A Plea to Rush Limbaugh

There is no more prominent voice of conservatism in America today than Rush Limbaugh.  Others may have more direct personal power (e.g. Gov. Bobby Jindahl or Senator Tom Coburn), or more political potential (Sarah Palin); and there are even those with a higher degree of academic erudition (Mark Levin).  Across the board, however, nobody expounds the practical reasons for conservative principles with greater clarity, visibility, and humor than does Maha Rushie from his seat in the prestigious Attila the Hun chair before the golden EIB microphone.

No surprise, then, that there is also no currently-active personality more fervently hated by the opinion-makers of the left.  For twenty years, the Rush Limbaugh Show has gone from strength to strength, accumulating an ever-increasing audience and ever-wider influence, to say nothing of providing an ever-increasing bank balance for Mr. Limbaugh himself.  Rather than subsist on crumbs in obscure corners as the dominant liberal media culture would prefer conservatism to do, he's become a man of wealth and fame entirely on his own merits and terms.

We've seen how the denizens of the left are willing to undermine the entire radio ratings system so as to rob EIB of its rightful advertising revenues; we've followed plans both bureaucratic and legislative to destroy conservative talk radio via oppressive and biased regulations.  The left is happy to use its media dominance as a weapon against all who oppose them; it must be galling indeed to be confronted with a feisty, articulate conservative protected by Greener's Law.  The New York Times may buy ink by the barrel; metaphorically speaking, so does Rush, and he wields his with greater aplomb.

Normally, though, Rush stays in his world of radio flinging stinkbombs and gas-grenades over the ramparts at the never-ending parade of targets passing by.  Rarely does he venture out to do combat into other, less familiar arenas - though when he does, he generally rocks the house.

This past week, all that changed.  The sequence of events was simple:

1. It became known that Rush Limbaugh was a member of a consortium seeking to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL team.
2. All hell broke loose, with Rush being assaulted on air by all and sundry as an inveterate racist, including phony racist quotes falsely attributed to him as reasons why he should not be allowed to participate in the business venture.  These sentiments were also echoed by politicians, who you'd think might have better things to do just at the moment.
3. The other members of the bidding consortium booted Rush out.  Apparently his money was good only so long as his name wasn't on it.
4. The usual suspects - yes, the Racist Reverends - did a victory dance.

To sum up, a private business venture was torpedoed by a yowling cacophony of lies - yes, known fraudulent accusations - by people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter.

Now, we could go on about the stunning hypocrisy of saying that the generally-law-abiding, massive-tax-paying Rush Limbaugh is unfit for participation in a sport that gladly accepts known repeat violent felons - in fact, over one fifth of whose players have been charged with serious crimes - and many of whose existing team owners are little better.  Except that liberal hypocrisy is now so standard as to be utterly immune to surprise.

Or, we could cheerlead for Rush Limbaugh's threatened libel and slander lawsuits.  Certainly, publicly calling a private individual a racist on-air based on unsourced quotations known to be false would seem to provide a very strong case - and all the major networks and many personalities did it.  By the time the suit ended, who knows, Rush might actually own a news network himself!

There is an even more fundamental principle at stake here: the principle of fighting fire with fire.  For too many years, Republicans and conservatives alike have wilted from leftist character assassination.  A major reason John McCain refused to attack Obama for his un-American associations was his fear of being called a racist.  Not to worry: he lost the election, and gets called racist anyway.

Which is precisely the point: Liberals don't call conservatives racists, Neanderthals, or misogynists because they actually are any of these things, or necessarily even because they believe they are.  They make these accusations simply to destroy their opponents' credibility, character, and will to resist, just as radical Saul Alinsky recommended in his infamously evil Rule #13.

There is only one way to respond to attacks of this sort and that is with an all-out, all-guns-blazing counterattack.  Rush is a racist?  Balderdash - Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the rest of the race-baiting bunch are racists many times over.

The airwaves of EIB should resound with damning recordings of their past vulgarities, anti-Semitism, incitements to violence, blackmail, and on down the line.  Likewise with the lies from the media: they should be presented for what they are, unprincipled, shameless, pathological liars without the slightest shred of journalistic integrity, or indeed integrity of any sort.

Now is not the time for half measures.  Conservatives and their principles have been pushed to the wall.  Now is the time for a man unafraid of opposition - indeed, who welcomes an enraged enemy, as long as it's the right (that is, Left) enemy.  Now is the time for Rush to use the full powers of his decades of experience, his vast financial resources, and yes, that full array of "talent on loan from God."

America is already fed up with false accusations of racism.  It's now time to clearly paint, not the individual crimes, but the pattern of fraud and deceit.

There may not be another chance.  There surely won't be another individual so ideally situated to do heavy combat where it's needed.

Rush Limbaugh, don't back down now!  Heaven knows the supposed Republican political leaders all already would have.