Who Said to Send in the Clowns?
Let me first state that Rush Limbaugh is a lot of things to a lot of people. Mostly, he is a bombastic gas bag who happens to have an acute understanding of his opponents thinking. The worst thing a listener can hear is him saying, "You know how much I hate to talk about myself...but..." because that means the next hour will be full of some crap about himself...usually with the moral that he is smarter than the rest. Interspersed in there somewhere might be something genuinely interesting, it is hard for me to say because I don't listen to him that much anymore. But the last few days the thing that has occupied his show more than anything else is the accusation that he called soldiers who had served in one of our many unpleasant places and returned to become war protesters "phony soldiers". The term is taken out of context and the accusation is not true. The phrase came up in reference to "soldiers" who claim to have "been there"...got wounded...whatever else...when it turns out they did none of those things. It is an apt title. In my day we called them "PX soldiers"...they would load their uniforms up for the trip home to make themselves look like heroes. The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. He didn't say what the liberals in the senate and the house are saying he said and they are mounting a campaign to drag him through the mud over it. Which begs the over-riding question..."So What?"
What if he did say it? Who cares? Who the heck is he anyway? And now the head lib in the senate wants to draft a letter to Limbaugh's boss demanding an apology...the house is trying for some kind of condemnation, too. The legislative body of our government wants to censure a private citizen who said something they didn't like. And the very people who are so fiercely offended by this comment have themselves said far worse things about our soldiers...where is their censure? I had it in mind to make a long list of all the crap the congressmen and senators have said...but it is late, I am tire, and you can Google it all if you are really interested.
No...the question I want answered is "Why should anything that comes out of either house of congress carry any weight with us, anyway?" The congressional leadership positions are full of people of low moral character...there are liars, adulterers, scoff laws, thieves, bribe takers, and a variety of other miscreants...anybody want to knock back a sixpack and ride out to Martha' s Vineyard with Ted?...and we should take notice of them because they want to save us from a naughty talk radio host who said something disparaging about a certain class of soldiers? This august body that has accused marines of murder without evidence or trial...accused troops of terrorizing Iraqi families in the night..."torturing" detainees...flushing Korans down the old poop chute...and the beat goes on.
Come on, Harry...is this what the citizens of Nevada expect for their tax dollars? Am I the only one who is sick of all this crap?