Rush unhinged: victimization theories and lashing out

Rush Limbaugh, fresh off his loss to the free market system that he usually such a fan of in his bid to buy the St. Louis Rams, is flailing to find an excuse. Well, an excuse that doesn't place the blame where it belongs: on his years of demagoguery.

In the Sunday Wall Street Journal (and on his radio show), Limbaugh insists that there is no concrete proof that he uttered two quotes about race - one trumpeting Martin Luther King's assassin, another trumpeting the virtues of slavery - that a book attributed to him and that the media then echoed.

However, Limbaugh is now using this misattribution as supposed proof that he is not a racist, that he is, in fact, being unduly persecuted for his conservative beliefs and that actually, he is one of America's leading voices espousing a "belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race." You can't make this shit up.

This is part of the broader conservative grievance ideology - no matter how much power conservatives have, they will constantly insist they are the ones under attack and under persecution, particularly by black people who supposedly mislabel all conservatives as "racist."

David Sirota

Meanwhile, Huff Post's Matt Osborne points out that:

The wingnutosphere insists: Rush has never, ever made a racist comment! Ever!...Except for this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one. And this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one and this one, and this one, and this one and this one.

Back to Sirota:

Limbaugh, of course, is within his First Amendment rights to have made these comments. However, as Digby notes, the First Amendment guarantees one only the right to free speech - it doesn't grant anyone the right to evade the consequences of one's speech. In this case, the consequences are a private corporation - the NFL - saying it wants nothing to do with Limbaugh.

Certainly, you can certainly disagree with that business decision for various reasons, some of which have nothing to do with political ideology or Rush worship at all (one argument I've heard is that if the NFL is going to let Michael Vick play, they should also let Limbaugh invest). However, the decision has nothing to do with the First Amendment or political persecution and everything to do with a private corporation wanting to steer clear of branding itself to an overt racist - a billing that even the dittoheads shouldn't be able to deny.

And now, we have Rush lashing out. When all else fails and he's trapped by years worth of tapes of his own racist comments, this is what we get:

CNN reporter Carol Costello ran a segment yesterday analyzing talk radio and its listeners. This analysis included shows and monologues from the king of conservative radio, Rush Limbaugh, and he was not pleased with the conclusions drawn by either Costello or the psychiatrist she consulted, which was that Limbaugh is a "bully." Limbaugh called Costello his "stalker" before suggesting she "go sit on a fire hydrant and improve your day."

Huff Post - click for video

Let's let Ed Schultz wrap it up:

I do want to point out that for years Limbaugh has been saying that the free market doesn't want liberal talk radio. Well, there's a lot of conservative owners that would never even try progressive talk radio or liberal talk radio.

Rush, how's that free market working for you tonight, buddy? It's about ownership. I'm glad you found it out.