Friday, 10 October 2003

Rush's drug problem

Brett Cashman, while expressing sympathy for Rush Limbaugh’s addiction to painkillers, has this to say:

But what I will say is this: to the extent that Rush is the target of a criminal probe into the sale and use of illegal drugs? This is an example of chickens coming home to roost. Rush has long been an inveterate drug warrior, and has trash-talked crack addicts and suggested that drug offenders are just like ordinary criminals. Well, Rush, it’s looking like you may be one of those drug offenders, now. Should we treat you like an ordinary criminal?

I’d rather not, personally. But so long as conservatives insist on being at the vanguard of the War on Some Drugs, crap like this is going to continue to happen.

That sounds about right to me. And it’s not just conservatives; after all, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, both drug users in their youth, weren’t exactly unenthusiastic drug warriors either.

(The snarky side of me would attribute Rush’s addiction to all that time he spent hanging out with former cocaine addict Michael Irvin on Sunday NFL Countdown.)

Steven Taylor dislikes Newsweek’s hit piece, Stephen Green (VodkaPundit) is also critical (for slightly different reasons), and Arthur Silber, who wants Rush to go to the Big House (not, mind you, the one in Ann Arbor), engenders an interesting discussion.