UPDATED: Limbaugh and the NFL: Let the pity party begin!

We assume today's Limbaugh program will be insufferable as the host wallows in his humiliating NFL defeat, emphasizing that his long history of hateful speech had nothing to do with the football league resoundingly rejecting his bid presence, and that he's simply a victim in this play; that he's the victim of misinformation! In fact, if you hear the sound of pounding in the background of the radio show today, it's probably Limbaugh trying to nail himself to the cross.

Of course, the talker already has lots of support within the GOP Noise Machine, which has decided that multi-millionaire Limbaugh's failed attempt at a vanity business deal represents the most pressing matter facing the conservative movement and America today. They've whipped themselves into a frenzy as they work overtime to convince themselves that Limbaugh's humiliating failure doesn't say anything about how the radical right in perceived by mainstream America. And that Limbaugh's humiliating rejection shouldn't for a moment be considered a slap in the face of the right-wing hate movement that Limbaugh leads.

Good luck with that.

UPDATED: To get a true sense of the incoherent right-wing reaction to the NFL public rejection of Limbaugh, please go read professional Palin pal John Ziegler's name-calling screed at Big Hollywood. It's priceless, as Ziegler asserts that everyone/anyone who dislikes Limbaugh's brand of hate is ignorant. (And yes, that includes pretty much the entire NFL.) And nobody has permission to criticize Oh Mighty Rush because he has free speech rights....or something. (Note to Ziegler: Free speech protects your right to say things. That doesn't mean people have to agree. Just sayin'.)

Here's what's so satisfying about watching the screaming and foot-stomping on the right: Limbaugh makes his living smearing and insulting anyone who disagrees with him. And then when he ventures out of his protected right-wing talk radio bubble and tries to become a player in mainstream American culture and he's resoundingly told to get lost because people don't like the the type of smears and insults he wallows in for a living, his allies announce it's not fair. They claim nobody is allowed to question Rush or his motives.

Oh brother.

UPDATED: In an effort to explain away Limbaugh's failed bid, conservatives are now depicting the NFL (owners, players, etc.) as a collection of brain-dead fools. Specifically, writers like Andy McCarthy at NRO claim it was Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who alone turned the tide against Limbaugh in the NFL, and that the multi-billion dollar football industry was completely hoodwinked by a pair of “race baiters.”

Hey, if makes you feel better Andy, then by all means keep believing it was Sharpton (who belatedly penned a single letter to the NFL) and Jackson (who also belatedly wrote a letter in protest) who ultimately convinced NFL millionaires to tell Rush to get lost.

P.S. McCarthy has no idea why people think Rush has a problem with race, because he treats people just like Martin Luther King did.

Right. And which MLK quote does this Limbaugh quip remind you of:

“We are being told that we have to hope [Obama] succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black.”

UPDATED: More from the right-wing's stellar, the-NFL-are-a-bunch-of-jerks-anyway defense.

UPDATED: Notes Salon's Joan Walsh:

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.

UPDATED: Surprise! Limbaugh is serving a vintage whine this afternoon. And suddenly, the NFL, that GOP bastion which Limbaugh praised earlier this week as the undying object of his love and admiration, is a nothing more than a snake pit. It's “an outpost of liberalism and racism.”

Now he tells us!

UPDATED: Rush dips into the classic rock archives and announces he's been the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”

UPDATED: No, wait. It's all Bob Costas' fault!

UPDATED: And for the record, Limbaugh on his program today also blamed sports writers, Democrats, the players union, Al Sharpton, and Obama (among others) for the talker's humiliating purchase fiasco.

Like I mentioned at the top, that pounding you heard in the background of Limbaugh's show today was the sound of him trying to nail himself to the cross.