Guin, you might be right. If one can trust an article from Mother Jones (who obviously hate him) RL is guilty as charged but has cleaned up his act.
For the sake of fairness, here’s Rush’s response to FAIR http://www.rtis.com/nat/pol/rush/fair.htm
BTW a racist doesn’t choose to have a Black friend officiate at his wedding. :eek:
Very true Sam, except I seem to be one of the relatively few who find them both hilarious. But then again I also thought I was relatively unique in admiring Tim Leary and G. Gordon Liddy, until I heard the show G. Gordon did after Tim’s death. I knew they established *something *of a relationship on their debate tours but was surprised and impressed by the personal affection and lament Liddy showed for an ideological enemy. More surprising still was the number of callers who, like me hold both those men in esteem.
I think many people lack an appreciation for Rush’s talent for sarcastic caricature, perhaps they lack a sense of humor, or don’t like seeing their own ideological ox get gored. But the same could be said of Michael Moore or many other “over the top” entertainers with an eye toward politics.
I can’t really decide whether to conclude this post with “fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke” or “we’re prejudice against bigots.”
It’s not the liberals who are composing the lengthy, heartfelt, and detailed posts in this dumbass thread, Milo.
Now shut up and deal the cards.
Like these? (From the FAIR link.)
Whatever.
And that link where Rush responds to his critics - I’m down to #5, and his responses are as full of holes as Swiss cheese. He may have gotten Sidwell right, for all I know - but even there, he originally attributed the story carried on a CBS-run wire service to CBS News. (He’s been in radio forever, and he should’ve known one from the other.) Other than that, it’s the usual BS:
(1) On student loans, if the banks follow the procedures, there’s no risk. (2) American health care is decidedly not the best in the world for the 40 million without health insurance, nor is it for the uncounted millions whose health insurance leaves a great deal to be desired. Quoting one source that happens to support his position doesn’t amount to refutation. (3) On deforestation, there was more forest when the Constitution was signed, and Rush doesn’t even bother to argue that it’s otherwise in his ‘rebuttal’. He merely argues that there’s been an increase in forested land since the 1950s, based on ‘reforestation’ by lumber companies. But anyone who knows anything about reforestation knows that there’s a huge environmental difference between a bona fide forest, and a monocultural Georgia-Pacific tree farm. (4) I’ve already discussed Sidwell. (5) Beer and alcohol taxes: Rush said “You better pay attention to the 1993 budget deal because there is an increase in beer and alcohol taxes.” That wasn’t true - and even Rush admits that it was considered in some meetings within the Administration, not as part of any ‘deal’ with another party. But between that, and similar consideration of such taxes to potentially fund the Clinton health care plan, Rush somehow believes he was right all along. What a loser.
I’m sorry he’s losing his hearing, but Sofa King’s right - he never used it much anyway.
I have. But then again, I’m an audiologist, so I’m in a pretty good position to hear bizarre hearing-related stories.
Not only have I seen patients who lost their hearing completely in the span of a few months, I’ve seen a patient who lost all of her hearing overnight. She went to bed with normal hearing and woke up deaf. She was being evaluated for cochlear implant candidacy at the hospital that I was doing my fellowship at, and I’m not there anymore, so I’m not sure what happened with her.
Sudden bilateral hearing loss is rare, but it happens. :eek:
FAIR accused Rush of making up the story. After RL pointed out that he DID have a source for this story, Jeff Cohen (head of FAIR) had the nerve to write a letter to the Wall St Journal making RTF’s point above. Jeff Cohen isn’t an idiot, but his passion made him sound like one in this instance. We now know that
– the story is sourced (FAIR had wrongly accused him of making it up.)
– the story is actually true (FAIR wrongly implied it was bogus)
– the source is a news service of CBS
Cohen was left to whine that the source was not “CBS News” but was a CBS-run news service.
Aside from its pettiness, Cohen’s point may not even be literally correct. Rush’s report was made on the radio. Rush might have been saying the source was “CBS news,” which would have been precisely true. Cohen assumed Rush said “CBS News.”
That’s exactly what Rush said. In other words, there’s no risk if you ignore the risks. In this case, the risks are not getting reimbursed for one reason or another. That’s a lot different from a flat statement, “There’s no risk at all.” So, RTF appears to be supporting Rush against FAIR on this point.
Actually, that source is a full refutation. It refutes FAIR’s accusation that Rush was lying or making up facts. Obviously the “best health care in the world” is a matter of opinion and interpretation. Rush had a perfect right to quote one opinion that the US was the best, just as RTF or FAIR has a right to quote another source who opines differently.
Overall, FAIR was remarkably unsuccessful at finding errors, given that Rush has talked around 5,000 hours over the last 10 years or so – often extemporaneously. Take a look at page 2 of the New York Times. They list their errors there – averaging around half a dozen per day. Those are flat-out errors, not just differences in interpretation or political belief. And the NYT isn’t extemporaneous. They have editors to review each article.
It’s unreasonable to call someone an “idiot” because he made a handful of errors over a huge period of time. None of us is perfect.
Oh. I get it. You get to dictate how people will take this thread? You get to dictate how people will respond to your attitude here? Are you a mod? And why is not my opinion, or take on this not valid? Would you also tell a deaf person (or someone who had a deaf relative) to “back off” too? If they were dare to disagree with you?
So I don’t happen to believe that a sudden loss of hearing (or eyesight, or anything) is “poetic justice” for anything. So I have seen someone lose one of their senses first-hand, and I know how painful it can be. So I my heart goes out to this particular man, and his family, because I can relate a little. Because of the pain I’ve personally witnessed, and the pain I’ve seen, and you want me to “back off”? Why? Maybe my unique perspective isn’t out of line here. Maybe if some of the rest of you had encountered something like this a little more intimately you’d not be so eager to see how “poetic” it is.
It seems so easy for some of you to sit back and chortle a bit at this man’s expense. So what if he’s a media hound? What does that have to do with this very personal issue he is going through? I would totally understand if you were to chortle and say it was “poetic” if he were caught in some sort of public scandal, or he lost his radio show, or something professionally related. Because that would indeed be “poetic” in relation to what you see him as - a “media hound”.
But losing hearing is something personal, and permanent, and can be very difficult. And for some of you to kick back and carry on about how “poetic” it is is pretty cold, and inappropriate, IMO.
Ah, the old “some of my best friends” argument.
I was asking a question-I believe I read it in Fair-let me look it up-shit, I can’t find it. Well, I’ll drop it for now.
But there’s no question that the guy is a world class bastard and a nasty nasty rude and insensitive human being.
yosemite-I’m surprised-I can understand your feelings, but you don’t strike me as someone who would be a Rush fan!
And yeah, I feel sorry for the guy, and no, I’m not happy, but I am going to say I hope that maybe this may teach him a little bit about compassion.
My sister (yeah, the blind one) listens to him - I rarely do. He can be damned funny at times (he has a real comic wit, no really!) but I have found him to be factually in error at times, and I don’t appreciate the homophobic comments he’s made in the past. However, my sister says he’s not so bad anymore. I think people can learn. I don’t know either way, I rarely catch his show.
But it’s not about me being a fan, or not. After all, I have said that even though I dislike Clinton greatly, I wouldn’t wish something like this on him, nor would I consider it “poetic justice”. I’d think of his family, and his friends, and I’d feel bad for him, on a personal level.
Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. However, would you not consider it rather - I dunno, condescending or arrogant of me if I were to say something like that about Clinton? If Clinton suddenly went deaf, or blind, and I were to say “Well, I hope this teaches him something?” Sheesh… Maybe some lessons can be learned in a little less drastic way. It’s not for any of us to say what will “teach” someone something, anyway.
If indeed this deafness “teaches” Rush something, that will be great. I’d like to hear it from him first, though.
I don’t know what my sister’s blindness “taught” her - probably something. But I sure as hell wasn’t thinking about the “lessons” her blindness was going to offer her when she was going through the middle of it.
Rush … Someone who rants in the Pit a lot.
Rush … Someone who rants in the Pit a lot.
Rush ... Someone who rants in the *Pit* a lot.
Rush = Someone who rants in the *Pit* a lot.
Why do his rants have to be PC and and YOURS don’t?
Besides, I need someone to temper MPR. Too much of either makes me nauseous.
It looks like FAIR was just as sloppy and lazy in their accuracy as they claim Rush to be.
Anyway, Rush wouldn’t fall under their umbrella anyway. He is not a reporter. He is not a news outlet. He is a talk show host. He has no responsibility to be accurate or maintain journalistic credibility. Anyone who believes something because “Rush said so” needs their head examined.
I saw an interview with Bob Costas a few weeks ago and he addressed Limbaugh. It seems Limbaugh was on his talk show “Later” and he implied Rush was a racist. Costas called his show the next day and vehemently cleared the air that, even though he disagreed with most of his ideas and politics, he definately did NOT think he was a racist.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**
So, Guin, suppose that you had been accused on this thread of of being a racist. Please tell us how you’d prove you weren’t one? I bet you can’t. In fact, I won’t be surprised if you don’t even try.
Guin, you don’t understand “some of my best friends.” The “some of my best friends” argument is discredited because it’s so easy and common to have a few friends of any particular minority. Furthermore “best” is an elastic standard; It’s easy to claim that an acquaintance is a “best friend.”
However, for a white couple to choose a Black to officiate at their marriage is an objective statement and is unususal. How many Caucasians do you know who were married by Blacks?
BTW, have you been married? If so, was the person who officiated at your wedding a different race from yours?
Definitely ironic. And believable, if anyone else has noticed the recent changes in his voice and enunciation (that he’s been trying to hide for a while).
I suppose the master composer Bethoven was deaf, and still composed several incredible symphonies. How’s that for an ironic analogy?
I think you’re missing the point here, yosemitebabe. Your sister, afaik, wasn’t an outspoken opponent of the rights of the disabled. Bill Clinton also wasn’t. Rush Limbaugh is.
Rush Limbaugh, opponent of disabled rights, is now disabled. That, no matter what you think of the morality of finding humor in it, is poetic justice.
Now, were Bill Clinton to have acquired some sort of wierd Pinnochio disease, that would have been, kinda, a valid analogy. I can’t even think of a similar situation about your sister…I don’t think one even exists.
See…if Bill Clinton went blind, it would have been wierd, or downright nonsensical, for you to say “Hey…he lied about sex, now he’s blind. Poetic justice.” That’s not poetic. It’s bad things happening to someone that you feel is a bad person.
When someone has actively complained about advancements in the ease of living for the disabled acquires a disability, it’s poetic justice. If you don’t see that this could be considered poetic justice, whether you think it is “just” or not, then I suggest you take a few steps back, and evaluate this from a more emotionally detatched perspective.
Definitely ironic. And believable, if anyone else has noticed the recent changes in his voice and enunciation (that he’s been trying to hide for a while).
Recall that the master Bethoven was deaf, and still composed several incredible symphonies. How’s that for an ironic analogy?
Who is telling whom to “back off”? Am I telling anyone that they should not participate in this thread? I’m not telling people they can’t rant. I’m just disgusted with their attitude. I am daring to disagree with it. And they are disagreeing with me.
But only one of us is telling the other to “back off”. And that ain’t me.
Some unbiased cites, please? But, I’m sure he has been insensitive on occasion. But if he were so venomously hateful towards the disabled (especially recently, when my sister started listening to him regularly) I’ll have to ask my sister what gives. Because it would seem highly bizarre for her to listen to someone who blatantly disliked or didn’t give a damn about the disabled.
When I was a kid, my sister pestered me, was a bully and a bitch. She destroyed at least one painting I was working on, just because she was a bitch. She sometimes said mean things about my artwork. And she destroyed my artwork. She also was artistic herself. She lost her vision, lost her ability to create artwork, after putting down my artistic efforts on occasion. So - is her blindness “poetic justice” too?
It’s on a lesser level, but I think if Rush Limbaugh’s deafness is “poetic justice”, than my sister’s blindness is “poetic justice” too.
When you scrutinize someone’s life - anyone’s life, you can find “poetic justice” in a lot of the bad things that happen to them. You just have to look. If that’s what you really want to do.
Or, you can choose not to look at it that way, and think about how they will forever not be able to do this thing, or that thing, and think how sad it is for them, and their family.
Anybody remember just doing this? Only with Jesse Helms as the odium? Ya know, P.J. O’Rourke made an offhand comment in one of his books about how liberals seem to hate people. I’ve always been inclined to take that as a piece of humor, but not particularly accurate. Some of you fuckers are forcing me to believe P.J. spoke the truth. Disgusting.
Normally I’d let this go, but since a fair portion of this thread has been arguing about whether or not Rush’s situation is ironic, I have to nitpick. It is not ironic. Even if Rush was a full blown hater of deaf people, his going deaf would not be ironic (though it would be poetic justice, which is, of course, a term some other people have used here). To use “irony” to describe that situation is to misuse the word.
From dictionary.com:
and the usage note on ironic:
With regards to the example sentance for “irony”, a person would normally expect that Ireland, since it hated England (which, I assume, is “the nation she most hated”), to not copy it, and when Ireland did copy England, the situation was therefore ironic, precisely because the expected outcome was the opposite of what a person would normally have assumed to be the case given the starting condition. (As a sidenote, I’m just explaining the given example, I certainly don’t want to get into a debate on whether Ireland actually coped England in anything.)
However, to say that Limbaugh’s situation is ironic is to say that since Limbaugh hated the deaf (or whatever, I’m not trying to get into what his actual opinions were or are), you’d normally expect him to not go deaf, which simply makes no sense, since his opinions on disability have no connection to what medical conditions he develops. Now, since he has gone deaf, if he continues to argue against “deaf rights”, then you could argue that’s ironic, since you’d normally expect someone who is deaf to support thier cause, but that hasn’t happened yet. So, Limbaugh’s situation is coincidental, and it is possibly poetic justice, depending on what his opinions were, but no matter what he thought, it is not ironic.