Limbaugh's "Hate"Okay, I was rather critical of El Rushbo back in February, when he decided along with much of the conservative commentariat to start bashing the clear choice of Republicans for the presidency. I take back not a word of what I wrote back then. But
leave it to Eric Boehlert to remind me why I used to listen to the guy virtually every day:
That's why there was no mention in the very long profile about the fact that Limbaugh has called Sen. John Kerry a "gigolo," mocked Democratic Party chief Howard Dean as "a very sick man," agreed that liberal philanthropist George Soros is a "self-hating Jew," denounced then-Sen. Tom Daschle as an Al Qaeda sympathizer, mocked anti-war crusader Cindy Sheehan, whose son was slain in Iraq, by teasing, " 'Oh, she lost her son' -- well, yes. Yes. Yes. But you know, this is [sigh] -- aaah. We all lose things."
Or that Limbaugh has claimed Democrats "hate this country" (i.e. "What's good for Al Qaeda is good for the Democratic Party in this country today"); denigrated members of the U.S. Armed Forces, calling military men and women who criticized the war in Iraq and advocated withdrawal "phony soldiers"; toasted photos of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib as "good old American pornography"; suggested actor Michael J. Fox faked symptoms of his life-threatening illness while taping a pro-stem-cell-research commercial; called Sen. Barack Obama a "Halfrican American"; and announced Obama and Osama bin Laden are "on the same page."
I'd rather he hadn't said the bit about Casey Sheehan, who was by all accounts an exceptional young man. I don't agree that all Democrats hate this country; maybe half of them. At least some of the military men and women who criticized the war in Iraq were quite literally phony soldiers. Lauro Chavez? Jesse MacBeth?
