Rush Limbaugh and the Grandmother Test

Ed Asner is out there bloviatiing about how "we got Limbaugh, and Hannity's next" and how he wants to play the life of the "misunderstood" Joe Stalin. OK, so Uncle Joe did starve 100,000 people to death, but he was a good dancer.

One wonders if we have a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy going on or just the ravings of a delusional old Commie who longs for a return to the days when we could all sit around at the Free Store in Berkley listening to Paul Robeson sing the Soviet International. Time to bring back the black list.

Since all you lefties out there are having such a gosh darn good time reveling in the "misfortune" of Rush Limbaugh, it pains me to tinkle in your punch bowl, but I will none the less. From Newsweek to Michael Moore, the underlying criticism of Limbaugh is that he is a hypocrite. But that charge is intellectually dishonest and here's why.

From the moment a recreational drug user puts the first straw to his nose, the first joint to his lips or the first needle in his arm he KNOWS that what he is doing is illegal.

For whatever reason, he has made a moral choice that his "normal" state is insufficient and needs to be augmented – so much so that he is willing to assume the risk of arrest and/or incarceration. And his resulting addiction should come as no surprise. He knowingly operates outside the law from the get-go. This is vastly different from Limbaugh's scenario.

In Rush's case the drugs were legal and prescribed for the management of pain. He had no reason to question his doctor about the propriety of their use. There was no need for him to wrestle with any moral question in the beginning. By the time morality became an issue, the drugs had pinned him to the mat.

Still, he managed twice at least to try to break the hold. What happened to Limbaugh could happen to your grandmother. It HAS happened to grandmothers – and grandfathers and aunts and uncles.

Limbaugh took a dim view of recreational drug use. He preached against the importers and the dealers and the users. Because of this he is now gleefully proclaimed to be a hypocrite by his perennial detractors and by some fans acting like jilted lovers.

So, let me ask you a question: How do you think Rush's view of the importation, distribution and use of recreational drugs differs from the view held by your grandmother? You know, the one who broke her hip and got strung out on her pain meds. I'd dare say not very much. So, is your grandmother a hypocrite too? Well, is she? If the truth be known, more than a few of those who are pointing fingers at Rush are indulging in the forbidden themselves. They love it when they can point their fingers and say, "See, he does it too." But he really doesn't, and deep down inside you people know it.

So do an extra line for me. Maybe it will help you cope with the uncomfortable truth that your charge of "hypocrite" just doesn't pass the Granny Test.

Jim Quinn hosts the morning drive-time program "Quinn in the Morning with Radio Rose" at Pittsburgh's WRRK-FM.

Right now people are sorting out their thoughts on Rush and the drug laws, and I prefer to directly confront those who may want to still support Rush and the War on Drugs with the blatant inconsistency of such a position.

Basically I agree with you, but your wording suggests a point I'd like to discuss.

There are many ways of "supporting" someone. There's nothing wrong with people having sympathy for Rush (though I can't say I have any myself). There's nothing wrong with people continuing to listen to his show, buy his books, or attend his speaking engagements. There's nothing wrong with people expressing their admiration for the admirable qualities that he does have. There's nothing wrong with conservatives continuing to look to him as one of the leaders of their movement.

What I take issue with, is not what I would call "supporting", but "defending", or even more precisely "making excuses for".

The attitude conservatives should take toward Rush, is the one so many of them _claim_ to have toward homosexuals - hate the sin, love the sinner.

I am genuinely surprised at how little "hate the sin" I have seen at FreeRepublic. Those conservatives who do criticize Rush, mostly fret about how the scandal may affect "conservatism". So far I haven't seen one full-throated roar against Rush for hurting _the society_, for endangering our families or our neighborhoods, our "standards of behavior", or "the survivability of the American way of life".

I know the conservatives think the charges of hypocrisy are themselves an insincere political tactic. But I am frankly surprised to find how hypocritical they really are, how little stock they themselve put in the cant of the drug war. That makes it all the more horrifying that they are nonetheless willing to lock people up in its name.

"I don't want to reopen it here ... " by citing a comparable example of a Democrat icon who took pills for back pain while holding the most powerful job in the world, the US Presidency, where he had to make decisions, say about the Cuban Missile Crisis that risked nuclear holocaust -- only because the Dems didn't seem particularly gleeful at the revelations from Historian Robert Dallek's book on JFK: "An Unfinished Life".

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4543017.htm

Oops. Too late.

President Kennedy needed pills to survive each day, historian says
By TRACY CONNOR, New York Daily News, Nov. 17, 2002

NEW YORK - Racked with pain, President John F. Kennedy turned to a cornucopia of drugs - including painkillers, stimulants and anti-anxiety pills, his secret medical records reveal.

Historian Robert Dallek got unprecedented access to documents from the last eight years of JFK's life for his upcoming biography, "An Unfinished Life."

He found that at various times Kennedy took codeine, Demerol and methadone for pain, the stimulant Ritalin and anti-anxiety drugs meprobamate and Librium, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The records also showed that Kennedy took barbiturates to help him sleep, thyroid hormone, the blood derivative gamma globulin and the anti-diarrhea agent Lomotil.

At the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy was taking antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, medicine for colitis, salt tablets and hydrocortisone and the male hormone testosterone to build up his strength and energy.

The medicine - as many as eight drugs a day at times - helped Kennedy cope with chronic and debilitating back pain, irritable bowel syndrome and the adrenal deficiency Addison's disease.

He also had high cholesterol, and osteoporosis left him with three fractured vertebrae that prevented him from putting on his own shoes without help.

The records show that Kennedy's ailments were far more serious than he and his doctors had publicly acknowledged. They included details of nine secret hospital stays for back and stomach illnesses between 1955 to 1957.

Discussing his findings in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Dallek said Kennedy's secrecy about his poor health could be seen as "another stain" on his character.

But he noted that the medical records exposed the "quiet stoicism of a man struggling to endure extraordinary pain and distress."

Dallek, a Boston University professor, examined the medical files with the help of Washington internist Dr. Jeffrey Kelman.

"The most remarkable thing was the extent to which Kennedy was in pain every day of his presidency," Kelman said.

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