You’re quote is from 1995, which is before the incident. As such, it really doesn’t support Sampiro’s statement, and isn’t the link I asked him for.
Of course, it does show hypocrisy, no doubt. I listen during lunch, and while he hasn’t played that quote Limbaugh has acknowledged such statements that he made and addressed whether or not he stood by them now that he suffered from the same affliction.
He does not. Having gone through it his perspective has changed, and now he feels differently. He acknowledges that while he suffered from pain and was prescribed medication he became addicted and abused the drugs through his own doing and is at fault and that his stance has changed.
Make of it what you will, that’s what I heard him say more than once. Since this issue is back in the news he’ll probably discuss it more in the next few days if you care to verify it.
No. He was not.
He is indeed a hypocrite.
Oh, I agree, and while I wish him well and enjoy his show it is enough almost to make you get religion, the poetic justice of it, is it not?
The beauty of this karmic justice goes beyond just deserts. Limbaugh’s loyal listeners and hard-liners who felt similarly must also now reassess or fall into the void of cognitive dissonance.
We live, we learn. This is how it works.
I’m not sure what makes it so special or noteworthy, and I certainly didn’t think and don’t think Limbaugh was infallible or that his opinions were not subject to modification through experience or that he was immune to hypocrisy.
Apologies for not responding sooner- I haven’t read this one in a few days. I will admit that I cannot find the quote I was looking for and so I will withdraw it as mistaken until I can produce it. If/when I can I’ll bump the thread. (I also cannot find a full-text searchable database of his transcripts, only a few partial and keyword transcript databases, so it would take forever to search through them.)
That said, the question
is, if you’ll pardon, indicative of something that would be asked by somebody who could and would miss every point in the Pentagon. No, I never did think he was infallible or immune to hypocrisy.
I also never made a living (or vast fortune as the case may be) from moralizing, disseminating lies and willfull distortions, spewing inaccuracy based hatred or promoting and furthering the nauseous idea of moral absolutes while at the same time living a lifestyle in direct contradiction to the moral code I became rich promoting. Judging Limbaugh is not the same as judging the old lady who preaches against crackheads and queers while secretly an alcohol abuser and adulteress, unless the old lady in question has made millions from promoting a version of morality that forbids adultery and alcohol use.
As for the unquestioning followers of Limbaugh, Robertson, etc., at risk of violating Godwin (whose facetiousness is overlooked) I do not judge them as I would Nazis for I find them more contemptible. When Hitler rose to power times could scarcely have been more desperate without active volcanoes- people were literally starving to death and the threats of invasion and takeover and total collapse were extremely real and every hand seemed against them and they were in a state of utter defeat. Americans, even those who live below the poverty level (which is not the main support base of these people) follow them in a time when they are not living in eminent danger of invasions, starvation or total war. If they are correct and there is a hell then I strongly suspect and hope that the only part of them that will ever escape it for a second are their screams, and that the screams of their media icons will never make it that far.
I Googled, but almost all the hits for Oxycontin and hearing loss lead to sites which are discussing the Rush case. I can’t find anything that seems unbiased.
Lupin AJ et al. Inner ear damage related to propoxyphene ingestion. Can Med Assoc J 1976;
114:596.
Harell M et al. Total deafness with chronic
propoxyphene abuse. Laryngoscope 1978; 88:1518-
Ramsay BC. Complete nerve deafness after abuse of co-proxamol. Lancet 1991; 338:446-447. 5. Friedman RA et al. Profound hearing loss associated
with hydrocodone abuse. Presented at 32nd annual
meeting of the American Otological Society, Inc. Palm
Dessert, CA. April 25, 1999.
Mulch G, Handrock M. “Sudden binaural deafness”
after acute heroin intoxication. Laryngol Rhinol Otol
(stuttg) 1979; 58(5): 435-437. 8. Andrew K et al. Deafness associated with abuse of
hydrocodone/acetaminophen. Neurology 2000; June
(2 of 2): 2345.
Here’s what I thought-- if you make your living by taking a hard, law and order, family values, punish the evildoer, I’m so righteous stance from the bully pulpit, then you should walk the walk. If you don’t, you should have the humility to admit that you were wrong, and take the lumps you would so eagerly have doled out to those with the same problems, who you’ve criticized. What makes this noteworthy is how vocal, how strident, how insistent he was about how drug abusers should be punished, and now he’s not taking his punishment.
It’s not just that some right-winger has a drug problem, believe me. It’s that he made such a name for himself declaiming against such dregs of society, and now that he is one, it’s not noteworthy. If this had been Michael Moore and not Rush Limbaugh, would it be noteworthy for you? For Limbaugh himself?
There’s no moral consistency here. That’s what bothers me. You can’t have one set of standards for yourself and one for everyone else and still stand on your lofty high ground.
Despite several posts in Limbaugh-related threads lately, I don’t think of myself as a fan or apologist of his. I am a conservative, and I sometimes listen to his show, but I’m by no means a ditto-head. That said, I’m surprised by the impression that some folks seem to have that Limbaugh has been a strident law and order advocate or portrayed himself as occupying some moral high ground. His radio persona is certainly that of an all-knowing authority on political matters, but I just haven’t noticed what I’ve seen mentioned here. I have read the quotes supplied here and don’t dispute them; they just don’t seem to represent what I view as dominant themes of his daily pontifications.
But you are doing those things in this thread. Not making money while doing it doesn’t make it ok, you know?
Are you saying it’s ok to be hateful as long as you don’t make money doing it?
Well, that’s pretty extreme and hateful. Last I checked, Limbaugh raised 1.7 million for blood cancers including 250k from his own pocket.
You on the other hand are calling people Nazis and sincerely hoping they burn in hell based on falsehoods, preconceptions and ignorance, and are judgemental to an exteme. In an absence of facts you have made some up (Limbaugh having a prior conviction.)
I’ve never heard anything as hateful and ignorant from Limbaugh as what you just said, not even close.
Limbaugh did admit he was wrong, and he’s taken some lumps. I already mentioned that, did I not?
Out of fifteen years of 3 hour a day shows, I think we’ve produced one or two quotes of him taking this hard line. I think your portrayal is a mischaracterization based on my listening.
That’s not how he made his name. His stance has certainly been anti-drug and critical of those suffering addictions, and this turn of events is certainly ironic. To characterize him though as a pundit railing against drug abusers on a constant basis and to suggest this is how he made is name is simply a gross mischaracterization. Limbaugh made his name by editorializing about politics from a conservative stance.
That’s fair. I did think it was noteworthy two years ago. Now it kind of seems old.
I agree. One nice thing though is that stance has changed. He’s talked about it in detail, and discussed why he was wrong, and apologized for it. Several times.
I have posted in the GD thread on this, and don’t want to rehash things here, but this one I have heard directly from the Maha Rush’ie:
And I can assure you that this is taken out of context, it is a hit against a racist media that reported on white vs black drug use. The media claimed that it was unfair to blacks, since so many of them were in prison, Rush made the point that is was really unfair to whites as the blacks have the criminals removed from society, so to equalize things he proposed the above.
I did not mean to characterize him as constantly railing against drug addicts. You do realize it’s hard to find his transcripts online, so I can’t provide too many more cites for you. The thing about his editorializing from a conservative stance is that he’s never been very charitable to those whose lifestyle choices make them the less fortunate of society, not just through drug addiction, either. Now that he’s on their end of the stick, he can buy his way out of it instead of taking his REAL lumps, ie, serving some time in jail.
What’s noteworthy is that now he’s now known to be a chronic drug abuser. Just because he hasn’t been convicted doesn’t negate this fact. Would it be “old” if it were Al Franken as a serial offender? Here’s what Rush himself said about chronic drug abuse on 9/23/93:
“I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don’t buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that.”
Rush has made a personal choice to pop illegal prescription pills. I feel bad that he’s suffering, but other people who do this, who are legitimately suffering, do prison time.
Would Bill O’Reilly say this about Franken or Moore if the shoe were on the other foot: “they want to seize his medical records on a, you know, on a beef that’s a prescription drug beef, which is a low-level beef, you know?” Reeeeallly? Other people have gotten 25 year sentences for having that much Oxycontin, and yeah, they reall needed it too.
If he were some poor bastard, he’d be doing time by weight for all those narcotics. How much time would you or I do for possession of all that Oxycontin? We’d also get a trafficking and possession charge to boot, and that’s some hard time.
Now, I’m not casting stones for the sake of it. I don’t care what drugs who does on their own time. But what about a guy who said, on 8/18/03: “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?” I bet he’s glad the law wasn’t tough on him.
Oh, he apologized! That stands up in court, eh? [ulr=http://www.zpub.com/un/un-bc-sp1.html]Clinton apologized too. Several times. But no one will drop that, either. Why? Because it’s some illegal shit, and people who do illegal shit should be flogged in a public forum, right? Esp. when they are in positions of power.
It’s funny how some offenses are a big yawn and some are just totally unforgivable and never to be dropped or forgotten. You keep bringing up Limbaugh’s charity work as if that’s somehow exculpatory in this situation. It’s not. It’s admirable of him to do that, but it does not change his crimes nor mean he should given a pass. I highly doubt you’d give a person in an equivalent position of celebrity who you loathed for his vocal political stance a pass if he behaved in a similarly hypocritical and cowardly way. I just want some consistency, damn it.
I did not mean to characterize him as constantly railing against drug addicts. You do realize it’s hard to find his transcripts online, so I can’t provide too many more cites for you. The thing about his editorializing from a conservative stance is that he’s never been very charitable to those whose lifestyle choices make them the less fortunate of society, not just through drug addiction, either. Now that he’s on their end of the stick, he can buy his way out of it instead of taking his REAL lumps, ie, serving some time in jail.
What’s noteworthy is that now he’s now known to be a chronic drug abuser. Just because he hasn’t been convicted doesn’t negate this fact. Would it be “old” if it were Al Franken as a serial offender? Here’s what Rush himself said about chronic drug abuse on 9/23/93:
“I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don’t buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that.”
Rush has made a personal choice to pop illegal prescription pills. I feel bad that he’s suffering, but other people who do this, who are legitimately suffering, do prison time.
Would Bill O’Reilly say this about Franken or Moore if the shoe were on the other foot: “they want to seize his medical records on a, you know, on a beef that’s a prescription drug beef, which is a low-level beef, you know?” Reeeeallly? Other people have gotten 25 year sentences for having that much Oxycontin, and yeah, they reall needed it too.
If he were some poor bastard, he’d be doing time by weight for all those narcotics. How much time would you or I do for possession of all that Oxycontin? We’d also get a trafficking and possession charge to boot, and that’s some hard time.
Now, I’m not casting stones for the sake of it. I don’t care what drugs who does on their own time. But what about a guy who said, on 8/18/03: “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?” I bet he’s glad the law wasn’t tough on him.
Oh, he apologized! That stands up in court, eh? Clinton apologized too. Several times. But no one will drop that, either. Why? Because it’s some illegal shit, and people who do illegal shit should be flogged in a public forum, right? Esp. when they are in positions of power. And transgress chronically.
It’s funny how some offenses are a big yawn and some are just totally unforgivable and never to be dropped or forgotten. You keep bringing up Limbaugh’s charity work as if that’s somehow exculpatory in this situation. It’s not. It’s admirable of him to do that, but it does not change his crimes nor mean he should given a pass. I highly doubt you’d give a person in an equivalent position of celebrity who you loathed for his vocal political stance a pass if he behaved in a similarly hypocritical and cowardly way. I just want some consistency, damn it.
I honestly don’t think that’s what you got from that post. If it is there’s no point debating it with you as I’d have to link to too many pictures to explain the big words.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Could I have been any clearer?
Pity. I was only going for moderate and hateful.
Good. I’m glad, I really am. Lots of people have given a hell of a lot more than that without having their publicist cry it from the tower tops, but it’s 250K all the same. I’m glad that the nine-figure-contract he signed for spewing hate and misinformation had a rebate even if it was only a fraction of one percent. (Using Scylla logic, I must infer that post indicates a belief in the moral rectitude of indulgences- it’s okay to be a hypocritical moralizer so long as you toss a tiny percentage of your money to charities. )
No, I specifically said “I do not judge them as I would Nazis for I find them more contemptible”. I never called them Nazis. Do learn to read all the words dear, not just the ones you’ve seen before.
How can I sincerely hope anyone burns in hell when I don’t sincerely believe in a hell? I said that IF they are correct I suspect they will and that with that same qualification I hope they will, which yes, I do. I love irony and Bible beating moralizers burning in the pits of perdition would be a great one, don’t you think? Up there with John Adams’s last words and the hanging of William Aterton.
That’s me.
Which I revoked. I was wrong (something Limbaugh said about his views on drug abuse after he was caught red handed violating them- isn’t it amazing how public exposure for hypocrisy can so often coincide with sudden moderation on an issue?). I won’t say I made them up- I misunderstood them, it happens. I should be more careful in the future. If you’re wanting me to say Rush is a great guy because he says "Oops… " when he gets caught committing a felony then you can indicate so by substituting a rabid chipmunk for a tampon while hopping on one leg and singing ‘Macarena’ and I might consider it.
Then you’re damned lucky to know me aren’t you love? Thank you for taking time out from laughing about giving your helpless children a phobia of death long enough to show me my moral failings.
I’ve listened for about an hour a day for several years and I don’t think this is an accurate characterization of his discourse. He is in fact very charitable to those less fortunate (in the literal sense of the word, too.) How often do you listen that you have formed this characterization of yours? If you don’t listen, on what basis have you formed it.
Well, maybe. I don’t know. Another way to look at it is that he is being unfairly persecuted because of his celebrity status. I don’t know what the truth is, do you?
I don’t think being addicted to painkillers is a crime.
I’d still probably think his political opinions were wrong, but that he did some very funny things.
This is not accurate. Oxycontin is not illegal. Limbaugh has not been charged with criminal posession, or anything else other than “Dr. Shopping,” to which he has pleaded “Not Guilty.”
What Bill says or you hypothesize he would say really doesn’t have any bearing on anything, does it? Personally, I doubt that anybody has gone to jail for 25 years without being charged, and I think that if they could have charged Limbaugh with criminal posession they probably would have. Innocent until proven guilty applies to people you don’t like as well as it does to people you do like.
You seem to be hypothesizing that Rush was in posession of a vast store of Oxycontin which would have resulted in an immediate charge and a likely conviction were it some noncelebrity person. That hypothesis requires support. Exactly how much Oxycontin did the police find in Limbaugh’s posession? How can you rebut the counterargument that they went harder after Limbaugh because he was a celebrity?
That’s speculation. Again, exactly how much did the police find when they raided his home?
It certainly seems like you are. I’ve followed this case and and the things you seem to think happened don’t appear to have actually occured. Again, how much Oxycontin was Rush found with?
Actually, he thinks the law was tough on him, and that he was the focus of a two year invasive investigation that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and that he was victimized in this way unfairly for political reasons. In support of this thesis he points out that after two years of exhaustive investigation the DA’s office failed to charge him with any crime except for a single count of “Dr. Shopping” that will be dismissed 18 months down the road. Clearly, they tried very hard to gather evidence against Limbaugh. The fact that they came up empty-handed and were unable to produce anything credible means that we must grant the presumption of innocence. Clearly, after trying so hard for such an extended period of time, if they could have made serious charges they would have.
He’s not in court over this.
This goes to an earlier point of mine. You seem to agree that famous people and political people can be put under a microscope and persecuted unfairly for political value. Why do you have a double standard and think this was bad in the case of Clinton and good in the case of Limbaugh?
If you are accusing me of a double standard I’ll expect a cite.
Mostly, I bring it up to dispute charges that he does not care about those less privileged, and also to note that at the time Sampiro accuses Limbaugh of getting arrested after a prior conviction, he was actually raising money for kids with Leukemia. You’ll have to admit that it’s an excellent alibi.
Admitting to an addiction to prescription painkillers is not a crime, and he is not asking for a pass for that. He disputes the allegations of criminal posession and has not been charged with that. He has plead not guilty to the charge of Dr. Shopping and the DA will drop that charge in 18 mos without pressing.
If you are to suggest that he committed crimes, you’ll need to prove that just as the DA needs (but is unable) to do.
That’s a bad argument. You can hardly attack me with something you would only guess I would do in a hypothetical situation. The only person that’s allowed to get mad at me for things I might do is my wife.
FTR, in a similar situation with Al Franken I would think as I do concerning Limbaugh.
In your last post you said:
Now you’re complaining that he did. Which is it? Do you want consistency, or do you admissions of wrongdoing where merited?
You’re not being consistent, you know, so Pot, Kettle, Black.
You think Limbaugh was prosecuted too hard because he is a celebrity. I think he got away with more than he should have because he is a celebrity.
Let me ask you how much you know about Oxycontin addiction. Do you know how many pills you have to take when you’re an addict? Handfuls a day. Hence, the doctor shopping. There is no way to get enough Oxycontin legally to support an addiction as serious and long-term as Limbaugh’s. Whether or not the police found these pills, you’d be disingenuous in the EXTREME to argue that he did not, at some point, possess a very, very illegal amount of pain narcotics. An amount for which a normal person would do hard time.
Limbaugh broke the law in an egregious way that he decried in others. He didn’t get busted as hard as he easily could have been. Crying excessive prosecution in THIS case, and never, ever dropping the Clinton thing, for example, is hyocritical.
Limbaugh is very hard on people who don’t agree with him. He calls names, he distorts, he outright lies. When it turns out that he is not as morally consistent as someone who touts “moral values” should be, then I think a little more humility is called for than he has shown. JMO, YMMV and I guess it does.
I was being generous. Finding them more contemptible is synonymous with saying they are worse.
That kind of hyperbolous hate speech from someone who is specifically railing against hyperbolous hate speech is somewhat ironic. By you’re own logic you should find yourself more contemptible than Nazis. That would be quite the issue with self-loathing you’ve got there (and it would explain some things.)
You would have to respect logical consistency for that to be a problem for you. It doesn’t appear to be a problem anywhwere else, so why should it bother you now? I mean if you don’t beleive in a hell why are you going on about people burning in it? See what I mean about the logical consistency issue?
It’s a shame that your error has not resulted in an appropriate change of viewpoint. In this, Rush has one-upped you. His acknowledgement of error resulted in a change of stance. You, on the other hand are impervious to reason even when it’s yourself pointing out that you are wrong.
I have no doubt it’s a common experience for you. In fact, you should be more careful now and alter your viewpoint to coincide with you admission of error. Until you do your admission is without meaning.
If he were to emulate your stance and admit error while failing to alter his viewpoint based on this admission, I would find it to be less admirable. You imply that altering one’s viewpoint in acknowledgement of error isn’t admirable. I guess that explains why you don’t do it.
You’re welcome. It was truly my pleasure, and you certainly need the assistance so I was glad to oblige.
And you’re welcome to that opinion. I think though that if you want to argue it as fact, then it needs support.
Very little.
All oxycontin addicts take handfuls a day? Do you have a cite for that? You do know your logic doesn’t work. Dr. shopping does not automatically follow from “handfuls a day,” and I don’t think that “handfuls a day” follows automatically from “addicted.” I could be wrong though. As I said, I’m no expert. Do you have a cite supporting the chain of “addicted” to “handfuls a day” to “Hence Dr. Shopping?”
Exactly how serious and long term was Limbaugh’s addiction? I have followed the case but have not seen that quantified. Again, I’ll ask you for a cite.
I am most certainly not being disingenous. You are making assumptions. I’m asking you to support those assumptions. I’m saying I will not accept your assumptions as factual without support.
To date you have stated that to support Limbaugh’s addiction he needed handfuls of Oxycontin every day. You have stated this means he must be guilty of Dr. Shopping and of posession of vast quantities of illegal drugs. You stated that this would send other people to prison for a long time which implies that Limbaugh is receiving specifically favorable treatment by the DA. So, in order:
Please quantify and support your view of Limbaugh’s level of addiction requiring handfuls of Oxycontin per day.
Please demonstrate how Dr. Shopping is an automatic consequence of (1,) and assuming you do that, explain to me that if it is an automatic consequence why the DAs office would not charge him based on it.
Please show exactly what level of Oxycontin posession automatically results in the 25 year jail sentence you alluded to in an earlier post, and show me examples of Oxycontin addicts who were sentenced to jail for a first offense with no other record or crimes other than posession, or Dr. Shopping.
Please demonstrate that Limbaugh received favorable treatment compared to what other people in similar situations recieved, and explain why the DAs office went to such lengths and expense for two years to attempt to gather evidence against him if they weren’t going to use it.
What crime has Limbaugh been convicted of? What crime did he break? Can you get specific?
Demonstrate that he recieved special treatment, please.
It’s a good thing that you brought up Clinton then and not me, isn’t it?
He does call names. He does distort. This is hardly a singular failing. For the most part I don’t hear him being hard on people for simply disagreeing with him. As for lying, Rush generally sources the factual statements he makes so that they can’t be disputed and he has hired an independant fact checking firm to verify his factual statements and report on them. To date, he’s at 98 percent and change IIRC.
You have not supported your statements here to the degree that Rush supports his. I hope that you will.
You really can’t have it both ways. As I mentioned he did acknowledge his error multiple times on the air and describe in detail how it changed his earlier viewpoints and he modified and disavowed his earlier viewpoints and did not attempt to sweep them under the rug.
When you first made this statement you suggested he should apologize and acknowledge error. When I pointed out that he did you said he shouldn’t do that and should stay consistent.
It seems to me that this would be a difficult stance to justify. Which way do you want it?
Do you fault Limbaugh for apologizing, admitting error, and changing his stance… or do you fault him for failing to do so?