The Bum Rush

My Buddy sent me this secondary riposte on Rush Limbaugh’s Juvenile name calling. Its fairly dispassionate and I don’t disagree with it.

People have the right not to buy a product or service they don’t wish to buy. Limbaugh’s advertisers are free to transfer their loyalty to Glenn Beck if they wish, and Limbaugh’s critics are free to deny themselves the rapturous comforts of Sleep Number beds.

Nevertheless, the self-righteous parade out the door by Limbaugh’s advertisers is hard to stomach. Had they never listened to Rush before, in all the years they had been paying for commercials on his show? His sliming of a barely known law student may be a new low, even after what he’s said about Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama, but it’s not a huge gap.

The Post writer also says that this was a gaffe on Rush’s part:

A gaffe, as someone once said, is when a politician tells the truth. This is a bit imprecise. The term “politician” covers any political actor, certainly including Rush. And the troublesome statement needn’t be the truth, as it certainly wasn’t in this case: more like “the truth about what he or she is really thinking.”

If this was a gaffe it was a prolonged gaffe. Call a young woman a slut the first day (what Rush was thinking) call her a prostitute the next (What was Rush thinking?) Tell your audience the next day after a ton of criticism that she had so much sex you’re surprised to see that she can walk. (Is Rush thinking?) This was more like a serial gaffe.

This works both ways. You might recall NPR’s firing Juan Williams grief over moonlighting at FOX News only to have FOX gleefully hire him to show their outrage at William’s treatment. As for secondary boycotts, which this writer seems to think a bit unfair, I’m sure given time I could think of some instituted by conservatives when they were offended by a liberal mouthpiece.

I think such boycotts are fair game in politics. That Rush lost so many sponsors so quickly demonstrates the extent of his abuse of the First Amendment. Maybe he can put a wooden crate outside the Clear Channel Headquarters, stand on it and speak his mind. That would be no great loss to the Constitution.

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