Hypocrisy and the Playboy Interview
I know what your're trying to say, and I know what you mean by saying that this is not the time to point out hypocrisy, but for me, this is like a circle closing itself.
I've been generally aware of Rush Limbaugh and have always considered him the kind of newsclown that, like the poor, is always with us. I've listened to his radio show in the car on long trips, because it keeps me pissed off just enough to keep me awake.
The only time I've ever become livid about him was when I read the Playboy interview of him many years back. In that interview he recounts a tale of how he tried to get some medical treatment, and they wanted insurance. According to him, he wanted to pay cash, but they wouldn't let him. And that, he said, was an example of what was so wrong with liberals.
The think is that I knew that to be completely bogus. I knew and know that you can get health care to any degree you want anywhere in the United States and pay for it directly. Hell, I don't know of a single ER in the country that will not accept Visa and MasterCard.
But, oh, I hear the dittoheads cry, but you can't prove that he didn't have this experience. I don't know. Maybe Rush Limbaugh stumbled into the one doctor's office in the country that wouldn't take a check. In that case, though, it's even worse, and I think that's what made me so angry. Even if you take the benefit-of-the-doubt field that surrounds Rush Limbaugh as well as cats and China totally seriously and assume that he was telling the truth, the fact remains that Limbaugh, who certainly hasn't held back on beating the bongos for Free Enterprise, either was just too fucking stupid to find a doctor who would let him pay with a check or card or just couldn't be arsed. Makes a nice, smug little story, though.
But, oh, I hear the dittoheads cry again, Limbaugh isn't a doctor, so he can't possibly have known about this. Well, fast-forward to the present. Even if the reports of Limbaugh's oxycontin usage are off by an order of magnitude, there is just no way that you can get that much oxycontin, apart from buying it on the street, except by knowing in consummate detail how to work the medical profession.
So, now, is he going to retract his comments in the Playboy Interview? Yeah, right. No, the hundreds of thousands of people who practically have their tongues glued to his anus will turn him into some sort of paragon of Christian fallability.
Most of the people here don't remember Robert Downey, but he had a big-toothed, chain-smoking, ultraconservative shouting television show in the early 1980's that in many ways paved the way for Rush Limbaugh. After losing a lung to cancer, at least he seemed to have mellowed out a bit. So far we've only seen damage control from Limbaugh.
What is the point of this rant? Well, as Limbaugh has apparently been so used to lying to people, it isn't surprising that he lied to himself and so became addicted. He likes rock and roll soundtracks on his radio show. Might I suggest Lynard Skynard's "That Smell"?