC's "Football Night in America." We haven't heard anyone on the right say Mr. Olbermann's nightly ad-hominem rants should disqualify him from hanging around the NFL. Al Franken made it all the way to the U.S. Senate on a river of political vitriol.