Well, that was quick. About a week after word slipped out that Rush Limbaugh was part of a group that was bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, the group dropped Limbaugh. He was too volatile, too controversial and too inflammatory to keep.

Dave Checketts, who owns the St. Louis Blues, actually wants to own the Rams, and by yesterday afternoon he realized that there was no way he could get the approval of two-thirds of the 31 other NFL owners with Limbaugh as his partner.

At least Checketts came to his senses.

"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," Checketts said in a statement. "As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion."

Limbaugh, of course, tried to turn the boiling controversy about his potentially owning a franchise into a referendum on the state of the nation. On his radio program yesterday, he reportedly bellowed about how the outrage over his attempt to join the elite billionaires boys club was "the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democratic Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.

"Therefore," Limbaugh added, "this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we're going to have."

Actually, what this was about was a professional sports league not wanting to have an alleged racist among them. Nearly 70 percent of the players in the NFL are African American, and Limbaugh hasn't exactly been their friend.

There was no place for Limbaugh in the NFL, not after he insulted Donovan McNabb in 2003, saying McNabb was not as good a player as the media, who wanted to see a black quarterback succeed, was making him out to be.

But to me, what doomed him was this quote that accompanied nearly every story about Limbaugh and the Rams: The NFL is "a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons."

Limbaugh certainly is allowed to have and voice his opinions, and he's paid handsomely for doing just that. But if playing in the NFL is a privilege, as commissioner Roger Goodell so often has said to the players, then owning an NFL team has to be one, too.

You can't compare the NFL and its players to gang members and expect that league and its players to embrace you as an owner.

Interestingly, Goodell spoke about Limbaugh earlier this week during the league's annual fall meeting in Boston. The Washington Post quoted him as saying that "divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about."

"I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not," Goodell added.

Colts owner Jim Irsay rebuked Limbaugh, and while I tried in vain for two days to get Jeffrey Lurie on the phone, I'm pretty sure Lurie would've voted against the Limbaugh group. Lurie supported Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination for president, then supported Barack Obama after he won the nomination.

And then there was this from Lurie in October 2003 after what Limbaugh said about McNabb: "Comments that were made by Rush Limbaugh showed a lack of knowledge, a lack of sensitivity, and, in my opinion, were despicable."

While Lurie has changed his mind before - he thought Michael Vick was pretty despicable, too, before he agreed that Vick could help the Eagles this season - I doubt he would've flopped on this one.

Luckily, we'll never find out. The rush to judgment was swift, effective and now complete.