A Second Look at Limbaugh's Travails

GOPUSA ^ | January 12, 2004 | Carol Devine-Molin

[tornado100]

Several months have elapsed and I thought it might be interesting to re-examine the plight of radio megastar Rush Limbaugh. In my previous article on Limbaugh's troubles entitled "Limbaugh's Secret Life", I was initially criticized for accepting The National Enquirer's contention that he was addicted to prescription narcotics. Heck, I was also skewered for surmising that the conservative icon was likely to be subject to arrest, pursuant to his drug activities. In hindsight, I think my points were well taken. My article came out about five days before Limbaugh publicly acknowledged his addiction and need for rehabilitation. And now criminal charges against Rush might be unavoidable, if the Palm Beach prosecutor has his way. I have no crystal ball, just plenty of life experience. In fact, I'll be quite happy if I'm wrong about this situation. However, there's no need to fret -- even if Limbaugh takes some type of plea, he's looking at court supervision rather than jail time.

Now for some pertinent background information --The National Enquirer vets its front page exposés of celebrities with a phalanx of attorneys, certainly more thoroughly than anything that you would read on the front page of The New York Times. That's a sad commentary on our modern culture, isn't it? Common sense dictates that the tabloid was not going to place itself at the mercy of Limbaugh and a libel suit. The National Enquirer couldn't afford to be wrong. That said, I rightly judged that the essence of the story - Limbaugh's significant addiction to painkillers - had to be accurate otherwise the publication would not have gone to print with it. But what about those that categorically reject anything published in The National Enquirer, claiming that it's all pure drivel rife with abundant sensationalism? I'll readily concede there's a lot of innuendo and spinning that's intended for pure titillation purposes in The National Enquirer - But the lead stories (such as the Limbaugh piece) often contain significant morsels of truth, which is directly attributable to decent investigative reporting by journalists such as David Wright and oversight by attorneys. To some degree, The National Enquirer and its sister paper, The Star, get a bum rap. Many "junk paper" aficionados point out that the supermarket tabloids sell millions of copies each week precisely because they deliver genuine tidbits to their readership.

Since Limbaugh's return from residential treatment, he's verbally eviscerated the tabloid for relying on the statements of a couple who had "blackmailed" him. His anger toward the tabloid is totally understandable. However, it's important to note that although The National Enquirer didn't get everything right in their article on Limbaugh, it certainly got much of the story right - at least the key elements. As an aside, Limbaugh violated a fundamental precept in life that you should never, ever permit yourself to be blackmailed. And it demonstrates Limbaugh's depths of despair in his attempts to manage a dire, no-win situation. Ultimately, it was really Limbaugh's responsibility to have gone directly to law enforcement authorities if he was being blackmailed, but he chose not to do so. Clearly, he wanted to avoid scrutiny of his own drug involvement.

Despite Limbaugh's shortcomings, his fans have remained profoundly loyal. Rush's audience numbers are peaking at an all-time high due to his incisive political analysis that's the best around.

[Dell Dude]

I was offended when Rush attacked McNabb like he did. It's one thing to say he's over-rated (which would just be wrong), but he turned into into a racial thing.

McNabb didn't deserve that. He's not some leftwing politician he's am NFL quarterback and from all accounts a quality human being. Rush got exactly what he deserved by losing his job. Nobody wants that race card garbage brought into sports.

With the pill popping, he was exposed as a total hypocrite. Like Michael Corleone of the Godfather: When he did that, it insulted my intelligence and made me very angry.

I don't give anyone a free pass. I expect people to not act one way in public and another way in private, and I don't like race baiters on either side of the aisle.

Rush Limbaugh is not a political leader. He never was. He's a talk show host. I listen to him for entertainment. I listen to George W. Bush for leadership.

Besides, Bill O'Reilly has passed Rush as a national media figure anyway.

[veronica]

I like your profile page ~ Good job!

Thanks! :))

[veronica]

Besides, Bill O'Reilly has passed Rush as a national media figure anyway.

In Bill O'Reilly's dreams.

But Rush is much more than a "media figure." He's a Conservative icon. And he paved the way for people like O'Reilly. 15 years ago Rush was doing what O'Reilly is doing now. I like O'Reilly, but he's not the the important figure Rush is. Rush is arguably, with Bill Buckley and Reagan, and Newt, among the very few who for many years have advanced the Conservative agenda, and made the GOP the political powerhouse it is today.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Besides, Bill O'Reilly has passed Rush as a national media figure anyway.

Not even close. O'Reilly has nowhere near the same number of listener's/watchers. He's not that entertaining, always getting angry.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

I was offended when Rush attacked McNabb like he did. It's one thing to say he's over-rated (which would just be wrong), but he turned into into a racial thing.

While I don't agree with Rush's statement, I don't think it was out of line to say that the media was possibly overating him because they desire black quaterbacks to do well. So, maybe he was wrong. It was a continuance of a topic he and Tom Jackson had the prior week.

[Matchett-PI]

Matchett-PI: "[1] Useful idiots (Sincere/Naive types like Alan Colmes)"

ItsTheMediaStupid: "Keep in mind that Fox News pays that usefull idiot a lot of money. Usefull perhaps, but maybe not an idiot."

"Useful idiots" is the phrase Karl Marx used to refer to those who supported his socialistic ideas which, like a dictatorship, were what he considered to be the necessary steps to reach the ultimate goal; Communism.

Colmes is a proud member of the Marxist DemocRAT party. Therefore, Karl would easily recognize him as one of the ones he referred to as clueless "useful idiots".

[Dr. Scarpetta]

He still thinks his life can be manageable with drugs. It's obvious to me.

Are you talking about anti-depressants?

[Matchett-PI]

"He has not yet admitted he is powerless over his addiction. He still thinks his life can be manageable with drugs."

No kidding? Reeeeeally??? The actual truth is easily discoverable right here on Free Republic, eeeeeeeven:

Excerpts of the truth of the matter:

Rush Speaks! His First Public Comments

Posted on 11/17/2003 5:28 PM EST by PeteFromMontana

"...I would have had no idea how to do this myself. ..."

"I tried to treat myself twice for my addiction. I detoxed myself twice and tried to do it by force of will, but this is something someone cannot do alone. ..."

"...It's something that I must do, but I can't do it alone, either. ..."

"So I am who I am. Nobody made any attempt to change me in terms of my core and this sort of thing, other than as it relates to the problem I have, the addiction. But that's, again, something that I deal with myself, and there's a part of it that will be shared. ..."

"I have to do what's best for me if I'm to succeed at this. ...I can no longer anticipate what I think people want and try to give that to them. I can no longer try to live my life by making other people happy. I can no longer turn over the power of my feelings to anybody else, which is what I have done a lot of my life. I have thought that I had to be this way or that way in order to be liked or appreciated or understood - and in the process, I denied myself who I was and I denied the other people I was talking to and relating with who I really am, and that isn't good."

"You can boil it down to one real simple essence: I can't be responsible for anybody's happiness but my own, and if I allow somebody else the power to determine my happiness, then...well...that's something I don't want to do. I can't do [it] any longer. I put myself first. Doesn't mean be rudely selfish. It just means I can't depend on other people to make me happy. I have to do that myself. I'm the only one who has control over that.

"...I am powerless over this addiction that I have. I used to think I could beat it with force of will. I used to think that I would be different, but I'm not."

"I'm just like anybody else who has an addiction. I'm powerless over it .."

[Lazamataz]

"He has not yet admitted he is powerless over his addiction. He still thinks his life can be manageable with drugs."

I stand corrected. But I can tell you this, his tone has changed a LOT since those initial days after treatment.

I hope the best for him.

However, I fear -- and sense -- the worst.

[Lazamataz]

Are you talking about anti-depressants?

No. I'm listening to him blame a lot of people for his problems lately. This is textbook junkie behavior, I'm sad to say. I hope he snaps out of it, because I suspect he is beginning to rationalize using.

I hope, I pray I am wrong. Rush is an icon and a favorite of mine. But I have travelled a little on this road, and I know what the signposts look like.

[carpio]

I know plenty of addicts who went to prison and/or jail and emerged to use within hours of their release. I know many addicts who used the day before a piss test. None of these things are guarenteed 'bottoms'.

I know these same people from my many years in AA. It is a difficult thing to understand. I had one close friend who did 12 years of a 25 year murder sentence in Texas. He got out on supervised parole with ankle bracelet electronic surveliance and weekly Pee tests. He could not stay clean even with going back to Huntsville for the balance of his sentence a sure result of dirty Pee tests. He is now back there doing the rest of the 25 year sentence. When all he had to do to be free was to be clean. This is totally incomprehensible to people who have never "Been There." No use trying to explain it.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Was it possible for you to get on with your life after rehab without anti-depressants?

[Matchett-PI]

Dell Dude: "I was offended when Rush attacked McNabb like he did. It's one thing to say he's over-rated (which would just be wrong), but he turned into into a racial thing."

You must not have been paying attention. Everyone at the time understood that Rush was talking about the media who were focused on "race". It wasn't until two days later that some of his political enemies tried to turn it into something else.

Dell Dude: "McNabb didn't deserve that. He's not some leftwing politician he's am NFL quarterback and from all accounts a quality human being. Rush got exactly what he deserved by losing his job. Nobody wants that race card garbage brought into sports."

As Rush pointed out, and has pointed out for years, it is the leftist liberals who notice race first and everything else second. He said nothing new. He said nothing more that he has been saying for over 15 years.

Excerpt from the item below:

"Limbaugh is being excoriated for making race an issue in the NFL. This is hypocrisy. ...

Rush Limbaugh didn't say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right.

He didn't say anything that he shouldn't have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now.

I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn't hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what they did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?"

Liberal Sports writer admits "Rush Limbaugh Was Right"
Slate.msn ^ | 10/02/2003 | By Allen Barra
Posted on 10/03/2003 9:52 AM EDT by Blood of Tyrants
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994422/posts

In his notorious ESPN comments last Sunday night, Rush Limbaugh said he never thought the Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb was "that good of a quarterback."

If Limbaugh were a more astute analyst, he would have been even harsher and said, "Donovan McNabb is barely a mediocre quarterback." But other than that, Limbaugh pretty much spoke the truth. Limbaugh lost his job for saying in public what many football fans and analysts have been saying privately for the past couple of seasons.

Let's review: McNabb, he said, is "overrated ... what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well—black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well."

"There's a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Let's take the football stuff first. For the past four seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles have had one of the best defenses in the National Football League and have failed to make it to the Super Bowl primarily because of an ineffective offense—an offense run by Donovan McNabb. McNabb was a great college quarterback, in my estimation one of the best of the '90s while at Syracuse. (For the record, I helped persuade ESPN Magazine, then called ESPN Total Sports, to put him on the cover of the 1998 college-football preview issue.) He is one of the most talented athletes in the NFL, but that talent has not translated into greatness as a pro quarterback.

McNabb has started for the Eagles since the 2000 season. In that time, the Eagles offense has never ranked higher than 10th in the league in yards gained. In fact, their 10th-place rank in 2002 was easily their best; in their two previous seasons, they were 17th in a 32-team league. They rank 31st so far in 2003.

In contrast, the Eagles defense in those four seasons has never ranked lower than 10th in yards allowed. In 2001, they were seventh; in 2002 they were fourth; this year they're fifth. It shouldn't take a football Einstein to see that the Eagles' strength over the past few seasons has been on defense, and Limbaugh is no football Einstein, which is probably why he spotted it.

The news that the Eagles defense has "carried" them over this period should be neither surprising nor controversial to anyone with access to simple NFL statistics—or for that matter, with access to a television.

Yet, McNabb has received an overwhelming share of media attention and thus the credit. Now why is this?

Let's look at a quarterback with similar numbers who also plays for a team with a great defense. I don't know anyone who would call Brad Johnson one of the best quarterbacks in pro football—which is how McNabb is often referred to. In fact, I don't know anyone who would call Brad Johnson, on the evidence of his 10-year NFL career, much more than mediocre. Yet, Johnson's NFL career passer rating, as of last Sunday, is 7.3 points higher than McNabb's (84.8 to 77.5), he has completed his passes at a higher rate (61.8 percent to 56.4 percent), and has averaged significantly more yards per pass (6.84 to 5.91). McNabb excels in just one area, running, where he has gained 2,040 yards and scored 14 touchdowns to Johnson's 467 and seven. But McNabb has also been sacked more frequently than Johnson—more than once, on average, per game, which negates much of the rushing advantage.

In other words, in just about every way, Brad Johnson has been a more effective quarterback than McNabb and over a longer period.

And even if you say the stats don't matter and that a quarterback's job is to win games, Johnson comes out ahead. Johnson has something McNabb doesn't, a Super Bowl ring, which he went on to win after his Bucs trounced McNabb's Eagles in last year's NFC championship game by a score of 27-10. The Bucs and Eagles were regarded by everyone as having the two best defenses in the NFL last year. When they played in the championship game, the difference was that the Bucs defense completely bottled up McNabb while the Eagles defense couldn't stop Johnson.

In terms of performance, many NFL quarterbacks should be ranked ahead of McNabb. But McNabb has represented something special to all of us since he started his first game in the NFL, and we all know what that is.

Limbaugh is being excoriated for making race an issue in the NFL. This is hypocrisy.

I don't know of a football writer who didn't regard the dearth of black NFL quarterbacks as one of the most important issues in the late '80s and early '90s. (The topic really caught fire after 1988, when Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins became the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.)

So far, no black quarterback has been able to dominate a league in which the majority of the players are black. To pretend that many of us didn't want McNabb to be the best quarterback in the NFL because he's black is absurd. To say that we shouldn't root for a quarterback to win because he's black is every bit as nonsensical as to say that we shouldn't have rooted for Jackie Robinson to succeed because he was black. (Please, I don't need to be reminded that McNabb's situation is not so difficult or important as Robinson's—I'm talking about a principle.)

Consequently, it is equally absurd to say that the sports media haven't overrated Donovan McNabb because he's black. I'm sorry to have to say it; he is the quarterback for a team I root for. Instead of calling him overrated, I wish I could be admiring his Super Bowl rings. But the truth is that I and a great many other sportswriters have chosen for the past few years to see McNabb as a better player than he has been because we want him to be.

Rush Limbaugh didn't say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn't say anything that he shouldn't have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now. I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn't hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what they did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?

[Lazamataz]

Was it possible for you to get on with your life after rehab without anti-depressants?

You are asking for medical information protected by HIPAA. If you are curious for an anecdotal reason only, I would talk to you via freepmail.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Rush Limbaugh didn't say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn't say anything that he shouldn't have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now.

It's irrelevant what Rush did or didn't mean. The media interpreted it the way they wanted and used it against him. Rush should have used better judgement because he's always known that the media was out to get him. He used to know that in past years when he wasn't high on drugs.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Actually, I was just wondering what drugs you think Rush is currently taking to help him get through the crucial period after rehab.

[_Jim]

I was offended when Rush attacked McNabb like he did.

Wow.

The *real* "Dell dude" (from the TV commercial) ...

[_Jim]

With the pill popping, he was exposed as a total hypocrite.

Joseph Goebbels did this for the Germans - kept repeating lies to make them come true ...

[Dell Dude]

Michael Vick is the best quarterback in the NFL. No one else can dominate a game like he can. He's black. The quarterback for the Cowboys is pretty good and he's black. The quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens sucks but he's black too.

Rodney Peete is almost 40 and he's still earning a salary as a backup with the Panthers. Kordella Stewardess was a terrible quarterback for the Steelers and an even worse one for the Bears. He's black. Randal Cunningham was a successful NFL quarterback. He' black. He played for the Eagles too. Doug Williams, as stated, won a Superbowl. Black.

Nobody cares anymore what skin color the quarterback is. It's already been proven blacks can be stars and busts at that position. Just because a couple of Philly writers and one fat slob radio personality are still obsessed with skin color doesn't make it so.

McNabb is two games away from silencing all his critics anyway. I'm calling it early he will do just that. Rush Limbaugh should at least retract his assertion that McNabb is overated once that happens. I won't hold my breath. He never really ate crow over his Hillary will not run for Senator guarantee.

[longtermmemmory]

That is not correct. The drug court program DOES NOT INVOLVE A PLEA! It is a PRE-TRIAL release program. If you participate and complete the program, your case is dropped. NO PLEA REQUIRED. End result no case, charges dropped, no record.

If you do not complete the program you can either accept a plea and leave the program OR get sent over to regular criminal court.

The whole purpose of the scrutiny that Rush is recieving is to find a charge OUTSIDE THE PERVIEW of drug court program. If they find the magic charges, they will get a very public rush trial.

If they even get that far, Roy would file every conceivable pre-trial motion.