Rush’s Audio Train Wreck
23 March 2007 12:31 am by Taylor Marsh
Rush\’s Audio Train Wreck
Right-wing radio is morally and ethically bankrupt. As for Rush Limbaugh, their leader, we saw his despicable inhumanity during the stem cell debate when he flopped around on Dumbocam during one of his shows making fun of Michael J. Fox. But what he said yesterday about John and Elizabeth Edwards defies common decency. Obviously, Mr. Limbaugh learned nothing from the Fox event. No wonder he can\’t keep a wife.
When the news broke last night that the breast cancer of Elizabeth Edwards
had recurred and that there was a press conference today to deal with this,
I had flash messages, instant messages — I have iChat, Macintosh, the Mac
OS, 10.4.9 — and I was going back and forth with these people, and I said,
\”I\’m going to tell you what I expect the Edwardses to do tomorrow. I
expect them to announce whatever the details are of Mrs. Edwards\’ cancer,
and then I expect them to say, \’The campaign will go on for the benefit of
the country we both love.\’\” I used that exact wording in instant messages
to three people. All morning long the leaks about this said that the campaign
would be suspended, that Edwards would not quit the race but his campaign
would be suspended while he dealt with this and, of course, dealt with the
security of their children. But during the press conference just now they
both said, \”No, this campaign goes on full speed ahead and Mrs. Edward
is going to campaign as long as she possibly can.\” The campaign is going
to go on strongly, and Edwards himself said, \”The campaign will go on
for the country we both love.\”(snip)
Now, many of you sit there and say, \”Ah, Rush, you can say that you
said this. How can you prove it?\” Snerdley, at about 10:30 this morning,
90 minutes before show time, do you confirm I said this? He\’s nodding his
head. I said this exact thing to him, and he looked at me like I was nuts,
as did the people last night to whom I said this. They suggested that I was
off my rocker, that this would not possibly happen, and yet there it is. (interruption)
I have to admit what? What do I have to admit, that it\’s shocking and surprising?
Well, it may be to you, but it\’s not to me. This is not surprise and don\’t
make me detail why. I am not going to tell you why. This does not surprise
me at all. Mrs. Edwards is going to get her treatment. I think her cancer
is in one of her ribs, is what they said, and it\’s incurable, but it\’s treatable.
Of course she wants to have as full a life as she can, and to me this makes
total sense. Why suspend this in this circumstance? I fully expected Edwards
to not quit the campaign or to even suspend it, and that in fact is the case.
I didn\’t say this beforehand, before the announcement came out because I didn\’t
feel like publicly predicting this. Just out of respect to the Edwardses,
I wanted to let \’em say what they were going to say. I reported the leaks
of others that were out there.(snip)
Now, this suggests to me that, look, let\’s just see how much sympathy
or attention the press conference and the news today evokes and what it does
to the campaign, if this jump-starts the Edwards campaign.
Notice that Rush\’s real concern is getting credit for his clairvoyance. He\’s
more focussed on making sure that everyone knows he predicted what Edwards was
going to say, but only after the fact out of \”respect to the
Edwardses.\” Right. Click on the links if you want to witness more
of Rush\’s \”respect\” for John and Elizabeth.
Media
Matters has more: \”And I, reacting to that, said, \”Yeah, it was a total surprise. And I wouldn\’t be surprised if whoever the source is purposely leaked something not true to The Politico in order to set up the surprise.\”
