[weegee]

The difference between health problems (chemical or medical) of the President of the United States and Rush is that the president has his finger on the nuclear button while Rush Limbaugh is broadcasting on the radio and can be turned off by anyone in the audience pressing a button.

He doesn't operate heavy machinery either. Spouses of political leaders don't have much responsibility either (they can insert themselves into political situations but at the end of the day, they are not accountable to the voters since they were never elected).

Those in an appointed/elected area of responsibility need to be capable of doing their job while in that position. Rush is just a commentator/entertainer. He holds no elected office and carries no authority. His listeners listen because they find him informative some of the time but his audience does not come to their facts simply through him. They have other sources. They call in/listen to his show to hear his views on news in and outside of the mainstream media.

If candidates and even Clear Channel decide to stay away from Rush Limbaugh, that is their decision to make. Rush's radio show does not seem to have suffered in its' production or performance as a result of his addiction (even his hearing loss which some attribute to drug abuse did not significantly lessen his radio show).

JFK getting injections of pain killers so that he could sit at a table and negotiate with the head of the Soviet Union put American safety at risk. This is not drug abuse but then again the President will not be at the top of his "game".

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Obviously, a president's health is a legitimate matter of unbigoted inquiry. Making light of people's health problems (and that is what Rush has a HEALTH PROBLEM related to medication) in the form of ridicule is what my post addresses. Not the question of someone's fitness for high office based on ailing health. Turning Rush's poblems with pain pills into the rhetoric of a "DRUG" problem is a deliberate rhetorical maneuver. I doubt Rush's feelings have been hurt by the jibes from Franken and Kerry. Some Americans seem to have some sort of panic about medication and near-hysteria reactions to "drugs." Apparently, Clinton got passes on alcohol and cocaine abuse from the same libs now milking Rush's alleged "drug" problem.