Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:13 pm
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh declared that Sonia Sotomayor butchers the English language more than George W. Bush if he got drunk again, but while criticizing Sotomayor, Limbaugh confused the terms providence and provenance, which made him look like a total fool. Check out the audio.
Here is the audio from Media Matters:
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Sotomayor said, “All questions of policy are in the providence of Congress first.” Rush said, “Provenance, it is provenance of Congress, not providence. Providence is a city in Rhode Island, it’s also a record of, say you are a wine collector and you have some old classics and you want to sell them, you’ve got to be able to prove they are real, how you got them, where they have been, how they have been stored, that’s the providence of something. You know, questions of policy are the provenance, the right of Congress.”
A quick check of Webster’s Dictionary finds that provenance is defined as, “the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature,” and providence means, “divine guidance or care.” Um Rush, you’re wrong. If you are like me you are thinking what kind of bozo would put together audio clips, spend 50 seconds criticizing Sotomayor for using the terms correctly, and incorrectly explain to his audience the use of the term?
The guy has 20 million listeners, and nobody that works on his show can pick up a dictionary and actually check the definitions before he goes on the air and makes an ass out of himself? This is why Limbaugh and his listeners, outside of the GOP, get treated like a bunch of morons. It is not that tough to do a little research before you criticize someone else for incorrect vocabulary usage.
By the way Rush, way to connect with your everyman audience by using as your example wine collecting. What blue collar person doesn’t come home from a hard day’s work and head down to the wine cellar to forget the struggles of life for a few hours? Good Lord Rush, when you do things like this, you start to make Glenn Beck look intelligent and prepared.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
