On August 12, Rush Limbaugh exhibited his complete lack of class by going after the dead Robin Williams, trumping, if possible, Fox News’ Shepard Smith’s claim that Williams was a coward, by blaming his suicide on the “leftist worldview.”
People were outraged, unsurprisingly. Stupid, offensive things…well, they offend people. In other words, that whole cause and effect thing came up to slap Limbaugh in the face.
And here is where the right wing’s understanding of free speech comes a-cropper. Limbaugh has the right (he says) to say what he wants, but the rest of us apparently lack the right to respond.
Comedian Lewis Black spoke for many when he took to Facebook yesterday to say,
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F*** YOU Rush Limbaugh. Your statements were beyond cruel and stupid. They were intolerable. Enough is enough from you. You are an idiot. Don’t you ever demean the death of another human being. He was my friend. You disgust me.
And how do you not sympathize with Andy Resnik’s tweet?
Just read Rush Limbaugh's theory on Robin Williams' suicide. It's more misguided than I could have imagined. My eyes and brain now hate me.
— Andy Resnik (@AndyResnik) August 13, 2014
I feel you, Andy Resnik. Having to sift through this putrid mass of right wing rhetoric daily, my eyes and brain struggle to continue.
So on August 13, Limbaugh denied that he had “accused Robin Williams of committing suicide because he was a liberal” and blamed Media Matters (and the “leftist media”) instead for his inexcusable behavior:
Suddenly it’s, “I don’t presume to know why Robin Williams committed suicide. I didn’t know yesterday, and I don’t know today.”
“They are the ones trying to tell us why,” he said, pointing the finger at everyone but the one person who flapped his lips. “They are the ones trying to explain it. They are the ones justifying it. They are the ones glorifying it.”
Because it’s not like right-wing new sites like The Washington Times reported on Limbaugh’s comments, or anything.
And, because, you know, the right is all about personal responsibility. Somebody else’s personal responsibility.
As Media Matters pointed out in response,
Limbaugh has used similar tactics for years to escape responsibility for his commentary – – at times he even claims his offensive statements were an intentional “media tweak,” a comment deliberately intended to draw attention from reporters.
In other words, we must expect that every time Limbaugh acts like a troglodyte, it will be somebody else’s fault, and we must expect that LImbaugh has still learned nothing from his brush with extinction thanks to his calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute.”
Interestingly, some, like Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy.com, insist Limbaugh didn’t say what Limbaugh clearly said, based on the fact that what the caller asked was, “What is the politics in the coverage of the suicide of Robin Williams?”
According to the Malkin gang, liberals even got some conservatives to trust their own ears.
We can’t have conservatives actually exhibiting independent thought. So Twitchy claimed, “People who don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh are outraged by something he didn’t say. Again.”
But he did say it. Just as he said “it” about Sandra Fluke 44 times.
But according to Twitchy you did not hear what you clearly heard:
Almost every left wing freak out about Rush Limbaugh follows the same pattern. A lefty who doesn’t listen to Limbaugh falsely reports that Limbaugh said something objectionable and then a bunch of lefty drones who also don’t listen to Limbaugh go into outrage mode without ever verifying if what they’re outraged about actually, you know, happened.
Since when did Limbaugh limit himself to answering a question? What is relevant is not what was asked, but what Limbaugh said, and Limbaugh very clearly blamed liberalism for Williams’ death:
“He had everything, everything that you would think would make you happy. But it didn’t.” Now, what is the left’s worldview in general? What is it? If you had to attach not a philosophy but an attitude to a leftist worldview, it’s one of pessimism and darkness, sadness. They’re never happy, are they? They’re always angry about something. No matter what they get, they’re always angry.
To the claim that Williams killed himself because of survivor’s guilt, Limbaugh said survivor’s guilt is a leftist thing that, “Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country.”
We would all be surprised if conservatives suddenly started accepting personal responsibility for what they say and do, rather than blaming everybody else, even in a day and age in which we can present video or audio evidence of their words. Obviously, even conservatives savvy enough to operate a website (looking at you, Malkin) don’t understand how audio and video work (or maybe you do since we notice you did not offer any as evidence).
Sadly, the very media conservatives blame when they do get caught is the same media that most often overlooks their transgressions, thus permitting people like Mitt Romney to hold literally dozens of points of view on any given subject, for John McCain to change his own views almost weekly on any given subject, and for some of them to spew as much hate as they want without getting quoted at all.
But we know they’re guilty. We are also – happily, as it turns out – the ones who vote, and the ones who can boycott hate-mongering demagogues like Rush Limbaugh no matter their denials and blame-shifting.
Never mind Breitbart’s outrageous claim that just 10 people are responsible for the “anti-Limbaugh crusade.” We remember, and we can- and must – exact a cost, else we are wasting our own First Amendment right to be heard.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
