More On Oxymoron

Salon:

Limbaugh didn't just suggest that Fox was faking the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in his advertisement for Claire McCaskill; he took things a step further by acting out the shaking himself -- all while saying that Fox was the one behaving in a "shameless" way.

Limbaugh says that Democrats always do this: They trot out someone who's a victim of something or other and thereby make it impossible to engage in reasoned debate. He's not the first one to make that claim; it's the same argument Ann Coulter makes about family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 and have the audacity to say that they wish the Bush administration were doing more to stop the next terrorist attack.

Is there anything to this argument? Maybe, but what's the alternative? Are Limbaugh and Coulter suggesting that we deny those most directly affected by government policies any role in debating them? Should wealthy executives be silenced during discussions of tax cuts? Should the automakers be denied a say in any debate over fuel economy standards? Did Limbaugh complain this week when George W. Bush said that the United States has to stay the course in Iraq -- well, not "stay the course, " but you know what we mean -- out of allegiance to "the husbands who have lost their partners in life ... children who won't ever see their mom and dad again ... and to the families who still have loved ones in harm's way"?

It's OK for Dick Cheney and the Republican National Committee to suggest that we'll all die at the hands of terrorists if Democrats are elected in November, but it's somehow unfair for a guy suffering from Parkinson's disease to say that he hopes Missourians elect a senator who supports stem-cell research?

Slate:

Fox's job was to portray characters in movies and on television. For him, Parkinson's was an invasion of the fake world by the real one. The medication, designed to hide this from the audience, became part of the fiction. In going off his meds, he was dropping the act.

Limbaugh's life story has gone the other way. His job was to explain politics, a branch of nonfiction. But for him, the fake world has overtaken the real one. He thinks reality is what's on Boston Legal. Anything that doesn't match this must be "acting." If you go off your meds on purpose, you're not revealing your symptoms. You're "portraying" them.

Radio, television, and the Internet greased Limbaugh's descent into fantasy. Years ago, a profile described him "holed up in his New York apartment with Chinese take-out and a stack of rented movies." In another profile, he "complained that he has virtually no social life." Click the video links on his Web site, and you can peer into his world. He sits in a soundproof studio. He never has to go outside.

In Limbaugh's world, "there never was a surplus" under President Clinton. AIDS "hasn't made that jump to the heterosexual community," and cutting food stamps is harmless because recipients "aren't using them." Two years ago, Limbaugh said the minimum wage was $6 or $7 an hour. Last year, he said gas was $1.29 a gallon.

Limbaugh has particular trouble distinguishing reality from entertainment. The abuse at Abu Ghraib "looks just like anything you'd see Madonna or Britney Spears do on stage," he told his listeners. Last month, he defended ABC's 9/11 movie against the document on which it purported to rely: "The 9-11 Commission report, for example, says, well, some of these things didn't happen the way they were portrayed in the movie. How do they know that?"

Last year, Limbaugh, who used a tailbone defect to get out of the Vietnam draft, accused a Democratic candidate of having served in Iraq "to pad the resume." He charged several veterans—including former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam—with trying "to hide their liberalism behind a military uniform … pretending to be something that they are not." When war is just another television show, a uniform is just another costume. Liberalism is real; losing your limbs is a pretense.

Rush perfectly represents the Pathological Wing of the Republican Party.  Pathetically self-delusional at best, completely evil and consciously, shamelessly dishonest at worst.

ntodd