Posted on 01/23/2011 8:50:28 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Rush Limbaugh Called a Drug Addict in NBC's New Legal Drama 'Harry's Law' By Noel Sheppard Created 01/23/2011 - 10:04am
By Noel Sheppard | January 23, 2011 | 10:04 Noel Sheppard's picture
Monday's premiere episode of NBC's new legal drama "Harry's Law" took a cheap shot at conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.
As the show's star Kathy Bates argued for the legalization of drugs while her client was being cross-examined by a totally hapless district attorney, she claimed the idea was first raised by Republicans, "When the party had thinkers, before it was hijacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, a drug addict himself" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):
KATHY BATES AS HARRIET “HARRY” KORN: It’s a billion dollar trade because it’s illegal.
PAUL MCCRANE AS PROSECUTOR: Objection.
BATES: Maybe we should decriminalize if your goal is…
MCCRANE: Wait, did you actually just say that? Did you actually just say that?
BATES: I believe I did. I believe I did.
MCCRANE: What, do you want to just pass drugs out on the street? Is that...
BATES: That's where they're passed out now, at a thousand times the pharmaceutical cost.
MCCRANE: Move to strike.
BATES: And if we legalize drugs, addicts would need less than two cents on the dollar to support their habits. They'd hardly have to break into homes or cars or...
MCCRANE: We have something called "values" in this country...
BATES: And they should coincide with saving the innocent lives you were carrying on about.
MCCRANE: You're seriously saying we should legalize drugs is the solution?
BATES: Everybody commissioned to study the problem has said it.
MCCRANE: Who? Everybody who?
BATES: If we legalize them, we treat the disease instead of punishing it away.
MCCRANE: Great, then you want to pass out needles, too?
BATES: Perhaps, if you're against the spread of AIDS. Are you?
MCCRANE: If we were to legalize drugs...
BATES: We could neutralize the gangs, take the drug business out of the shadows.
MCCRANE: And do what? Celebrate it?
BATES: How about regulate it? Tax it?
MCCRANE: Yes, and then every liberal in America could just light up and say, "Hallelujah, legalize drugs!"
BATES: The idea was first raised by conservative Republicans.
MCCRANE: Oh please. When?
BATES: When the party had thinkers, before it was hijacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh…
MCCRANE: Here we go.
BATES: …a drug addict himself.
MCCRANE: Ancient history.
BATES: Who somehow fared much better in our justice system - I wonder why.
MCCRANE: The race card. There it is.
BATES: Oh, if I wanted to play the race card, I'd talk about the disparity in sentencing.
MCCRANE: Objection.
BATES: But I'm not doing that. I’m keeping it about one kid only. He's sitting right there, and he's getting screwed!
For those unfamiliar with the writer/producer of "Harry's Law," he is none other than David Kelley. As NewsBusters has documented, his previous show "Boston Legal" was often a vehicle for anti-Conservative rants and messages.
One of our favorites was in November 2008 when lead characters called McCain/Palin supporters idiots.
So it seems that right from the opening episode of Kelley's new series - which was seen by eleven million viewers - he's making it clear his pattern of injecting liberal positions will continue.
Even TV critic Tim Goodman was unimpressed with the theatrics as he noted in his Tuesday review "Harry's Law is a Crime Against Good Television":
Does this now sound utterly and ridiculously like a Kelley show? Thought so.
Beyond that, "Harry's Law" is littered with bogus courtroom rambling on soap boxes so tall they are an insurance claim waiting to happen. Let's legalize drugs, Harry goes off, and the next thing you know she's talking about stupid Republicans and Rush Limbaugh. It's all cheap, easy, predictable and not very clever.
And, not at all realistic. As WNYMedia.net observed:
Kelley’s absurdist series ask the viewer to wildly suspend disbelief as his defense lawyers bend the legal system and debate current event issues with prosecutors while judges sit by and let the sparks fly. [...]
Harriet will use any tricks she can to defend her clients, including feigning ignorance of how the law operates, getting around judicial instructions to fight fair, and debating the prosecutor (Paul McCrane of “ER”) about legalizing drugs and the unfairness of the law in front of the jury.
Indeed. As Goodman marvelously concluded:
Do you want to know a feel-good story that would help television immensely? If "Harry's Law" failed miserably -- now bring up the piano and strings in this part -- and Kelley went home, reconsidered his strengths, then came back with something completely different next time.
I couldn't agree more.
As a sidebar, this wasn't the first time an NBC drama took a cheap shot at Limbaugh. In 2007, an Asian character in the series "Las Vegas" quipped, "It hotter than Rush Limbaugh's scrotum in polyester pant!"
How nice.
You’re being much too kind to the writers.
That pasted bad like it was sitting still.
I admired how Rush handled his addiction. He took personal responsibility , sought treatment and now is back, better than ever.
Contrast that to Hollywood, they offer excuses and the treatment center seems to be revolving door to a Hollywood club that magically becomes a reality show.
I have never experienced addiction myself but I admire those that pound through it. Addiction seems to be a disease that lurks and must be fought on a daily basis.
I do not think making fun of ones addiction is something to make jokes about and this show did piqued my interest.....now, I am crossing this show off the list....
To those reading this whose lives have been touched by addiction.....may the Lord give you strength to win the battle .....
Badly, badly written drivel.
This lame series will be cancelled in four...three...two...
Isnt that the promo I saw with her brandishing a hand cannon?
why...yes it was...
the usual tripe
some Jewish kid from Queens finally got a job in Hollywood and gets to live out his red diaper doper baby fantasies on his viewers
or some do gooder kumbaya Christian sort..upper middle class from say Nashville..like Reese Witherspoon ...sent to tony schools and utterly ruined ideologically in the process and gets to engage in the same crap
or some black kid with a talent for writing and the usual leftist bent
or a fag...angry at the conservative and God believing world
the last is now the most common stereotype of a Hollywood screenwriter today in my opinion....used to be the witty leftist Jewish kid but he’s been eclipsed by the perv
rare to watch a movie that doesn’t insult
try the new True Girt...Coen bros....no politics...even exec producer Speilberg didn’t meddle in it
i thought it was better than the first in some ways
I was enjoying the show until that tirade.
Told my wife no more.
I saw that, too.
I knew I could never watch a show with that flabby, pampered liberal actress packing heat.
It was like watching Bubba carrying that huge Bible down the church steps after service.
Some things just don't go together.
Leni
For what? Rush called himself a drug addict on the air on Oct 10, 2003. Then he went into rehab.
I was intrigued by the previews of this show, but now I think I’ll pass.
That show sure was a stinker. Hopefully it won't last long.
I sometimes like to watch the “Law and Order, SVU,” to me, the least offensive/least political of the L and Os. Well, last night, one “typical right-winger” made a comment about anchor babies. The context was a Bulgarian mother involved in baby selling. The black cop immediately jumped all over the innocuous comment, saying “that’s racist!”
Click, there went that show....
NBC seems to be spewing leftist propaganda in every show now! I can’t think of anything else I really watch on that channel, luckily.
Harry’s Law is written by Michelle Pfeiffer’s loony husband David Kelly....Ally McBeal...The Practice..same crap...Kelly is a former lawyer and Princeton grad and loony left
Directed by the guy who did Boston Legal
Produced by two guys who aren’t very notable....just TV law and drama shows ala 1990s and 2000s
By the way when I heard the usual Liberal BS on Rush, et al, I quit watching and will not tune in again.
The left wing blood libel continues.
This is a David Kelly show, whose shows are formula platforms on which to spout liberal blood libel.
Boston Legal
The Practice
Ally McBeal
My goal is to make it expensive for established media to take cheap, ad-hominem shots people like Sarah and Rush. My method: total boycott.
How true, I took that also for a Joint she was smoking and then later the rant of Rush. Again what Hypocrisy!!!!!!!!!
It's a formula show alright. What a piece of %^&*.
I saw that! It wasn’t even “thinly disguised” proganda. It was a political political hit speech...no disguise...incredible.
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