Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from the investors group hoping to buy the St. Louis Rams…

"Rush was to be a limited partner — as such, he would have had no say in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or operations," Dave Checketts, the former Madison Square Garden executive who is leading the group that included Limbaugh.

"This was a role he enthusiastically embraced. However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions; endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion."

Despite how bad this could have turned out, the good people of America have, I think, been drawn a little closer to one another now.

Now go home and hug your children!

First, it turned out that people have brains capable of recalling the borderline racist things people said a few years ago (or, for that matter, the overtly racist things they said lots and lots of times). And then it became apparent that some football players might maybe not want to work for a racist person that is always going around saying racist things.

Now, the commissioner of the NFL is wondering if maybe he and the other team owners shouldn't maybe just exercise their free market rights to not approve the sale of an NFL team to a racist person who will make the whole league look bad…

"I've said many times before we're all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about," [Roger] Goodell said at an NFL owners' meeting. "I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not."…

[A]ny proposed franchise sale would have to be approved by three-quarters of the owners, and Goodell's comments signaled that it perhaps would be unlikely that Limbaugh's bid would be ratified by the other teams.

What about the other team owners? Do they support racism? Turns out a lot of them do not support racism…

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said he would not vote in favor of approving Limbaugh as an owner.

"I would not be in favor of voting for him," Irsay said. "I could ask Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Dwight Freeney and consult with them, but there have been comments that have been made that have been inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive. It's bigger than football. We have to watch the words that we say…. Sometimes privileges in life do get lost. I would not feel comfortable.

I feel so sad for Rush Limbaugh. Can you imagine the pain of having to deal with circumstances of your own making. In this day and age?!

I just hope this doesn't get him down and that he somehow finds the strength to somehow continue being an unctuous racist hypocrite.

After a pivotal speech this morning, the President took a moment this afternoon to welcome the Superbowl Champions to the White House, along with approximately 50 Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center and their families.

Afterwards they all joined up to work with USO to assemble 3,000 care packages for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's pretty super classy of the Steelers. It's nice that we have athletes like that for kids to look up to.

Here's some footage directly from the White House's blog…

Yeah, sorry about that.

I was trying to be cool, but then at the last second my jealousy about any Pennsylvania football team that's not the Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl got the better of me.

The Steelers my be pretty super classy, but I am an embittered, shallow and vindictive small man.

So, instead of that video, here's something disturbing and unclean and much more in line with my current mode of thinking…

4. Specter looking exactly the same while discussing his magic — er, single — bullet theory seven months later.

3. …and looking even more exactly the same while discussing his bout with cancer eight years later.

2. The good statesman takes on the New England Patriots because, like, the integrity of the NFL is the biggest crisis we can think of.

1. Arlen Specter's party switch is bigger news than the Washington Monument and the Pentagon getting it on.

From Kabul, With Existential Ennui: Foreign correspondent and blogger Phil Zabriskie reports from the modern paradise that is Afghanistan's besieged capitol. It seems the city is a surreal clusterhump of paranoia, distrust, and simmering violence. So, there's that. [trueslant.com]

Global Economy Might Catch The Pig Sniffles: The good news, claims this editorial from Market Watch, is that global health care institutions are reacting flawlessly to the maybe overblown, probably apocalyptic swine flu outbreak. The bad news is it might screw the economy even more. [marketwatch.com]

Going Ga-Ga For Gridiron Girls:  What started as a cheeky advertisement is blowing up into something that columnist Jim Moore likes, very much. A little too much? Naw. Cross your fingers, and pray that a lingerie football team comes to your city very soon. [seattlepi.com]

Well, now that there's video…

…it's clear to the sharp-eared among us that Coburn wasn't singing Elton John's 1972 classic "Rocket Man."

He was singing William Shatner's 1978 classic "Rocket Man" (and he's not the first to be inspired by it):

Man, it's a good thing I'm high as a kite right now…

Forget all those inaugural concerts. The most pressing musical issue in the nation's capital is whether a stone-face senator from Oklahoma will hit the high notes in "Rocket Man" to pay off a college football bet.

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn is slated to serenade Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida with his very own rendition of Elton John's 1970s classic Wednesday afternoon.

Coburn owes Nelson because the Florida Gators defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 in last week's BCS title game. Nelson chose "Rocket Man" because he is a former astronaut who flew on the space shuttle Columbia in the 1980s.

If Oklahoma had won, Nelson would have had to sing the title song from the musical "Oklahoma!" It also happens to be the official state song.

If Plaxico Burress hadn't shot himself in the leg, you wouldn't have had to know about that.

During the Democratic primaries, he remained a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton even after math and reality conspired to make her bid all but hopeless. But then, when the nomination was officially decided, he stood with his party and supported Barack Obama.

Now, Rendell — former mayor of Philadelphia — is in a similar predicament: Both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers stand poised to reach the Super Bowl. Which is fine if only one of them wins their conference championship. However…

But if both of them win and advance to the Super Bowl, he will not pretend to be neutral. After all, he has been an Eagles season-ticket holder for more than 30 years and even has a postgame television show. People in Philadelphia still call him Mayor.

"I'm not going to change," he said in a telephone interview Monday. "I told the people of Pittsburgh this when I was running for re-election. If they had a longtime Pittsburgh mayor and the Steelers were in the Super Bowl and he said he was rooting for anyone other than the Steelers, they would skin him alive.

"I have to be loyal. If it costs me some political points, that’s life."

Truth be told, this story is of very minor political import. But I've been glowing ever since the Eagles handed the Giants their asses in Sunday's playoff game and looking for any excuse I could to gloat about here on the blog.

When it comes to politics, I mildly capable of exercising some small amount of "journalistic" objectivity. (Granted, a very small amount.) But objectivity can go fuck itself sideways when it comes to football.

I'm thrilled that the Eagles — after a less than inspiring couple of seasons — are a single win away from the Super Bowl. And the fact that they had to climb over the backs of the Cowboys and then the Giants to get there makes it all the better. (NFC East hatreds die hard.*)

While we're on the subject of "hating on", here's something I didn't know about Gov. Rendell…

For most governors, that would be reason to host a news conference and smile a lot. But Rendell is hardly your average governor when it comes to sports. This is a man who — legend has it — sparked the snowball-throwing frenzy in a playoff game against Dallas in 1989.

That settles it. I'm starting a campaign to get Rendell on the ticket in 2016.

We need a president who's appropriately hard on Cowboys.

* I would probably hate the Redskins, too, if there was any reason to even consider them.

I actually was pretty moved by Thompson's retelling of McCain's story. But when he came to the part about McCain's favorite football team, my interest was piqued…

"John was beaten for communicating with other prisoners. He was beaten for not communicating with so-called "peace delegations." He was beaten for not giving information during interrogations.

"When his captors wanted the names of other pilots in his squadron, John gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers."

I could have sworn I heard a very similar — though not quite identical — anecdote before…

"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup — defensive line — of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

To be clear, I don't think this is not a genuine issue. Whether it's Fred Thompson or John McCain who's talking out of John McCain's ass doesn't much matter to me. Politicians talk, and their talk only once in a while reflects reality. I'm okay with that.

What I'm not okay with, though, is that McCain never augmented his story to name the Philadelphia Eagles. C'mon, man! It's not like the Eagles sucked any more than the Steelers did in 1968! Can't a politician at least lie and pretend he's on our side?

And Ed Rendell doesn't count. Because he's a douchebag.