Limbaugh: the Dem Quandry

I first came aross Russ Limbaugh some years ago. My still fresh mind was struck by the distortions, twists of facts and outright lies coming from this person. It seemed impossible to me that someone could say these things over the public airways without control, or not be sued for libel, incitement to public sedition or simply tossed off the air.

But over a couple of months of RL, my astonishment changed to mild amusement. The distortions and twisting of reality carried a kind of iconoclastic thrill. But it never left me that RL's message was a kind of radio circus - empty vocalizations with no purpose or meaning except for their shock.

I felt RL was not called to account because actually he fits into the role of medieval fool, an often physically handicapped, or mentally challenged person historically tolerated because his only reason to exist was to make people laugh.

In time, though, the utterances of RL returned to their original impact on me but they were sounding even more distasteful than at first. As his audience increased in size, and became regionalized I began to see how destructive RL's vocalizations were becoming. I saw no difference bewteen his "exaggerated distortions" and the urgings and shouting of historical demagogues who spawned really bad consequences.

It did not surpise me that Russ Limbaugh was eventually revealed to have a pharmaceutical addiction. Something had to have been afflicting him.

I still find it fascinating that RL can vent such lies and distortions without check or serious blowback. I think one big reason is that very few Dems can stand even to mention his name. There are reasoned counters to RL: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow , but maybe the most willing, and exceptionally able, to go down into Limbaugh's snake hole and smoke him out is Randi Rhodes (imho). Randi takes no prisoners when it comes to RL.