[Chancellor Palpatine]

Wonder if that will make him less harsh about people with troubles. Its got to suck to be him right about now.

I will say this - at this point, I feel like taking all my conservative pundit books to the curb. I've got Limbaugh's stuff, was a Limbaugh letter subscriber, bought all of Bennett's material, etc. I've got one nice autobiography of Weinberger, some Horowitz and a Barbara Olson I want to keep, but the rest can hit the can.

[wimpycat]

I never took him to be particularly harsh on people with "troubles" and I don't see his drug addiction or his statement this afternoon as inconsistent with his previously stated views.

Just because he's a addicted to painkillers doesn't mean he's not against drugs. I'm sure lots of people do things that they are ordinarily against, and would advise their children and other people against doing. I believe you can be against something and still do it anyway. Nobody likes being addicted--to anything.

He says he's taking full responsibility for his addiction and is nobody's victim. That sounds like Rush to me.

[hchutch]

I make a distinction between addition to illegal drugs (which many athletes and actors have had to deal with) as opposed to an addiction to prescribed painkillers/drugs.

In the former case, one is brekaing the law with the first joint/line/rock/hit/whatever. The latter case is a different matter. It could sneak up on someone very easily, and even a good doctor might make a mistake on that front.

Not about to blacklist Rush over this - a lot will depend on the investigation, IMHO.

[Callahan]

On your way to the trash can, you better stop and have a heart to heart with your children:

"Kids, let this be a lesson to you. Not everyone lives up to the standards we set, so why set them at all? Aiming low is better than being a hypocrite. Just look at Bill Clinton."

[MamaB]

Do you mean to imply that you are the perfect person? Just curious!!

[familyofman]

"...at this point, I feel like taking all my conservative pundit books to the curb. I've got Limbaugh's stuff, was a Limbaugh letter subscriber, bought all of Bennett's material, etc..."

I'm so glad I don't buy the books of any pundit - conservative, liberal, whatever - my feeling is they know there is a willing audience & "use" them just for the $$$$ I prefer to think for myself so I don't need to be reinforced by their tailored writings.
I too suffer from lower back pain (have for over 2 years) and tried one of those pain killers, didn't like what it did & swore off them ever since. Pain is tolerable if you are strong enough to "make it go away" through positive thoughts.
I wish Rush the best - he will need it. Hopefully he will come out of this a bit less judgemental of others.

[Tempest]

"I will say this - at this point, I feel like taking all my conservative pundit books to the curb. I've got Limbaugh's stuff, was a Limbaugh letter subscriber, bought all of Bennett's material, etc. I've got one nice autobiography of Weinberger, some Horowitz and a Barbara Olson I want to keep, but the rest can hit the can."

Why would you feel so harsh about this? Personally I don't see what the big deal is. The man has a problem and he's going to deal with it. Addiction is usually bigger than we are, I guess that's why it's called addiction. I've never been a Rush fan, but I do admire someone who will face down the liberal media and fess up to his own shortcomings.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

It must be wonderful to be such a strong moral figure that you yourself will never have to worry about succumbing to weakness. I wish I had that same self-confidence.

[UseYourHead]

Your conservative books are not an iron-clad roadmap from perfect-living guides but rather a compendium of thoughts from people who think similar to you and want what's best for this country. Frequently, they suffer the same problems and addictions as the rest of us do. Addiction is not a party affliction, it IS the human condition.

If your purchase of these books was to assemble a wall of showcards for friends and associates, they should be thrown out. If they were purchased to enjoy a written conversation with a fellow American who believes some of the same things you do, enjoy them and pass them on when appropriate.

I feel no hypocrisy in owning a pundit book because it is not my Bible. I have friends who don't always stand up to the virtues they espouse, but I don't kick them to curb. Of course they aren't a $10.00 pundit book either.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

This is the kind of thing that shows who is a real conservative, and who is an opportunist who "pretends" conservatism because it happens to agree with some of his own opinions.

The difference between the left and the right is pretty simple. For thousands of years, politics had been about replacing the "bad" rulers with the "good" rulers. The basic philosophy of the left has always been that a just society must be a product of the "right" men, and that the failure of a society to be just is an indictment of the people involved, and not the ideas or system on which it rests (just ask any leftist why communist Russia failed).

Then came the Anglo-Irish (and Scottish) philosophers, the fathers of the right, who explained that a government or an idea succeeds or fails, not because of the people that expouse it, but because of the system that it establishes. This is the crux of the argument for a government of laws, not men.

Even today, leftists will argue that the problem is the wrong people (ie. not them) are in charge; that the messenger is the messsage. This is why their ideas are inferior. And this is why the right is superior; because they recognize that the system determines the outcome (hence our Founding Fathers' attempts to make a government of checks and balances, instead of a government that depended upon "good" men to work well). This is why I feel no need to discard any of Limbaugh's books, because my purchase of them was not based on his character or his "nobility." It was based on the fact that the ideas he expressed in his books (and on his radio show) were the truth. While certainly disappointed, I never invested anything in his "purity," as it is only his ideas that matter to me. If Adolf Hitler declared that the Earth was round, would that make it flat? No, it would still be round, regardless of the character of the person declaring so.

Your last post (and many others you have made in the past) simply reinforces the increasingly obvious fact that, regardless of what you say about yourself or what ideas you claim to hold, you think like a leftist...