But stand back and learn from the masters, "View" ladies, because you've got nothing on conservative commentators. And lock up your women and your borders, because as Media Matters for America demonstrates, Limbaugh, Beck and Steele know that Obama and his progressive agenda are coming to forcibly penetrate the flag. If that's possible.

Mental rape! Pocketbook rape! Government-sanctioned rape! Values rape! Private sector rape! Statue of Liberty rape! Behold and prepare for the liberal rapeocalypse.

The excerpt read by Limbaugh:

[T]he Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.

Limbaugh was, naturally, up in arms about this, calling the college-aged Obama a "little boy," and saying, "he still shares those same feelings."

Only not so much. As a bit of basic research would have shown Limbaugh, Obama didn't technically write a thesis at Columbia -- at the time, Columbia didn't really have senior theses -- though he did write a thesis-length paper. But it was on Soviet nuclear disarmament, not the Constitution.

Limbaugh and many others -- including Fox News' FoxNation.com -- fell for a hoax, believing that a post put up by a conservative blogger in August as satire was the truth. Apparently, Pajamas Media's Michael Ledeen was the conduit, as he dug it up and posted it earlier this week, apparently believing it to be true. (Not the first time Ledeen and Pajamas Media have been embarrassed by something he posted -- back in January of 2007, he reported that Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had died. Khamenei remains alive to this day.) Again, a bit of basic research would have prevented all this, as this isn't the first time conservatives have treated this particular blogger's satire as if it were true.

Limbaugh noted later on in his show that it seemed the excerpts were fake, though he said he didn't care, both because of a series of quotes falsely attributed to him recently and because, "I know Obama thinks it."

Update: Ledeen has put up a post noting that the excerpt is a fake, and that he fell for a satire.

Smith’s gross conflict of interest and apparent political targeting of Obama’s top foe is a huge story. Unfortunately the media appears too blinded by their prejudice of Limbaugh to report on it.

To summarize, we know that a former Obama official and political ally -- who was chosen by the NFLPA specifically for his political clout and connections to the highest rungs of power in government -- directly attacked Limbaugh for the radio-talker’s political commentary.

Historically politicians have been prone to vindictive and petty behavior, but never in American history has someone had so much power to pummel his political opponents as President Obama. With control over banks, insurance companies, car companies, media (sports media included) and unions (like the NFL players union), Obama tentacles seem to penetrate into nearly every corner of the nation.

Limbaugh, too, has apparently made a charge like this. And Glenn Reynolds, who as Instapundit is one of the more influential bloggers on the right, linked to Ashby's post, and added this, an e-mail he received from a reader:

BTW this is a big, big deal, and something Nixon ( or maybe Gene Talmadge or George Wallace in his heyday.) would have done. The difference is the press wouldn't have played along then. Not because it was wrong. The press could care less about that (Go look up Walter Duranty), but because Nixon wasn't a Democrat. It's all about power with the press... their power. You get in between them and it, heaven help you.

This is, frankly, sort of amazing. Forget the amount of disbelief you have to suspend in order to believe that the Obama White House would, for no other reason than political retribution, direct an ally to torpedo Limbaugh's participation in the effort to buy the St. Louis Rams. Forget that Smith was hardly the only NFL figure to come out against Limbaugh; players did that too, as did the owner of the Indianapolis Colts and even Roger Goodell, the league's commissioner.

No, what's most incredible is the way in which people supposedly devoted to free-market principles forget basic rules of capitalism when convenient, and imput everything to political bias against them. What's the simplest reason for Smith to have opposed Limbaugh's part in the bid? How about his own economic self-interest?

The players' union head has only been in his job for a little while, and he was a total outsider when he was elected to the post; by the time he spoke out, some of his players had already done so. He has an interest in keeping them all happy in order to keep his job. Beyond that, the NFL and the union are headed for a serious labor battle next year -- there's just no way Smith wants a new ownership group that's likely to have a strongly anti-labor viewpoint entering the picture right now. That's especially true because of the microphone Limbaugh has, the ability he'd have to sway public opinion in the owners' favor.

On a somewhat different subject, but still worth examining for other reasons, is a piece on the American Spectator's Web site. In it, writer Jeffrey Lord, an aide in the Reagan White House, also went after Smith, crying racism -- against Limbaugh -- at every turn in a particularly nasty way. Lord wrote:

[T]he dirty little secret of the NFL seems to be that it is in the charge of people caring less about football than left-wing politics and all the implicitly racial and intolerant ideas that have been the vivid hallmark of the progressive movement and the Democratic Party from its inception in slavery days. Right down to the notion of which blacks will remain on the intellectual plantation in return for a PR pat on the head...

So what does Mr. Smith do in his real life when he isn't busy juggling the massive conflict of interest that is using the facade of football to zap one of the leading opponents of Mr. Obama, the man to whom Smith has channeled $3,300?

Lord also wrote, of sports writer Kevin Blackistone of FanHouse.com, "Bull Connor would love this guy."

That's Bull Connor, the infamous public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Ala., who used police dogs and fire hoses on peaceful civil rights marchers. What did Blackistone (whom Lord referred to as "Black Kev") do to deserve this? Why, he wrote, "If the league accepted whatever bid the group including Limbaugh puts up, it would be a slap in the face to at least two-thirds of its players, and that is selling short the other third. The two-thirds I am referring to are the NFL players who are black. The other third are players of every other hue."

If you can figure out how someone like Connor, who turned police dogs on defenseless children in an attempt to defend segregation, would "love" that quote, well, you're a more imaginative person than I.

I’m sure the snub is causing Rusty to relive childhood traumas, and I feel a little sorry for him. It must be awful to be kicked to the curb by guys who used to admire you, and the deep pockets you brought to their bid. And Limbaugh sure got angry that his bid ran into choppy water. “This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me. This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative."

Limbaugh’s self-pity and paranoia is on red-alert again. The idea that prominent conservatives aren’t part of the American mainstream is ridiculous. But more important: Let’s be clear who’s denying Rush his chance to own an NFL team: the other rich guys who are trying to buy the team, who dropped him from their group at the first sign of trouble. It’s true Indianapolis  Colts owner Jim Irsay speculated that Rush’s team would have a hard time getting the required support of three-quarters of team owners, and that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell commented, “Divisive comments are not what the N.F.L. is all about,” but the Limbaugh group didn’t mount much of an effort to buy the team.

It’s certainly possible their bid would ultimately have been rejected. When he became an ESPN football commentator, Limbaugh thought it was a good idea to take a gratuitous racial slap at Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, arguing that he “hasn’t been that good from the get-go,” but “the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.” And while Limbaugh this week insists he’s "colorblind" and "treat[s] everyone equally," Media Matters assembled a list of two dozen other racially questionable Limbaugh remarks, from comparing the NFL to “a game between the Bloods and the Crips” to insisting Democrats won’t brook criticism of President Obama, “the little black man-child.” Of course, my favorite was when he said he was expected to “bend over, grab the ankles” for Obama because he’s black, since that let us explore Limbaugh’s strange anal obsession, which rivals (and sometimes overlaps with) his racial obsession. If NFL owners decided they didn’t want the baggage someone like Limbaugh carries, or the invidious garbage he peddles to gin up his ratings, they’d be within their rights.

But the funniest aspect of the collapse of Limbaugh’s bid is the reaction on the right. At “Big Hollywood,” John Ziegler was inconsolable. “Even in these times when the once unthinkable is becoming increasingly unremarkable, the current controversy over whether Rush Limbaugh is potentially worthy to be an NFL owner crosses over from the simply outrageous to the utterly infuriating. I strongly believe that it also represents a seminal moment in our cultural history as well as the sad state of free speech in this country.” Whoa! Like a lot of challenged thinkers, Ziegler seems to think Rush’s right to free speech also guarantees he’ll face no consequences for that speech. “I’m getting a lot of ‘boycott the NFL’ emails,” huffed the National Review’s Kathryn Lopez on Twitter this a.m. I’m sure the NFL is atwitter about that right now.

And a Red State diarist went so far over the top, I thought it was satire, but t-square has been on the site for four years and is easily moved to hysteria. In a blog post titled “Tonight … We are all Rush Limbaugh,” t-square told us … well, you just have to read a little:

Earlier this evening, as most of you now know, one of our own, Rush Hudson Limbaugh, while taking withering fire, crashed and burned.

Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a radio personality.

Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a NFL owner denied

Tonight, Rush is us. And we are him.

Tonight Rush became the metaphor for all of us… every man woman and child in this great nation of ours.

The enemy of this great nation, the enemy of you and me, Rush’s enemy … those on the left, inside and outside of this nation abhor success … and when faced with it will destroy it … by any and all means possible.

It went on and on like that and ended with the famous anti-Nazism parable attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller, “First they came for the communists …” I'm serious.

Let’s ignore the fact that if anyone ever "came for the communists," it would be Rush and the red-staters. The paranoia and self-pity would be funny, except it’s fueling an opposition to Obama that seems increasingly unhinged. Even as he denies it, Limbaugh is making himself the face of the Republican opposition, and today that face is puffy and tear-streaked and red with self-pitying rage. I can't wait to hear what he says on his show today. 

ESPN's Adam Schefter is reporting that Dave Checketts, who's leading the effort, will drop Limbaugh from the group, perhaps in the next week. The odds that Checketts' bid will be successful are still small, but Limbaugh has become radioactive over the past week, and his presence in the group dooms its chances. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made that crystal clear by coming out against the idea of having the radio host as a part owner of a team, a strong signal that there's no chance the other owners, who must approve any sale, would let it happen.

Limbaugh isn't likely to take defeat lying down. That's not his style, for one thing, and hes' already drawn a line in the sand.

"I'm not even thinking of exiting," Schefter quotes Limbaugh as saying on his show Wednesday. "I'm not even thinking of caving. I am not a caver. None of us are. We have been betrayed by too many who have caved. Pioneers take the arrows. We are pioneers. It's a sad thing but our country over 200 years old now needs pioneers all over again, but we do."

Update: It's official -- Limbaugh's out.

"It has become clear that [Limbaugh's'] involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions, endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis," Checketts said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. "As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion."