At the corespondents dinner the other night Wanda Sykes took on Rush Limbaugh in her comedy routine. She said, facing President Obama, “You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight. ...”
The President gave a polite smile and did not laugh. Half the room laughed and half the room groaned. It was a low, cheap joke and people knew it. Rush will rant about it today because he’s pretty thin skinned about people making fun of him.
Anyone who knows me, even in the least, knows that I do not like Rush Limbaugh. I find him petty, mean, and dishonest. Much of what he shares as ‘fact’ is very much opinion and he has found that if you repeat a lie over and over again, people believe it. His level of cruelty towards others is often limitless and the kind of joke Wanda Sykes leveled at him is one he is very capable of leveling at someone else.
This, to me, is the very reason her joke was offensive.
His hope that Barack Obama fails is well documented. For a person to publically pronounce that they hope that the President of the United States fails when the nation is in such a difficult climate is repulsive. He said that many people hoped that George W. Bush would fail in Iraq. My sense was that many people believed that he would fail (which is different from hoping) but I never really heard someone say that they hoped he would fail. I can’t imagine people wanting to see our soldiers killed to see a President fail. Limbaugh’s comments, stand by themselves, and they were repulsive.
The biggest problem with Rush Limbaugh is not anything specific he has said. The list of offensive things he has said towards people who differ from him is rather extensive. These specifics are specifically offensive to lots of people, but in their accumulation they speak to something greater. He has helped lower the level of discourse in this nation.
Instead of people having civil discourse in discussing differences of opinion, they now have found it right to just verbally abuse each other. Rush Limbaugh has the highest rated radio show and he does it. If he does it and has made millions doing it, than everyone should do it.
Frankly, I’ve done it towards Rush Limbaugh. I figure if he can dish it out, people can dish it right back. Sarcasm is, to me, often funny and when there is a target like Limbaugh, my sarcasm tend to run wild. I'm finding something wrong in how I have approached this, however. I have become that which I do not admire.
When I first read what Wanda Sykes said, I laughed. The more I have thought about it, however, the more troubled I am by it. We have allowed ourselves to be pulled into the mud pit as a society. Difference is a dish best served with cruelty and derision. Or so it would seem. Rush has taught us this and has made a great deal of money doing so. Others are now following his lead.
But the more I reflect on this, the more I am coming to the conclusion that we, as a society, need to extract ourselves from the mud pit and learn civility.
Wanda Sykes is a funny person but I think she went to far. It’s not that Rush, personally, didn’t deserve it, but as a society we need to deserve better, we need to expect better. We cannot allow ourselves to continue to wallow in the mud of cruelty and derision. We need to learn that difference is a dish best served with dignity and respect.
6 comments:
I have become that which I do not admire.yes. I hate these kinds of realizations.
I hope you're able to work on changing it!
John, it occurred to me that, as a minister, you might feel pressure to distance yourself from folks like Limbaugh, since so many people (around these parts) would wrongly assume that you should naturally support his views.
To me, you do a nice job showing that Christ's message is larger than our 20th-Century American culture wars. Keep up the good work.
Interesting logic. A liberal says something totally tasteless about a conservative, and it is the conservative's fault.
That would be interesting logic. What she said was totally tasteless and that is on her. Observing that he is totally tasteless is not 'blaming him,' it's making an observation that he is totally tasteless and he has been a significant part of lowering the discourse. My reason is essentially the oldest of all ethical premises, "Two wrongs don't make a right." One person's tastelessness does not validate or vindicate another person being tasteless.
Rush is, unfortunately, a symptom of a larger ill that impacts all of us. Our level of discourse has become increasingly coarse. Sykes took a coarse shot at a coarse person---she was wrong in doing so and ought to be called on it.
I don't think Limbaugh is fair game for derision, vituperation and ridicule because he's a conservative, it's because he thinks those on which he turns his verbal guns are fair game for his bile.
Problem is, with him, it's not quite a fair game. He makes fun of Michael J. Fox for having parkinson's disease. He makes fun of Chelsea Clinton, comparing her to a dog, because of her awkward early-teen appearance. He makes fun of Al Gore because his environmental concern could rein in Limbaugh's lifestyle of excess. He ridicules liberals for their loose morals as he sails through his third or fourth marriage. He claims to be pro-life while advocating a groundless war which has killed thousands of innocent people as collateral damage.
I thought for a moment that perhaps Wanda Sykes had stepped over a line with her comments about Limbaugh. But then I remembered that Limbaugh had inveighed against liberal cosseting of drug users while sending his hired help out to score oxycontin for him.
No, Limbaugh is not scorn-worthy because he's a conservative, William F. Buckley was never held up for scorn because of his conservatism. George Will, David Broder, Charles Krauthammer are not scorned because of their conservatism. With Limbaugh, it's his unrelenting, egomaniacal, hypocrisy and his bilious ranting that makes him fair game for ridicule.
So, flush a few hours down the drain and listen to Limbaugh, you can probably come up with more recent examples of his hate radio. I pray his time is up.
Two wrongs don't make a right but when the subject is Rush Limbaugh I think anything would be fair game. He is totally repulsive and arrogant, a complete slime ball.
Did I mention that I don't hold Mr. Limbaugh in high esteem?
I know it is un-Christian of me but I just can't stand the guy and don't think he deserves any respect.
Post a Comment