The nice thing about being well known as a drug addict is that you always have a built-in excuse for saying vile, reprehensible, and just plain stupid things. From the November 29 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
(Quoting from an AP report) "Aljazeera has broadcasted an insurgent video today, shows four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnappings. The unknown group is the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, and they said the four were spies working undercover as Christian peace activists, according to Aljazeera. Aljazeera said that it could not verify any of the information on the tape. The aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams has confirmed that four of its members were taken hostage on Saturday...."
[P]art of me that likes this. And some of you might say, "Rush, that's horrible. Peace activists taken hostage." Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality. So here we have these peace activists over there. I don't care if they're Christian or not.
[...]
Yeah, as warped as these people are, you know they're going to blame Bush for this... They wouldn't have been kidnapped because they wouldn't have been there in the first place if Bush hadn't gone and caused the war and created all these terrorists. I mean, these people are liberals, they're warped. Well, I mean, that's why there's -- I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this. Probably, even with this, though, you know, they're not going to see the light of day. They're not going to -- I know, let them take me out of context. I don't care anymore.
At the end, he seems to be admitting that these people are probably going to be killed and the fact that he's been gloating about their fate for a good part of his show might sound bad. He doesn't care; he's glad that they are being given a taste of "reality."
Limbaugh's murderous wishes toward anyone he deems "left" are hardly unique. David Neiwert has spent years chronicling the rise of this eliminationist trend on the right. Such talk used to only come from loud-mouthed drunks and the furthest fringes of the political spectrum. People like Rush, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and the rest of the talk radio/Fox News crowd have moved such talk into the Republican mainstream. It's not unusual these days to hear a Republican senator expressing understanding with people who want to assassinate judges. Limbaugh's wish for a fatal dose of reality to cure the Christian Peacemakers of their "warped" attitudes almost exactly parallels one of Ann Coulter's uglier and more famous cracks: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too."
Fortunately, this kind of rhetoric will no longer go unchallenged. None other than Michelle Malkin has announced that the right is cleaning house. She has unambiguously made the point that this kind of talk will no longer be tolerated. She has drawn her line in the sand in print: "[T]he truth is that it's conservatives themselves who blow the whistle on their bad boys and go after the real extremism on their side of the aisle;" and in person: "It is in fact conservatives who are very outspoken in condemning fringe people, and people who are extremists on the right side of the aisle."
Go get him, Michelle. And don't take that "it must have been the drugs talking" excuse.
Uh, Michelle?
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