Rush Declares Jihad On Your Humble Narrator!

I don’t understand why so few of my fellow Democrats are afraid to say in public what they say in private, over beers with their friends. And I can’t imagine how anyone, even hard-right Reaganite Christianists, can find it surprising or confusing that not everybody is convulsing with grief now that the guy has finally admitted, 20 years late, that he’s dead.

After all, millions of Americans became homeless because of his budget cuts of psychiatric facilities. Millions more lost their jobs because he bankrupted the federal treasury. And half a million people died of AIDS because he refused to fund research into the disease. Millons of college students were forced to drop out of school because of him, and millions of other Americans earned, and still earn, less because of his union busting and corporate welfare. Surely conservatives must recognize that those people–most people–might still hold a grudge, what with the death and maiming and poverty and all.

Alas not. For we must all kneel at the casket of a man who didn’t give a shit about his own children, much less the citizenry at large.

Well, not me, anyway. And for that unpardonable sin, right-wing talk radio king Rush Limbaugh lambasted me on his nationally syndicated radio show yesterday. It should be pointed out, by the way, that this cowardly drug-addled blowhard didn’t dare go toe to toe with me on his program to discuss Reagan.

Some lowlights follow:

RUSH: We go to Raleigh, North Carolina. Hello, Wendy, nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I don’t know that I can even get through this. I loved Reagan so much, and for four days I have just really been heartbroken, but then when I heard what Ted Rall wrote about Reagan and hoping that he was turning a crispy brown right now because of his policies in office. These things need to be told, Rush, and I’m so glad you’re going to tell them because these people are the ones that are supporting the Democrats, they’re supporting the liberals and this is the hate that they have, and it has nothing to do with reality, it has nothing to do with who the president was at that time. He was a great man.

OK, so the caller is upset Reagan’s dead. Fine. But “heartbroken”? For God’s sake, woman, the dude’s been in a vegetative state since today’s teenagers were born! You might have seen this tragedy coming.

RUSH: You did great, Wendy.

CALLER: I’m sorry.

RUSH: No, no, no, no, this is good. Ted Rall did write some things, I’m sure many of you have heard about it. He did say that he was sure or he hoped that Reagan was turning a crispy brown, meaning he’s burning in hell for what he did to people. You know, Wendy, the best thing I can say to you at this time of your grief and your pain is probably to tell you how Reagan would react to this.

CALLER: He would have ignored it.

RUSH: He would have ignored it and he would have laughed about it, and he would have taken it as a measure of his success.

On this point Rush and I agree.

CALLER: But he can’t defend himself so, Rush, you have to.

RUSH: Well, but you know, we were just discussing this in the break. Ronald Reagan was bigger than the media in life, he’s bigger than the media in death, and he’s certainly, Wendy, bigger than this little leprechaun, Ted Rall. This is simply Ted Rall trying to get some light shining on himself. This is one of the reasons why I have a conundrum here about talking about these people. All he’s trying to do is get noticed, all he’s trying to do is bask in some of the light that naturally shines on Ronald Reagan.

Leprechaun? But I’m not even Irish!

CALLER: But he also said those horrible things about Pat Tillman. People just really need to see the hate speech that comes out of that side.

RUSH: I think more and more people are. The media, you know, there’s no condemnation of this guy.

CALLER: There isn’t.

RUSH: You know, I say one little joke, one little thing they take out of context about the Abu prison photos, and it’s news for two weeks, right?

Um, nice joke, Rush. The dude called the murder of at least 25 Iraqi prisoners, and the sexual humiliation and beatings of hundreds more, akin to a “Skull and Bones” frat prank. One little thing, indeed.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: This guy, there’s no condemnation of him. In fact, there are people trying to understand what he’s doing. You must understand from where he’s coming, and you must understand that, well, this is a free speech era, and he’s in the media, and he can say whatever he wants, and it would be terrible to shut him down, don’t you think? Those are the reactions, because the thing is there are people who are glad he’s saying it. There are people on his side of the aisle happy he’s saying it, so that they don’t have to. And the more outrageous it is, the more coverage it gets, the more successful they think it’s going to be. It’s just the opposite, Wendy. These people are nailing themselves in their own coffins is what’s happening here. This is not how you build a movement. You do not build a movement on hate. You don’t build loyalty and trust and expand your base of influence with this kind of emotion and rhetoric, epitomized by Ted Rall. And so when I first saw it, I’ve gotten so accustomed to these people saying things, I think they’re in a contest now to see who can out outrage the other on the left. I look at this stuff, and I must tell you that a smile comes to my face when I see it, there’s some anger in there, but ultimately I end up smiling because you have to know, you’ve lived your life, you probably haven’t known anybody personally like this, have you?

RUSH LIMBAUGH says you don’t build a movement on hate? RUSH LIMBAUGH? Argggghhhhhh!

(snip)

RUSH: Well, you’re very kind. You’re very kind. I appreciate it. I’m going to play these two sound bites. And I should point out this Ted Rall guy is a cartoonist and his work appears in the New York Times now and then. His work appears in major newspapers. Major leftist newspapers don’t have a problem with this guy. I think the Tillman cartoon did get yanked by the syndicator or a couple papers. Let’s set the stage. Last night on Hannity & Colmes, Ted Rall, and Colmes, a rare liberal with some class stood up to Rall. He said, “I have problems with my fellow liberals who can’t get over the election of 2000. They should be focusing on winning 2004, but you, by doing this you make those on my side look bad by showing no grace, no compassion, no sense of humanity for a man who served this country, whether or not you agree with the things he stood for.”

Yep. Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity’s pet faux liberal–whom I have NEVER seen espouse a genuine, strident liberal position–is a “rare liberal with some class.” If that’s class, call me déclassé.

RALL: Well, I have more sympathy for the 290 million Americans who are living worse lives under a worse economy, being paid less with worse health care, with more homelessness, with more poverty than there would have been had Ronald Reagan never become president. So for me, you’re right, I don’t have that much sympathy for him.

RUSH: Folks, seriously, what am I supposed to do with this? This is so asinine that it is beneath all of our dignity to even set it straight. But I know some of you want, okay, homelessness, health care, wages, economy, 290 million Americans living worse today because of Reagan. What is sad about this is that such an imbecile and such an ignoramus ends up as a prominent cartoonist in major newspapers. This guy could not pass a basic civics test. This guy could not pass a recent American history test. This guy could not get a college diploma today. He couldn’t get a high school diploma with what his view of history is.

Columbia University, Rush. Class of 1991. Major: history. With honors. Sorry, try again. Thanks for playing.

Do we need to go back and retrace what this country was like during the seventies, particularly the last four years of the seventies under Jimmy Carter? Do we need to go back and trace the misery index? Do we need to go back and trace the double-digit inflation, the double-digit unemployment, the double-digit interest rates?

I hate to steal from the estimable Al Franken here, but here are more Limbaughian lies. Under Jimmy Carter, suffering from a post-Vietnam War deficit hangover, unemployment was less than it was under Ronald Reagan. And wages increased faster than inflation. The average American did much better under Carter–and a hell of a lot better under Clinton–than Reagan, who presided over a stunning increase in the gap between rich and poor.

Do we need to go back and trace all that? Do we need to look at what the economy is doing today, what it did during the nineties, all since the Reagan revolution of the eighties? To say that this economy and the people of this country are in worse shape today than they were in the seventies or any time period is simply — I don’t have the word. It’s not the breathtaking, it’s not stupid, it’s not idiotic, it’s just… you simply have a bomb thrower here who is purposely trying to —

Set things straight? Like when Sean Hannity asserted on his radio show that we bombed Libya to get even for the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103–years before it happened?

(snip)

RUSH: Look, folks, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to keep something in mind here. We need to be real careful that we do not slip into judging our hero, Ronald Reagan, based on the liberal agenda. We’re going to judge Reagan based on our values and our principles which we share with the vast majority of the American people.

This is one of the things that just instinctively I said, “Don’t give these people any credit because I don’t want to appear defensive.” I don’t want to appear reactionary. I don’t want to sit here and have to spend any time defending this man. He doesn’t need to be defended. These are the people that need to somehow be able to defend themselves. These wackos with these charges, it is silly to take Ted Rall seriously, it’s silly to give him any serious amount of time at all, in my book. It’s not worth it. It’s not even substantive. If you’re going to talk about AIDS, what did Bill Clinton do about AIDS when he was in office? He did next to nothing. All he did was have an AIDS czar, and the AIDS czars were unhappy, and he went to a couple of human rights meetings with Anne Heche and what’s her face, Ellen DeGeneres, and they thought, “He loves us.” He didn’t do anything about AIDS.

You know who’s done the most about AIDS of American presidents? I’ll give you one name: George W. Bush. George W. Bush has spent more money, offered more money, suggested more money and more seriousness about AIDS than any American president. And who do they hate? They hate George W. Bush.

Um, it’s been well documented that Bush moved the AIDS money for Africa from other AIDS initiatives. Net increase: zero. That’s why we hate Bush: because he’s a liar. All politicians are, but Bush takes the cake.

This is not about money; it’s not about fixing the problem. It’s they want a president who’s going to mouth their agenda. I’m talking about the whole left. If they don’t get a president that mouths their agenda, they’re going to hate the guy. This is all a result of their having had power, unchallenged, for over 40 or 50 years and they don’t anymore. This is all positive signs.

Actually, that’s untrue. We didn’t hate Bush’s father. He was misguided, clueless, did some evil stuff, but no more than, say, Clinton. And you have to love the fact that Bush 41 was willing to publicly lambaste (via a surrogate) Bush 43’s misguided war against Iraq. Nah, dad’s OK. Relatively.

To see people crack up like this, to see people implode like this, to see people make abject fools of themselves like this, I do not want to sit here and have to defend Ronald Reagan or define Ronald Reagan in terms that the left sets forth as their agenda. Because he didn’t do that. He didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t bother reacting to them, he did what was in his heart and what was in his mind and what he knew was right, and he let them cry over spilt milk and they’re still crying over it.

What the right calls implosion, other people call telling it like it is. And millions of Americans who remember the Reagan years don’t seem to have any trouble with it.