ESPN and Rush Limbaugh

I'm not sure how many of you listen to sports radio (I'm not really sure why I still do), but if you do, it would be almost impossible to not have heard the story about Rush Limbaugh's wish to own the St. Louis Rams. Not surprisingly, every host I've heard so far defends Limbaugh's right to own the Rams (maybe they had a staff meeting). One of the most popular, Colin Cowherd took it a step further and noted that a huge number of NFL players were arrested for domestic abuse, DUI's, etc., so who were they to be judging Limbaugh? Cowherd also stated that since Limbaugh uses only words, and not actions, he should get a pass from society at large.
Apparently, Colin and the folks as ESPN have failed to consider a few key points:
1) NFL players that commit crimes are forced to apologize for their actions, and are usually punished with fines or jail time--Rush Limbaugh, as far as I know, makes no apologies for his talk show, and plans on continuing his broadcast. Michael Vick would certainly not have gotten his second chance if he had said that he planned to continue hosting dog fights and was proud about it. In other words, if Rush Limbaugh apologized for his offenses (which I list below), and changed the content of his show, no one would be opposed to his owning the Rams.
2) Being that Limbaugh is a radio host, the nature of his show dictates that he only uses words, but the fact is that those words reach the ears of millions of listeners (from my limited research, between 10 and 50 million, so lets just stick with millions), and those people act, argue, and think on the basis of what Limbaugh says, so his words translate to have a far greater cumulative effect on the actions of many than one NFL player's individual actions.
3) Limbaugh has participated and profited (his last contract was worth $400 million) from a conservative movement that has alienated many of its own Republican party members (perhaps even Colin, who claims to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative), and that has totally dissolved the civility and dignity which used to be afforded the political process--moreover, to accomplish this end, he has lied, manipulated information, and misled his listeners to achieve this politically motivated result. He is the figurehead of everything bad about the Republican party, whose aims have been primarily to work against the general good of the American people in exchange for the profits of millionaires, billionaires, and multinational corporations (By the way, if anyone can prove that the above allegations are not factually accurate, I will publish your admonition of my statement).
Cowherd is right to point out that in all probability, many NFL owners are conservative. The difference between them and Rush is that Limbaugh has made a living doing it, and doing it loudly. Owners are just owners--who knows what their views are and why they have them--as long as they aren't made public, it doesn't really matter to the players or the fans.
On the flip side, Rush is a polarizing figure that people either love or hate, and the fact is that he has said racially insensitive things before (Donovan McNabb), and his Republican party continues to basically oppose everything our BLACK president does for completely political reasons.
Maybe he does have a right to buy the Rams franchise, but then so too, do players have a right not to play, and fans have a right not to attend games (though, judging from the Rams record, they may have already started doing that).