Tuesday January 08, 2008
Claims to fame: Professional blowhard; anal-cyst-infected draft dodger; pill freak, divorcé; massive hypocrite; jerk
Moral apex: He reaches a new moral apex (which, in Conservative Babylon speak, is a euphemism for nadir) nearly every day. So let’s list just a few of the 8,947,284,392,281 things we hate about Rush Limbaugh, starting with the reason he qualifies for a spot in Conservative Babylon: his mindboggling hypocrisy on matters of sex (and, perhaps, love — although it’s very doubtful Rush is capable of comprehending the concept of love, save for self-love).
Multiple marriages and divorces: Wikipedia covers his status as a serial-marriage offender accurately and succinctly:
Limbaugh was first married on September 24, 1977 to Roxy Maxine McNeely, a sales secretary at radio station WHB in Kansas City, Missouri. They were married at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. In March 1980, McNeely filed for divorce, citing “incompatibility.” They were formally divorced on July 10, 1980.
In 1983, Limbaugh married Michelle Sixta, a college student and usherette at the Kansas City Royals Stadium Club. They were divorced in 1990, and she remarried the following year.
On May 27, 1994, Limbaugh married Marta Fitzgerald, a 35-year-old aerobics instructor. They were married at the house of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who officiated. They were separated on June 11, 2004. Limbaugh announced on the air, “Marta has consented to my request for a divorce, and we have mutually agreed to seek an amicable separation. As I said, it’s a personal matter and I want to keep it that way. I don’t intend to say any more about this on the air.” The divorce was finalized in December 2004.
What does Rush have to say about the sanctity of marriage?
Marriage is simply the way humanity has discovered that it is the best way to build a building block of an orderly society and sustain it. That’s all it is.
What about the role of marriage in producing children — of which Rush has none?
It is also the means by which you produce legitimate offspring. And I — and I’ve — whatever else Barney and his mate do, they cannot do that. And that’s the sole purpose.
What about same-sex marriage?
Now look, we’re devaluing marriage. A lot of divorce. Got to fix that. There is way, way too much illegitimacy in this country, and it’s leading to the crime rate. This business of the gay marriage is nothing more than a money grab, in my opinion, so people can get on the welfare rolls or the benefit rolls, in state offices and other places.
Is marriage a right, a privilege, or something else?
I really do not even think marriage is a right. Marriage is a responsibility. It’s not a gift that somebody says, “Hey, now it’s time for you to get married. It’s our bestowal to you.” It’s a commitment that you make and it is a responsibility that you accept. And it’s to — to be tossed around in this manner is to devalue it, which is to devalue the fundamental building block of our society. And I think that’s what’s wrong with this whole process of same-sex marriage. It just simply denies the definition of what the institution is.
Then what’s the prescription for a successful marriage?
So, the basic disagreement, and the — one of the primary reasons for divorce or unhappiness in a relationship, is that a woman who’s deriving — she wants the husband to think of her first, think of the kids first, think of the house first. Foremost — first, second, third; he’s thinking of his career. That’s where he gets his self-esteem and if he doesn’t think of the career and doing well and climbing the ladder, she’s not going to be happy with that either.
What about sex outside marriage? Never mind that the pill-popping addict (more about that in a moment) was detained at Palm Beach International Airport for carrying a bottle of prescription medication that wasn’t in his name; the point is, it wasn’t his favorite drug of choice, Oxycontin — it was a bottle of Viagra.
So? So, if Rush wasn’t married at the time (which he wasn’t), and he was traveling alone (which he was), so it wasn’t like he had some future ex-Mrs. Limbaugh with him (which he didn’t), what was he doing with Viagra in his possession?
Well, Rush was coming back from a weekend in the Dominican Republic — and the Dominican Republic is “one of the most popular sex tourism destinations in the world, and it is advertised on the Internet as a ‘single man’s paradise’” — or, as Taylor Marsh put it, “a sexual Disneyland”:
Having done investigative work in the sex trade for years, the whole notion of Rush being stopped when coming from the Dominican Republic is just too delicious not to tie together. Sure, a grown man should never be caught without his Viagra, but I still don’t get why the private jet Rush was on stopped in the Dominican Republic in the first place. Could be innocent and another one of those convenient Republican coincidences. But that’s where fat men go, baby. Because child prostitutes can’t say no.
It’s the same for many American men and the Philippines. There is a whole contingent of men out here in the west who travel to the Philippines to have great sex, pick up a steady girlfriend, who sometimes ends up getting brought back to the U.S. as his wife. Why? Because these tropical babes tend to be a lot more compliant and worshipful of the great American male than we modern western women.
After 3 divorces, it’s easy to understand why Rush might prefer a little docile barely legal babe. However, other rumors have been flying for years. I mean, who can forget Rush’s obsession with Gore’s package in a show that had me in tears I was laughing so hard. Of course, now I know he was drugged out of his mind when he did it, but still. But those rumors are just silly, or is that stogie in his mouth telling the truth?
Of course, we’re just speculating here.
Of course you are. And so are we.
*cough*ladyboy*cough*
What else?
Plenty. On the subject of sex itself, Limbaugh acts like a giggling pre-pubescent. You know the type — that annoying little boy who thinks farting is the funniest thing in the world, too:
This is not the old days where Tom Brokaw had to be on The Today Show for 44 years before he got the White House beat, and then after that he gets the anchor job or whatever the pattern was. I mean, they didn’t pluck these guys out because they turn on little 18- to 24-year-old girls that they hope to be watching. They’re just going for lookers these days, let’s be honest, everybody knows this.
. . .
I mean, you go back and look at — do I have to mention any names? Let’s just face it, Walter Cronkite’s not going to have anybody undressing in front of the TV saying, “Oh, please, only me, Walter.” Isn’t gonna happen.
And we have people, all three sexes listen to this program.
All of this August 6th PDB, why the White House declassified it on a Saturday? And why they did it on a Saturday to bury it during the news cycle on the day before Easter and on and on. And everybody says, “Look at this, it’s out.” And Bill Schneider, I saw Bill Schneider on CNN, he can barely contain himself. My folks, he was orgasming on the air.
Duke University has now decided that students, college students at Duke, 8:00 classes are too early. They’re going to eliminate 8:00 classes because the students are showing up dead tired. Now what this means to me is that more professors are having affairs with students. And there’s a reason for the fatigue.
Little news here about all of our children. “Princeton University faculty have approved a plan Monday to combat rising grades by limiting the number of A’s that it awards to undergraduates. …”
. . .
Sounds to me like this is just a — a — sort of a — a secret ways to reduce the number of affairs between professors and students.
In fairness, Limbaugh may not be so obsessed with sex, per se, as he is — to paraphrase Gore Vidal — hysterical about his own manhood. He rants endlessly about the “feminization” of America, as does practically every other raging right-wing homophobe. (Can you say “projection“?)
In fact, he’s positively obsessed with the idea of castration. To wit (or dimwit):
Now if Hilary does become Kerry’s VP, will she have to change her positions to be on the same page with Kerry or will Kerry have to change his? Don’t forget that testicle lock box, folks.
If I were Bob Woodward, I would be on a lookout for Mrs. Clinton and her testicle lock box, because she has just been snookered, like every other liberal, by believing what Woodward says…
During the same period in which he was indulging in masochistic fantasies of Hillary Clinton and her “testicle lock box,” Limbaugh even turned outrage over the Abu Ghraib prison torture (more on that in a minute) into an issue of emasculation: “I think a lot of the American culture is being feminized. I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.”
Observed Glenn Greenwald:
And just as Glenn Reynolds has done, Rush has developed a virtual obsession with the book The Dangerous Book for Boys, geared towards teaching “boys how to be boys.” Rush spent the week hailing it as the antidote to what he calls the “Emasculation of America.”
Identically, Reynolds on his blog has promoted the book a disturbing 17 times in the last six weeks alone. When doing so, he routinely proclaims things such as “maybe there’s hope,” and — most revealingly — has fretted: “Are we turning into a nation of wimps?” It is the identity of the “we” in that sentence where all the meaning lies. Perhaps if “we” torture enough bound and gagged prisoners and bomb enough countries, “we” can rid ourselves of that worry. …
[I]f you look at those who have this obsession — the Chris Matthews and Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldbergs and Victor Davis Hansons — what one finds in almost every case is that those who want to convert our political process and especially our national policies into a means of proving one’s “traditional masculine virtues” — the physically courageous warriors unbound by effete conventions — themselves could not be further removed from those attributes, and have lives which are entirely devoid of such “virtues.”
Mind you, nobody’s suggesting Rush Limbaugh is a closet homosexual… well, almost nobody; Terrance, quite reasonably, wonders:
Why would Rush Limbaugh need Viagra on a ‘boys-only’ trip to the Dominican Republic? There are only two answers I can think of, and no matter which one is the right one, if the Roll Call piece has any truth to it I’d advise ["24" actress Mary Lynn Rajskub, Limbaugh's alleged girlfriend at the time] to put the question to Limbaugh. Because tossing Viagra into his trickbag for a ‘boys-only’ trip suggests he was either planning to use it with ‘the boys’ or whomever he could afford find once he got down there. Or maybe he was just bringing it along to score points with his new Hollywood friends. Because how cool would Rush be if he came to the rescue if one of the ‘24′ guys forgot to bring his own blue pills?
Rather, we think Rush Limbaugh is just an older (not “grown-up,” as he’s never matured) version of the kid everybody wanted to beat the crap out of — not because he was fat, or ugly, or (probably) lousy at sports, but because he was just so damned obnoxious and whiney. And still is. And the Rush Limbaugh you see and hear today is what you get when you give that obnoxious, whiney kid a microphone.
We don’t know much about Rush’s childhood, but we can surmise that his family’s expectations of “masculinity” were very high indeed:
Limbaugh was born to Rush Hudson Limbaugh Jr. of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Mildred “Millie” Limbaugh originally from Searcy, Arkansas. His father was a lawyer and a World War II fighter pilot who served in the China-Burma-India theater. … His family is filled with a number of lawyers including his grandfather, father and his brother David Limbaugh. His uncle, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr. is a Ronald Reagan appointed federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and his cousin, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., is Judge on the Supreme Court of Missouri. Rush Limbaugh, Sr., Limbaugh’s grandfather, was a Missouri prosecutor, judge, special commissioner and served on Missouri’s state House of Representatives from 1930 to 1932. Limbaugh’s grandfather was very well respected as one of the “patriarchs” of the Cape Girardeau community. Rush, Sr., passed away at age 104 and was still a practicing attorney at the time of his death.
And we can also surmise that becoming a disc jockey (first under the name “Rusty Sharpe,” and then as “Jeff Christie”) wasn’t exactly what the family had in mind for Rush Hudson Limbaugh III.
We guess that’s why he can’t get it up without Viagra: He feels inadequate — he’s just not man enough (an issue, we at Armchair Psychoanlysis Central agree, he appears to share in common with a number of other high-profile, maniacal, and dangerous windbags). Which would also explain why…
He’s a misogynist.
Well, Rich Lowry has a column today, National Review Online, and Time magazine has just discovered that stay-at-home moms are women who have made legitimate choices to stay home and raise their young children — a cover story. Time magazine has headlined the case for staying home, and the magazine, according to Lowry, reports without sneering or condescension, the trend toward more new mothers leaving the workforce. Yes, it’s a trend. It started years ago when the feminist movement decided that their best friends were going to be German shepherds. You know. So that’s — well, it’s true. You go to the right airports and you can see it.
Then here comes this Joe Wilson clown whose wife was the CIA babe that Novak ostensibly was responsible for spreading information of her identity.
I’ve dealt with Lois Romano, but she was pretty good. Pretty good reporterette.
That was Star Jones, resident member of “The View,” recently engaged — from what I’m told, amazingly so — and she’s joking about sending a weapon of mass destruction at Bush. And here these babes are all upset that they’re going to miss “American Idol” tonight.
We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs, and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to be. We think that’s what women want.
Some of these babes, I’m telling you, like the sexual harassment crowd. They’re out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes.
Several liberal Democrats, most of whom did not support Kerry during the primaries, asked his national chair babe, former Governor Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire…
And these American prisoners of war — have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture.
Well, here’s my reaction, in the typical Rush fashion: If we’ve got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu Grab [sic]. That’s how you do it.
I remember way, way back in the ’80s, at — at one of the fractious moments when the militant feminists were ruling the roost and defining a lot of the national debate. … The NAGs would have a press conference. Six NAGs would show up somewhere — National Association of Gals — don’t misunderstand this, my pet name for the NOW gang. … The NAGs don’t represent the majority of female thought in this country, and they aren’t — they aren’t determining who wins elections. White men are. And this is — I’m not being sexist. This is just pure demographics.
Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.
Regarding the word “feminazi”:
Will it be the Democratic insiders’ dream of Kerry and John Edwards? Or maybe the media’s dream team of Kerry and John McCain. Or will it be the feminazi dream team of Kerry and Hillary?
Some funny comments from the feminazis at the pro-abortion rally in Washington yesterday. …
. . .
The feminazis gathered in Washington on Sunday, about a half-million of them it says here, and it was the first big pro-abortion rally in 12 years. … OK, just the last big pro-abort rally that the feminazis had, we actually took audio from it…
. . .
Now, let’s go to the audiotape. Let’s listen to some famous feminazis who were speaking yesterday at the pro-abort anti-Bush rally. In order, they are Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Christine Lahti and Camryn Manheim…
Oh, if you missed the “morning update” today, the feminazis have really stepped into it. Karen Hughes just said some of the — well, the most innocent, true, great stuff. And the feminazis have assumed she was comparing them to the terrorists, which she wasn’t. But now they’ve linked themselves with the terrorists. …
. . .
[W]e got the feminazi uprising over comments made by Karen Hughes. …
Angry Democrats and radical feminazis are demanding an apology from Karen Hughes… While the feminazis’ pro-abortion march was taking place in Washington on Sunday, Karen Hughes, on CNN, was asked how the issue of abortion would play in the elections. …
. . .
So, to Eleanor Squeal and the pro-choice crowd, the feminazis who marched in such rage and anger on Sunday…
So here we’ve got progress. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Here we’ve got four new police chiefs are women, again, San Francisco, Boston, Milwaukee, Detroit, and the feminazis find the bad news. “Well, there’s still only 13% of women on the forces of the general police population, so…”
It was a frosty ev
ening that night. It had to be, what, back in 1992 or ‘93? And I’ll tell you what got me in trouble. Greenfield said, “You really used the word ‘feminazi’? Do you not think that’s an upsetting word to Jews?”
I said, “Well, I don’t think it should be. I mean, if you look at what abortion is, it’s almost comparable to what happened in World War II.” Pffft! Man, you could have felt the ice. The room chilled. But I didn’t back down, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve not been invited back to the 92nd Street Y since — but didn’t back down.
In The Washington Post we get a little story: “Tips for the Democrats, Hint: Next time don’t compare anybody to Hitler.” And by the way, the only reason they’re doing it is because Rush Limbaugh invented the term “feminazi.” That’s the sum total of the Washington Post story — Durbin did it because I popularized it first with “feminazi.”
I haven’t used that term on this program in years. But it still gets to ‘em, doesn’t it? And you know why? Because it’s right. Because it’s accurate. And I’m not going to apologize, but I will apologize if it hurts your feelings. But you know what? I think if you’re offended, it’s your problem. It’s not mine.
Finally, a few non-sex-related reasons we hate Rush Limbaugh:
He’s as hypocritical about his illegal drug use as he is about his own messed-up marriages.
On October 3, 2003, the National Enquirer reported that Limbaugh was being investigated for illegally obtaining the prescription drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone. Other news outlets quickly confirmed the investigation.
On October 10, 2003, Limbaugh admitted to listeners on his radio show that he was addicted to prescription painkillers and stated that he would enter inpatient treatment for 30 days, immediately following the broadcast.
Limbaugh has said his addiction to painkillers resulted from several years of severe back pain heightened by a botched surgery intended to correct those problems.
A subsequent investigation into whether Limbaugh had violated Florida’s doctor shopping laws was launched by the Palm Beach State Attorney, which raised privacy issues when investigators seized Limbaugh’s private medical records looking for evidence of crimes. On November 9, 2005, following two years of investigations, Assistant State Attorney James L. Martz requested the court to set aside Limbaugh’s doctor-patient confidentiality rights and allow the state to question his physicians, stating it was necessary because “I have no idea if Mr. Limbaugh has completed the elements of any offense yet.”
. . .
On December 12, 2005, Judge David F. Crow delivered a ruling prohibiting the State of Florida from questioning Limbaugh’s physicians about “the medical condition of the patient and any information disclosed to the health care practitioner by the patient in the course of the care and treatment of the patient.”
On April 28, 2006, Limbaugh and his attorney, Roy Black, went to the Palm Beach County Jail to surrender after a warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of doctor shopping. According to Teri Barbera, spokeswoman for the Sheriff, during his arrest, Limbaugh was booked, photographed, and fingerprinted, but not handcuffed. He was then was released after about an hour on $3,000 bail.
After his surrender, he filed a “not guilty” plea to the charge. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if Limbaugh paid $30,000 to defray the cost of the investigation and completed an 18-month therapy regimen with his physician.
Limbaugh asserted that the state’s settlement agreement resulted from a lack of evidence supporting the charge of “doctor shopping.” Under the terms of the agreement, Limbaugh may not own a firearm and must continue to submit to random drug testing, which he acknowledges having undergone since 2003.
. . .
Roy Black, one of Limbaugh’s attorneys, stated that “Rush Limbaugh was singled out for prosecution because of who he is. We believe the state attorney’s office is applying a double standard.”
So? So:
I don’t buy into the disease part of drug abuse. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you’re making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that.
We’re going to let you destroy your life. We’re going to make it easy and then all of us who accept the responsibilities of life and don’t destroy our lives on drugs, we’ll pay for whatever messes you get into.
. . .
I’m appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say people are going to do drugs anyway let’s legalize it. It’s a dumb idea. It’s a rotten idea and those who are for it are purely 100 percent selfish.
. . .
If [U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders] wants to legalize drugs, send the people who want to do drugs to London and Zurich, and let’s be rid of them.
So we’re not going to get on — we don’t fault these animals for a lack of discipline, but we get on human beings who are fat for lack of discipline and you know it and I know it. But here’s the thing that struck me about this. We have alcoholics and drug addicts in our society, don’t we? And what do we say about them? Well, they can’t help it. Why, it’s genetic. Why, they have a disease. Why, put one thimbleful of scotch in front of them and they can die.
We totally exempt them from any control over their lives, do we not? Some athlete will spend two years snorting lines of coke. He can’t help it.’ You know, it’s — it’s just — it’s not — it’s — it’s genetic. These people — they’re predisposed to having this addictive syndrome. They — they can’t help — yeah, like that line of cocaine just happened to march into the hotel, go up to the athlete’s room and put itself right there in front of him on his blotter.
When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he’s being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks.
— quoted in the Los Angeles Times
August 20, 1995
There’s nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.
What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.
Now get this: Bob Johnson, drunk, driving around Minneapolis, threatening to shoot himself with a BB gun — Wonder where Al Cowlings was this night? — was drunk and calling people on the phone. Lis — listen to this. Bob Johnson was once listed in legislative directories as a school social worker, quote, “recognized for work in fields of youth and family problems and alcohol drug prevention.”
Anothe
r Democrat — another — folks, these people are taking it really hard, you know, these Democrats, threatening to kill themselves with a BB gun, getting drunk. Here — a guy who had been cited, who had been recognized for his great work in alcohol and drug abuse is drunk on the highways. This is just — it’s tragic, but it’s just — it’s outrageously funny. And he is just the latest in a series of Democratic legislators in Minnesota accused of crimes including shoplifting, spouse abuse and insurance fraud. Conflict resolution, Democrats and all their good social works, and still, look at what ha — it just — it’s — it’s hypocrisy.
In fact, I’m reminded — I had this story about three weeks ag — maybe it was before Christmas, maybe it was as far back as November — but there were a couple of drug convictions out in — I think it was a Colorado court. And these guys had — had done some really bad stuff, and there were mandated federal sentences for the crimes they had committed. And the judge apologized to the criminals while sentencing them because he thought it was too severe. He apologized and the com — the community was outraged. So we’ve gone from a judge sentencing a mother who makes her child beg six months in jail, to judges apologizing for getting dope dealers and crack dealers and drug salesmen off the streets with too severe a sentence.
…I go into detail about these non-thinking talking points that “you can’t tell people what to do with their bodies” and “you can’t legislate morality.” First of all, we tell people what they can do to their bodies all the time — no cocaine, no prostitution, no throwing yourself off a building. Second, laws are nothing but defining morality!
These tough sentencing laws were instituted for a reason. The American people, including liberals, demanded them. Don’t you remember the crack cocaine epidemic? Crack babies and out-of-control murder rates? Liberal judges giving the bad guys slaps on the wrist? Finally we got tough, and the crime rate has been falling ever since, so what’s wrong?
Citing Limbaugh’s pronouncement that “there were no ’sound scientific studies’ supporting the medicinal use of marijuana,” Tony Papa blasts Limbaugh’s anti-drug tirades as “characteristically callous and harsh toward sick and dying people who use medical marijuana as Limbaugh blathered ‘the FDA says there’s no — zilch, zero, nada — shred of medicinal value to the evil weed marijuana. This is going to be a setback to the long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking crowd’”:
Rush Limbaugh’s noxious lack of sympathy for others in similar predicaments tests one’s commitment to the idea of non-incarceration, compassion and treatment for all non-violent drug offenders. Many who normally support treatment instead of incarceration would love to see Limbaugh locked up and to get a taste of his own medicine. Rush has demonized drug offenders to his national audience of “dittoheads.”
. . .
This distain for medical marijuana patients is not the first time Rush showed a lack of compassion to people who use drugs or suffer from addiction. Limbaugh is the man who scoffed at the idea that African Americans are disproportionately arrested on drug charges, and suggested that the solution was to arrest more white people. Interestingly enough, Mr. Limbaugh sang a different tune when he was the white person who could have easily ended up behind bars if he was not the famous radio personality that he is.
He thinks it’s funny to mock people suffering from progressive neurological disease.
Wikipedia covers it accurately and as well (and as succinctly) as anyone/place else:
On the October 23, 2006 edition of Limbaugh’s radio show, Limbaugh imitated on the “DittoCam” (the webcam for website subscribers to see him on the air) the physical symptoms of actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease and has appeared in political campaign ads for candidates who support a form of embryonic stem cell research,[link] [link] and has stated that he sometimes doesn’t take his medicine explicitly to show the effects of the disease. [link] Limbaugh imitated Fox’s Parkinson’s symptoms as displayed on the commercial, stating that “[Fox] is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He’s moving all around and shaking and it’s purely an act…. This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting.” [link] Limbaugh’s comments were broadcast on major networks, and paired with internet footage, from the show’s “Ditto-cam”, of Limbaugh’s imitation of Fox’s movements. However, the controversy surrounding Limbaugh’s statements generated controversy of its own when major media networks and edited the footage used: the speed of Limbaugh’s movements were significantly increased and the sped-up footage looped to fill the time, while Limbaugh’s comments were dubbed over at their original playback speed. Limbaugh and other commentators remarked about the obviously edited footage, claiming that the playback speed was increased to make Limbaugh appear as though he was mocking Fox rather than demonstrating what had appeared in Fox’s commercial. After this criticism, a second version of the internet camera footage was released. This new footage also show Limbaugh’s movements noticeably sped up, though not as much as the first edit, with playback of Limbaugh’s comments dubbed over. Limbaugh later explained that he made this remark in reference to Michael J. Fox’s remarks on a C-SPAN interview years earlier at which point Fox admitted to occasionally not taking medications before some public appearances so that people can truly understand the nature of the disease.
He’s a racist and a xenophobe.
Sorry to say this, I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve.
— Rush Limbaugh
on Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb
ESPN
September 28, 2003
Hey, Locoweed.
— referring to Spanish Prime Minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
March 17, 2004
And then what if — there are all kinds of little Communist regimes in — what if [Fidel] Castro shows up and says I endorse Kerry? The Black Caucus would like that, but Kerry wouldn’t.
There’s some little strife going on in Venezuela with that wacko, Cesar Chavez, down there. Hugo. Hugo, Cesar — whatever. A Chavez is a Chavez. W
e’ve always had problems with them.
The U.N. preaches hate, preaches anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
We had an attack in Weird-zakistan or whatever — one of these Zakstan places. Uzbekistan, yes, whatever it is. They’re all Weird-zakistan to me, but… How many Zakistans are there over there? Seems like a new one pops up every day. You can’t keep track of them. I’m a geography expert and I’ve never heard of some of these. I don’t expect Ron Wyden to know where it is, but I would think I would. Now I’ve heard of Uzbekistan, but there was one the other day that I — that I — Kazakistan, Kazikstan, oh, I’ve heard of those. But it looked like Weird-zakistan to me. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.
Sorry, Senator [John Kerry]. And I’m not going to believe this business that you don’t like heavy metal. I mean, I think heavy metal’s probably your anthem. You know, from the Vietnam era and all that. But here, again, don’t stand up for white music. Associate yourself with rap.
(Did we mention how much Rush adores slamming John Kerry? No? Well, stay tuned.)
We are reviewing the testimony, the grilling, the interrogation of noted criminal Dr. Condoleezza Rice who appeared before the law today, the 9/11 Commission attempting to assign blame and seeking to affix it to the Bush administration via beating up on the girl. Only in Washington when the girl is a Republican and a black can you beat up on her. Couldn’t do this if she were representing a Democrat administration regardless of her color, but especially given that she’s black. … . But since she’s a Republican, since she has the audacity to be a black woman Republican, why, it’s OK to beat up on the girl. And they tried to beat up on the girl today, folks…
Why is the United States of America almost always alone in carrying this burden? We are almost always alone, Senator Kerry, because Europe is fat and lazy, spoiled by our bailing them out.
A French journalist has been kidnapped in Iraq, but I don’t believe it. I think the guy surrendered.
As I said yesterday, truce is an old Arabic word. Goes way, way back in Islamic-Arabic culture, and it means, “We will get you later.”
The — the Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip. The Kerry campaign has announced that civil rights activist, the Reverend Jackson, has joined the campaign on Wednesday — that’s today, the day before the debate. Jesse Jackson has joined the Kerry campaign.
He calls his enemies stupid, childish names. And when that doesn’t work, he insinuates they’re gay or transgendered.
Then Terry McAuliffe, The Punk, came out… Then after the video was over, here came The Punk back. The Punk walked back out there, McAuliffe, and introduced Kerry.
They came out and did their speeches in time for The Punk, Terry McAuliffe, to come out, who… if Kerry wins, that The Punk will become the ambassador to the court of St. James.
The fact that [John Kerry's] a gigolo is just funny to me.
We have here, ladies and gentlemen, this is The Punk, Terry McAuliffe, he was on The Today Show today. … So The Punk wormed his way onto The Today Show today.
And, they’re all [asking], “What about Hillary? What about Hillary?” So, I told them, “I’m not worried about Hillary. She puts her pants on one leg at a time like every other guy does.”
I mean, where are the real men in the Democratic Party? Where are the real men? Hillary Clinton’s one of them, but where are the others?
I guess we can’t — get those — those naked pyramids just not in the national interest to Al Gore.
. . .
I mean, it says — it says a lot about Gore. It says he’s perverse, that he would be argue to go confer greater rights on those who seek to murder millions of Americans and calling for even tougher actions to seek them out and destroy them before they destroy us.
I’ve got some interesting, juicy details on this book on Hillary by Ed Klein, but I’m not going to be the first to mention them. I’m not going there. It will come out eventually. It has to do with sexual orientation, and I’m not going to be the one. That’s the book that everybody says is going to be presenting a firestorm.
He mocks the poor and the homeless.
In addition to introducing news about the homeless with Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s “Ain’t Got No Home“…
Can you imagine some poor welfare recipient in Arizona, doesn’t know what’s up. Doesn’t know why the check’s not as big. Doesn’t know why the food stamps don’t stick to whatever he tries to mail.
He mocks people with AIDS.
Per Wikipedia: “For a time, Dionne Warwick’s song “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again” preceded reports about people with AIDS. These later became “condom updates” preceded by Fifth Dimension’s song, “Up, Up and Away (in My Beautiful Balloon).”
When he’s not dismissing it as a frat-boy prank, he’s endorsing torture as a real swell idea.
You know, if you look at — if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don’t know if it’s just me, but it looks just like anything you’d see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I’m — yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on “Sex in the City” — the movie. I mean, I don’t — it’s just me.
Caller: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men —
Limbaugh: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of a need to blow some steam off?
The thing though that continually amazes — here we have these pictures of homoeroticism that look like standard good old American pornography, the Britney Spears or Madonna concerts or whatever, and yet the libs upset about the mistreatment of these prisoners thought nothing of sitting back while mass graves were being filled with three to 500,000 Iraqis during the Saddam Hussein regime.
Senator Kennedy, ladies and gentlemen, said that he didn’t need to look at any of these other pictures. He can just have Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi act them out for him. I’m making that up. It’s a joke.
. . .
“The images left a searing impression on the Senators and House members. Some described images of
Iraqi women exposing their breasts.” I guess that’s — you’re not supposed to do that outside the Kennedy compound.
. . .
These guys got to be careful. They’re now calling sex torture. This is the fastest 180 among the progressive pop culture society I have seen.
It’s like George Neumayr said yesterday in The American Spectator online. If these photos had been taken by Robert Mapplethorpe, these same senators and congressmen would fund the exhibit through the National Endowment for the Arts.
. . .
Don’t mis — don’t misunderstand me. What I’m saying is here that it — to me, this is still being exploited as a political opportunity. I am not saying that what’s in these pictures is harmless. I am not saying what’s in these pictures is not bad. I am not saying what’s in these pictures is unbecoming the United States of America. I think I’m the one being consistent.
. . .
So even as we speak, even as liberal Democrat Senators are reacting in shock, and stunned amazement and disbelief, and saying that they are sickened by these new photos from Iraq. Even as they speak, the California pornography industry is happily getting back on its feet after the most recent HIV/AIDS scare. And they’re all happy about it out there because of the tax revenue that the porn industry in California is going to generate.
Yet while absolving the Abu Ghraib guards for merely “blowing off steam,” he derides our servicemen and -women who oppose the war in Iraq as “phony soldiers”:
Caller: I’m one of the few that joined the Army to serve my country, I’m proud to say, not for the money or anything like that. What I would like to retort to is that, what these people don’t understand, is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is not possible because of all the stuff that’s over there, it would take us at least a year to pull everything back out of Iraq, then Iraq itself would collapse and we’d have to go right back over there within a year or so.
Limbaugh: There’s a lot more than that that they don’t understand. The next guy that calls here I’m going to ask them, “What is the imperative of pulling out? What’s in it for the United States to pull out?” I don’t think they have an answer for that other than, “When’s he going to bring the troops home? Keep the troops safe,” whatever.
Caller: Yeah.
Limbaugh: It’s not possible intellectually to follow these people.
Caller: No, it’s not. And what’s really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.
Limbaugh: The phony soldiers.
Just days later, Limbaugh…
…described an Iraq veteran who appears in a new TV ad that is critical of the talk show host as having been turned into something akin to a suicide bomber by the liberal anti-war veterans group that produced the ad. …
That veteran, Brian McGough, has fired back at Limbaugh: “So, Rush Limbaugh called me a ’suicide bomber.’ More slander from the high and mighty sitting in his chair nursing the boils on his ass. I can assure you that I am no suicide bomber and that I can think for myself.”
He smears.
I don’t know who they [Democrats] are, I don’t know what they believe, but I can’t relate. I can’t possibly understand somebody who hates this country, who was born and raised here. I don’t understand how you hate this Constitution. I don’t understand how you hate freedom.
…Howard Dean, truly a very sick man… You know, Howard Dean is a — I mean, it was already demonstrated that he was a sick man. This is why we were hoping he would get the nomination.
This is why, folks, you cannot, we cannot entrust liberals with the defense of this country. They will not do it. They will not defend the American military. They will cut and run every time. They will not defend freedom. They will not defend this country.
[Environmentalists] are nuts, folks. They’re absolute wackos. They’re total wackos. And yet they represent quite a bit of thinking in the Left of this country. They are not — I mean to us, they’re fringe, but the — the Left fringe is more and more defining them as their mainstream. … [M]ake no mistake that these are a bunch of people that look at capitalism as an enemy of the people. … [T]hat’s what the modern environmental movement is about, folks.
The Democrats have found their keynote speaker for their convention: Saddam Hussein.
. . .
It makes you wonder who hates Bush more, Saddam or the Democrats.
. . .
Let me — let me ask you liberals out there: Did that image of Saddam in a sport coat and an open collar just melt your heart?
. . .
All [Saddam Hussein's] doing is reading Democrat talking points.
. . .
We killed his sons. We took his country. We put him in jail. He is still calmer and more rational than Howard Dean after he lost Iowa. He’s calmer and more rational than Gore after he lost his mind. He’s calmer and more rational than George Soros is.
He especially loves to smear Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) — whose status as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, and whose successful second marriage (to a very, very rich, and very, very savvy lady) apparently drive Rush (and his ilk) nuts (but then, chickenhawks of a feather…):
What’s good for terrorists is good for John Kerry.
[John Kerry's] been a senator with no name on legislation, his own name not on legislation. I mean, he’s been there, but he’s basically a skirt-chaser, folks. He’s a gigolo.
[Fidel] Castro’s the kind of guy that Kerry would probably lionize, to tell you the truth.
Now you’ve heard Kerry talk about the fact that when people have criticized his legislation, his voting record, “Well, you don’t know how these things work. You’ve never been there. You’re just a little peon. You’ve never married rich women like I have. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t drink brandy from snifters. You use Styrofoam cups. I’m a real man and I know what I’m talking about. And I’m just telling you, you can’t hit me on my record, because you’re challenging my patriotism, and I served in Vietnam, so shut the
f*** up,” that’s your John Kerry response.
Kerry is cheap. Most gigolos are.
Hillary Clinton, as you’ve seen already, is a favorite target. And Rush takes special glee in constantly resurrecting the Wrong Wing’s favorite lie that both Bill and Hillary Clinton (or maybe just Hillary) murdered former White House counsel Vince Foster (who committed suicide in Virginia’s Fort Marcy Park) — and for a while was warning one of his favorite punching bags, Cindy Sheehan, that if she doesn’t stop criticizing Clinton, Clinton will murder her, too:
OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon. … What it is is a bit of news which says … there’s a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.
That’s why I’m telling you, whoever briefed Janet Reno, start searching Fort Marcy Park, folks.
[The Clintons are] pretty confident Kerry is going to lose, and if Kerry wins, there’s always Fort Marcy Park.
One thing we can be sure of, ladies and gentlemen, is these missing documents will not show up in the Map Room of the White House like the Rose Law Firm billing records, unless there is a former Clinton administration official who can worm his way back into the White House and plant them there — and Sandy Burglar [Berger], stay away from Fort Marcy Park.
Somebody has gotten to [Cindy Sheehan] and said, “Do the words ‘Fort Marcy Park’ mean anything to you?” I will guarantee you, my friends, that by the time all is said and done — if she calls [Hillary Clinton] out one more time — that’s it for Cindy Sheehan.
[Sheehan] will not mention [Clinton] again, ladies and gentlemen, unless she wants to end up in Fort Marcy Park. Mark my words on it.
He simply lies.
[Democrats] celebrate privately this attack in Spain.
I’m telling you, we’re in the midst of a huge liberal crackup. They are so motivated by the quest for power. They are so motivated by rage and hatred, that they are not in power. And they focus that on Bush. That they have aligned themselves unwittingly — I’m going to grant them that — with those who intend harm on this country.
You don’t hear the Democrats being critical of terrorists.
There’s not a person in Washington, D.C., alive that has anything to do with this who is going to see to it that those same mistakes [we made in Vietnam] are made again. This is wishful thinking on the part of the Democrats.
Senator Kennedy has just told us what he hopes happens. He wants a quagmire.
We’ve got elements of one of the two major political parties in this country doing things, saying things, taking steps that are designed to demoralize.
The liberals put their party and their quest for power above national interests. They wouldn’t join with Reagan during the Cold War. Defended the Soviets. Tried to make Gorbachev the hero of the world. … Democrats did everything they could to support the Contras and their client state, the Soviet Union.
These people have become the mainstream thought — thinkers, generators of the Democratic Party. It’s who they are. They hate this country. They hate the military of this country.
We’re spending as much on environmental protection as we are on defense and homeland security.
And the liberals focus on this one guy. They hate the military anyway. Liberals do not trust the military. Don’t think the military’s any good. When a military guy comes along and says something they expect or like, then of course this guy’s the smartest guy in the country.
One of the things that — that the — the AIDS activists said regularly back then was, oh, this is only a matter of time before it spreads to the heterosexual community. It’s only a matter of time.
And they used that as — as one of the weapons to try to get people like Reagan to start talking about it from their standpoint. And of course it — it hasn’t. It — it didn’t, and it hasn’t, other than in Africa, and in Africa it is — it is being spread not just by — it — it — it’s promiscuity that — that — that spreads this, if you want to know the truth. It’s promiscuity.
But it — it hasn’t made that jump to the heterosexual community.
Clinton was offered bin Laden two or three times, turned him down. Turned down Sudan. Sudan offered it.
Now, you know, the media and the Democrat critics of the president are breathlessly — and I mean this, folks, I’m not — I’m not exaggerating. They are breathlessly awaiting the death of the 1,000th soldier. It will be a milestone.
I — I can’t believe it. They’re anxiously awaiting this so as to try to make political hay out of it against Bush. So we’re breathlessly — — eagerly anticipating — on the Left — the death of the 1,000th soldier so it can be exploited. It’s sick.
But the statistic I saw — do you know how many students commit suicide on American university campuses in America every year? The number is 1,000. Do you know how many Americans die on a highways [sic] every year in this country? Try 47,000 to 50,000. And here we’ve got 1,000 deaths in Iraq in a war for the defense of this country and the insurance of our freedom, and everybody says these aren’t worth it.
The fact that there’s no — no relationship to Iraq and — and 9-11 — nobody ever said there was. You guys just believed the myth out there that was — that was — that was promulgated. Nobody ever said there was. What we said was, there’s a connection of terrorism in Iraq, and the voters believed this.
The press — the leftists in this country — are just upset that there are not enough deaths to get people outraged and protesting in the streets against the war. They’re mad that these doctors are saving lives. They want deaths! They’ve been counting deaths up to 1
,000, they hoped that would get Bush out of office.
. . .
There aren’t enough deaths so people aren’t gonna be mad! It makes total sense to me. In fact, it’s sort of like the left complaining when you tell them crime is down.
. . .
Remember one of the things I warned you about the Democrats? Bad news for America is good news for them; good news for America, bad news for them. They’ve doubled their bets. It’s gotten to the point now where the more deaths in Iraq the better for them, they think. The more lives saved in Iraq, the bigger the problem for them.
Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There’s nothing about it that’s real, including the mainstream media’s glomming onto it. It’s not real.
He mocks and smears the bereaved.
Some of these families [of 9/11 victims] I think are auditioning for co-host of The Today Show.
We had a typically snooty, silly little liberal on the phone who wanted to take potshots at me for daring, daring to say that some of the 9/11 family members are close to becoming or have become Democrat operatives.
He’s not only anti-anti-war — he’s actually anti-peace.
I’m almost going to come out in favor of war every 10 years so that we always have a group of people in this country that know what it’s like. It’s not healthy to go without a war for all these many years, because you get people that are born and grow up, and don’t know what one is, and then the war happens, you start firing ammunition, and they think the world is coming to an end. When the truth is we’re kicking ass over there.
He’s just plain wrong. See: “The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh Debates Reality,” FAIR, July/August 1994
Divine justice:
None — yet. This black-hearted hater has been spared justice, so far. He took a deal on the drug charges, and was “sentenced” to probation for 18 months, provided he continues to receive treatment for his addiction.
Worse, Rush went deaf (possibly from “abusing opiate-based painkillers“) — but that’s hardly justice; as long as he unplugs his cochlear implant, he doesn’t even have to hear his own vile blathering.
We think God is just saving up some really special form of punishment for him.
See also:
RushLimbaughOnline.com
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Limbaugh:
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
— Isaiah 59:1-3, 8, 13, 15-17
Suggested Bible reading for dittoheads:
Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.
So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Claims to fame: One of the leading televangelists in the “
The rest of the story can be gleaned through headlines alone (although the articles themselves are full of all sorts of interesting and provocative details):
