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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?031027ta_talk_hertzberg RUSH IN REHAB Issue of 2003-10-27 Posted 2003-10-20"We do not need General Clark or any of the rest of you liberals. We don’t need to change the definition of patriotism in order to conform to the antiwar, hate- America-first radicalism of the Democrat leadership. And that’s what this is all about.” In case you don’t happen to be a regular listener to “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” the above is a fair sample of the sort of thing the star of the show has been saying lately, or at any rate was saying until a week ago, when he checked in to a drug rehabilitation center. It’s not very different from what he’s been saying throughout the twenty years he’s been talking about politics on the radio. We know the sample is fair, because it was the featured quote last Thursday on the home page of Limbaugh’s own Web site, emblazoned in big blue letters right next to the smiling photograph of the patient himself. Limbaugh’s target this time was Wesley Clark, because Clark is a leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. As a four-star general, Clark led nato’s first and so far only major military action, which put a stop to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; as a combat officer in Vietnam, he was severely wounded and awarded the silver star, the bronze star, and a purple heart. The person impugning his patriotism, Limbaugh, sat out the war in Vietnam—though not very comfortably, one must assume, since, as Joe Conason noted in Salon, the future scourge of cowards and slackers avoided the draft on account of “a persistent boil on his backside.” Limbaugh is a prime example of what is known as a Chicken Hawk—a noisy, preening master of the martial art of talking who, back when it was a question of getting anywhere near harm’s way for the sake of his country, discovered that he had (as Vice-President Cheney once put it, explaining his own absence from the fray) “other priorities.” He has now joined another élite corps—the Vice Versa Virtuecrats, they might be called—whose members crusade against “moral relativism” and in favor of absolute standards of right and wrong backed up by draconian punishments while indulging themselves in devilment on the side. Like Newt Gingrich, who vowed to attack Bill Clinton in every speech for hiding his sad little dalliance with Monica Lewinsky while he himself was carrying on a years-long affair with a congressional staffer young enough to be his daughter, and William J. Bennett, who made millions promoting flinty self- discipline while gambling away comparable amounts in Las Vegas fleshpots, Limbaugh took a stern line on demon dope (“If people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up”) while himself possessing and consuming controlled substances in prodigious quantities. In Limbaugh’s case, the difficulty goes beyond an embarrassing inconsistency between professed beliefs and private behavior, because the “problem” he has acknowledged having—being “addicted to prescription pain medication”—correlates strongly with committing acts that the law defines as crimes. Limbaugh’s colleagues in the right-wing jabber industry have come up with a consistent set of talking points in making the case that, in Ann Coulter’s words, “Rush’s behavior was not all that dissolute.” One point is that it was “highly courageous” of Limbaugh to admit his addiction, as Brent Bozell wrote. This would be more persuasive if Limbaugh’s admission had come before rather than after his addiction was described in detail in a National Enquirer story—a story whose essential outlines have since been confirmed by the non-supermarket press and whose particulars have been disputed by no one. (Limbaugh himself—presumably on the advice of his lawyer, Roy Black, whose other celebrity clients have included William Kennedy Smith and Marv Albert—has said only that the “stories you’ve heard contain inaccuracies and distortions.”) Another point is that Limbaugh’s ability to do his job while addicted is a testament to his greatness. “If this is what he’s like on painkillers, imagine when he’s off them!” Coulter exclaimed, adding, “Whoa! Set him loose once he’s gone through detox!” A third talking point is that Limbaugh is not like other junkies—the bad kind, who use drugs like heroin and cocaine. Sean Hannity, the Fox TV host, discerned a “difference between somebody who, as part of a medical treatment, had these things prescribed and it got out of hand over time, and somebody who is using drugs recreationally.” Neal Boortz, an Atlanta-based radio shouter, said on MSNBC, “The addiction happened while he was under a legal regimen of these drugs. That is not at all the way people get addicted to heroin.” And G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar turned pundit, said, “I would distinguish Rush’s situation from someone who was a recreational drug user and was caught playing with fire and got addicted—moved up from marijuana to cocaine or something of that sort.” Actually, under federal law there is no distinction between Oxycontin, Limbaugh’s reported pill of choice, and drugs like cocaine, methadone, and opiates. All are Schedule II drugs, which have medical uses but a high potential for abuse, and simple possession of any of them is punishable by up to a year’s imprisonment. Though Limbaugh may well have been introduced to painkillers via a doctor’s prescription, the suggestion that he became addicted to them under a doctor’s care is almost certainly false. So is the suggestion that he wasn’t taking them “recreationally” —i.e., to get high. The prescribed dose of Oxycontin, one tablet every twelve hours, is usually sufficient to relieve severe pain. The Enquirer has Limbaugh purchasing nearly twelve thousand during a four-month period in 2001—enough to soothe his back troubles for sixteen years. Limbaugh deserves compassion no less (and no more) than any other drug addict. It would be a travesty of justice to lock him up for ingesting chemicals, an activity whose only victim, if any, has been himself. But the four hundred and fifty thousand Americans already in jail for breaking the drug laws also represent a failure of justice, and an even bigger failure of policy. (The United States imprisons more people for drug violations than the European Union imprisons for all causes combined, and the E.U.’s population exceeds the U.S.’s by a hundred million.) By the same token, it would be a travesty if Oxycontin— which has eased the sufferings of millions—were to be demonized as other psychoactive drugs have been demonized. Even if Limbaugh was using his drugs less to relieve pain than to procure pleasure, or if the pain he sought to relieve was less physical than existential, that may have been a problem, but it shouldn’t be a crime. Limbaugh’s current sojourn in drug treatment is his third. If he fails again, he should have a fourth chance, and a fifth. Perhaps he will reflect upon the fact that if he weren’t quite so lucky—if he were poorer and darker of skin, and if he had been obliged from the start to seek his treatment under the tender auspices of the criminal-justice system— he would already have had his third strike. Such a change of heart seems unlikely; drug rehabilitation comes easier than the political kind. Limbaugh may be a Chicken Hawk in the war on drugs, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be cannon fodder. — Hendrik Hertzberg COMMENT S.I. DISPATCH DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY DEPT. OF SIGNAGE DEPT. OF Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." 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