Salon magazine this afternoon is asking the silly question, Why can Limbaugh speak, but not Costas?

It is Rush Limbaugh who is banned from speaking, not Bob Costas.

Salon’s David Sirota has a long introduction to his argument (which you can read here) that boils down to this:

In concrete terms… Costas is no less entitled to speak about public issues on the public airwaves than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — and that’s true even though the latter two are billed as ‘political’ and Costas isn’t. To insist otherwise — to insist that Costas has no right while self-ordained ‘political experts’ do — is to champion a hegemonic view of the public square. That is, a view implying that only certain pre-approved political elites have a right to make their voices heard.Setting aside the nonsense about any individual actually being “entitled to speak about public issues on the public airwaves” (honestly, are there any entitlements liberals won’t rush to embrace?) Sirota is ignoring the elephant in the room: The NFL and the sportscasting world essentially have banned Limbaugh just because he’s conservative.