Posted on 10/16/2003 1:11:36 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh.
Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented.
Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem."
This is a man who created so many petards over the years, it's hard to know which one to hoist him on. How about the title of his book: "See, I Told You So." Or how about one of his many tirades against druggies: "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." It's Rush, after all, who complained, "We're becoming too tolerant, folks."
But everytime I rev up a rant, I imagine the demi-god of dittoheads skulking around a Denny's parking lot to get his fix. I imagine the man waiting, surely, for his housekeeper/drug dealer to drop a dime. I imagine a lonesome, 275-pound guy who apparently never even told his wife when he went into rehab and relapse twice. A man so hooked he may have sacrificed his hearing to his little blues.
And I, gulp, feel sorry for him.
This is the curse of liberal wimpathy. Conservatives talk of right and wrong. Liberals talk of strengths and weaknesses. The right thinks of drug abuse in particular as a moral failing; the left thinks of it as a medical illness. When one of ours goes bad, they jump on him like a churchyard dog. When one of theirs goes bad, we tend to ... understand.
With a few exceptions, conservatives have shown some fancy footwork in defending Rush. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said, "I don't think any less of him for having ordinary frailties." Gary Bauer, president of American Values, made a moral distinction between getting addicted in order to get high and getting addicted to kill pain. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, defended him to Don Imus because Rush never claimed to be a victim. And a dittohead caller on his show said, "we all make mistakes."
Meanwhile opponents, like this wimpette, who would generally like to put a sock in his mouth, are restrained to the point of gentility. Even Al Franken, who wrote "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot," said, "I don't wish that (drug addiction) on anyone." Joe Conason, author of "Big Lies," said, "It's hard not to feel sorry for anyone whose suffering causes them to hustle narcotics." And Howie Kurtz, the media voice of a favorite Rush target, The Washington Post, wrote, "I suspect most people, even those who can't stand the guy, will see a man struggling with his personal demons and be careful about condemning him for his weakness."
Does being a member of the righteous right mean never having to say you're sorry? The closest Rush came to an apology is saying "Well, I am no role model" for going into rehab. But his fans give him a prayerful pass.
His opponents, however, are members of a left which has always been touchy (and feely) about value judgments. The worst charge that a liberal launches at the personal misbehavior of a Bill Bennett or Rush Limbaugh is one of "hypocrisy!" Gasp. Last time I looked, hypocrisy wasn't even on the waiting list for additions to the Ten Commandments.
Limbaugh once described himself as an "epitome of morality of virtue, a man you could totally trust with your wife, your daughter and even your son in a Motel 6 overnight." We have yet to see whether the police agree. But in the court of public opinion, the talk master and voice of the angry white man, who once had his bags carried into the White House by George Bush the First, is being treated with the sort of tolerance and forgiveness that he disparages.
So call me a wimp. When bad things happen to bad people, I have trouble going for the jugular. Wimpathy by another name is plain ol' empathy. And willy-nilly, Rush gets a slice of mine.
In his statement, Limbaugh asked us to pray for him. Well, I'll pass. But I will hope that while big Rush is in rehab he learns to walk a corridor in somebody else's shoes.
Ellen Goodman is a columnist for the Boston Globe.
Rush Limbaugh's misfortune is apparently a bigger story than his nearly $300 million radio contract signed two years ago. That was the biggest radio contract in broadcasting history. Yet there are only 12 documents on LexisNexis that reported it. The New York Times didn't take notice of Rush's $300 million radio contract, but a few weeks later, put Bill Clinton's comparatively measly $10 million book contract on its front page. Meanwhile, in the past week alone, LexisNexis has accumulated more than 50 documents with the words "Rush Limbaugh and hypocrisy." That should make up for the 12 documents on his $300 million radio contract.
The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.
At least Rush wasn't walking into church carrying a 10-pound Bible before rushing back to the Oval Office for sodomy with Monica Lewinsky. He wasn't enforcing absurd sexual harassment guidelines while dropping his pants in front of a half-dozen subordinates. (Evidently, Clinton wasn't a hypocrite because no one was supposed to take seriously the notion that he respected women or believed in God.) ***
I'm sure the email she receives from them will go a long way to disabusing her of that notion </sarcasm!>
Oh, the brave little Ellen, bravely poking those evil foes of the enlightened in the eye.
I call Barbra Streisand on this woman. Nothing could be further from the truth. She needs to take a good long drink of D.U., and re-write this thing.
I, for one, am glad I was never a fan.
But instead, she was still trying to figure out why her 4:00 to 9:00 PM show was canceled. According to her web site, Lynn was "fired" from her gig. The reason she was given: "Budget Cuts." Have progressive liberal radio hosts become a "victim" of the economy or of bias?
BuzzFlash.com had an opportunity to interview Lynn Samuels about why another liberal radio host got the heave-ho.
……………………………… BUZZFLASH: Do you feel there is an audience for progressive liberal radio hosts?
LYNN SAMUELS: I am sure there is a huge audience for liberal progressive and entertaining radio. Remember, more than half the country voted for Al Gore or Ralph Nader. I think what happened is that when Rush became so successful, all the unimaginative suits decided that every talk show host had to be male and conservative. So by now you have 10th-rate Rush clones all over the place.
Some of the liberals they have tried out, like Mario Cuomo or Alan Dershowitz, were such failures (and rightly so, neither one of them had the least talent to be on the radio) that it just made the bosses even more sure that a liberal could not get an audience. There are plenty of good liberal hosts out there, Alan Colmes being one. But there needs to be a daring program director who will do something a little bit different. It seems so strange, especially in New York City that they imagine there are no liberals in the radio audience.
……………….. BUZZFLASH: Finally, what can your fans do at this point to protest? Who can we contact?
LYNN SAMUELS: People can keep e-mailing Phil.Boyce@abc.com. Don't leave out that period between the Phil and the Boyce. Try to get local columnists to write about how media conglomeration has turned radio into an endless commercial for one point of view. It is the media conglomeration that has led to the one-sidedness of so much media. More owners would mean more voices.***
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Now she's got a new gig.
SIRIUS Left, Stream 145, Adds Liberal Voice Lynn Samuels to Lineup Tuesday September 30, 3:44 pm ET NEW YORK, Sept. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SIRIUS (Nasdaq: SIRI - News), known for delivering the very best in commercial-free music and premium broadcast entertainment to cars and homes across the country, today announced that Lynn Samuels -- the fiercely liberal radio talk show host with a signature Queens, New York accent -- joins SIRIUS to host The Lynn Samuels Show on SIRIUS Left, stream 145. The show, which launches October 11 and airs every Saturday and Sunday from 10 am - 1 pm ET, is a SIRIUS exclusive presentation. Samuels has worked in radio for over 25 years, and is well known for her time at WABC/New York, where her program ran adjacent to the Rush Limbaugh show. Her success also led to national appearances on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, Sally Jesse Raphael, Geraldo and Politically Incorrect.
"When bad things happen to annoying people"
We know what Rush has said about drug abuse. But does anyone have any history on what he said about Favre? He didn't go out and purchase drugs to get high. He got hooked medically.
What did Rush have to say about Favre?
Becki
What does that mean?
I often listened to Lynn, but she's out of touch with reality. She got fired from WABC for the first time over 10 yrs ago because she refused to co-host a show with a conservative. Then she ended up working in a laundramat. She was lucky they took her back.
????
I think it is a service you can get (radio) that has TV audio, talk radio, all kinds of music. If you're driving cross country you're able to access just about anything. Someone more technically plugged in would know how to describe it.
Is Samuels that wild haired burnette?
Lynn is about 62 with very long reddish-brown hair. She never married, worked at different radio stations over the years, and was a screener for Drudge's radio show. She has a screechy sounding voice and is always on a tirade against Republicans.
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