Rush Limbaugh is scum

For several years now I have owned a house that I don't live in. There are reasons for this, good reasons. I won't get into that now.

I do my best to make the house look lived-in. Different decorations go up throughout the year. Lights come on in various rooms, some on a fairly regular schedule, some on semi-random patterns. And, if you happen to be very close to the house at certain times of day, you will hear voices coming from it.

I have clock radios set up throughout the house. Several are tuned to NPR and will play Morning Edition or All Things Considered or, on weekends, A Prairie Home Companion. But I needed voices for the midday, and for that I turned to reliable source of chatter: talk radio.

I'm rarely at the house at midday, and if I am it's usually to do yard work. But there are times that I get to hear the members of the chattering class who fill my empty house with their voices. And among their number is...Rush Limbaugh.

Most of the time I switch off the radio whenever he comes on. Sometimes I can't, because I'm busy doing something like mixing concrete or sharpening mower blades or repotting plants, stuff that I can't just stop doing. And on those days I am subjected to the wit and wisdom of this bloated drug-addicted jackass.

I've heard him take credit for the creation of "Alternative Media", suggesting that all bloggers owe him a debt of gratitude for his invention. I've heard him refer to soldiers who would dare to criticize the policies of George W. Bush "phony soldiers" - and then play an edited recording of his statements the next day and refer to it repeatedly as an "exact transcript." (Apparently when you're a drug-addled multi-millionaire media mogul, you can't afford certain things...like a dictionary.) I've heard him defend golden parachutes for the robber barons who collapsed the U.S. economy, suggesting that to try to deny them would be as uncharitable as, according to an old story he recounted, wishing your neighbor's goat was dead because you didn't have one yourself. I've heard him attack the "media elite" when he is the prime example of that class.

Limbaugh has an enormous network of stations. He has vast legions of listeners, both casual and the devoted "dittoheads" who agree with everything he says. He has a lot of influence on the airwaves.

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake - in the aftermath of any major disaster - he has the potential to have tremendous influence for good.

Instead, he has chosen to do the opposite.

Limbaugh: 'We've Already Donated To Haiti, It's Called US Income Tax' (VIDEO)

I don't have time to recount the stupidity in its entirety here. It's being covered extensively elsewhere. But movie critic and social commentator, among many others, has called Limbaugh out on his comments. See here what he has to say:

A Letter to Rush Limbaugh :: rogerebert.com :: Opinion

Note that in the excerpt included, Limbaugh actually states very little - instead he asks a leading question, and then concurs with the proffered response. "Plausible deniability", anyone?


Dear Rush Limbaugh: It's not too late. You have an opportunity to redeem yourself. Will you choose to take it?