{"id":8926,"date":"2006-11-01T10:30:48","date_gmt":"2006-11-01T15:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8926.html"},"modified":"2006-11-01T10:30:48","modified_gmt":"2006-11-01T15:30:48","slug":"bushs-interesting-choice-of-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-interesting-choice-of-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s interesting choice of friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

We may have less than a week to go before the midterm elections, but it appears the president is slated to have a relatively low-key day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush will hold no public events of any kind on Wednesday, an exceptionally light schedule this close to next Tuesday’s midterm elections. That sparked questions about whether [tag]Bush[\/tag] has a “November surprise” in store. This is, after all, a president who has twice managed to sneak away to Iraq.<\/p>\n

At the White House morning briefing, a reporter observed that the light schedule made it sound “like something is cooking there.” Spokesman Tony Snow replied, “No, not really.” […]<\/p>\n

Bush has “some meetings with senior advisers and a Rush Limbaugh interview<\/b>,” Snow said in an email. “No blockbusters.” (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “blockbusters.”<\/p>\n

I realize the Bush White House has an incredibly short memory, but it was just last week<\/i> that [tag]Limbaugh[\/tag] disgusted the entire country by his smear<\/a> of a Parkinson’s patient who dared to do a commercial in support of a candidate who wants to invest in stem-cell research.<\/p>\n

On the October 23 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh accused actor [tag]Michael J. Fox[\/tag], who has Parkinson’s disease, of “exaggerating the effects of the disease” in a recent campaign advertisement for Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill…. Noting that Fox is “moving all around and shaking” in the ad, Limbaugh declared: “And it’s purely an act. This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has.” Limbaugh added that “this is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn’t take his medication or he’s acting, one of the two.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Consider the broader context for a moment.
\n
\nLimbaugh generated national revulsion with his attack on Fox. Instead of apologizing, Limbaugh told his listeners, “I stand by what I said. I take back none of what I said.” Decency demanded that he be shunned from polite society. Honestly, what kind of person attacks a man with a terrible disease, falsely accuses the man of faking symptoms, issues a bogus apology, and then goes right back to attacking the victim again?<\/p>\n

Apparently, it’s the kind of man who gets one-on-one chats with George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

How is the political world supposed to interpret this? Limbaugh becomes a national joke one week, Bush embraces him the next. The president is so desperate to rally right-wing voters that he’ll promote, endorse, and add his imprimatur to a hate-monger.<\/p>\n

Let me get this straight — Dems are supposed to avoid a war hero<\/a> who flubbed one word in a joke, but the president has no qualms about spending quality time with Rush Limbaugh?<\/p>\n

And so I ask, once again<\/a>, what it takes for a right-right hate-monger to reach pariah status in American society. Ann Coulter can condemn 9\/11 widows<\/a>, but she’s still in the conservative mainstream. [tag]Bill O’Reilly[\/tag] suggested that it’d be fine with him if [tag]al Queda[\/tag] attacked a major American city<\/a>, but he suffered no consequences. In 2001, just 48 hours after 9\/11, [tag]Jerry Falwell[\/tag] said liberal Americans were to blame for the attacks and said the nation “deserved<\/a>” the terrorism, but Republicans are still reaching out to him for political support.<\/p>\n

And Rush Limbaugh can callously smear a Parkinson’s patient, but the president will still give him exclusive interviews.<\/p>\n

There’s something terribly wrong here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We may have less than a week to go before the midterm elections, but it appears the president is slated to have a relatively low-key day. President Bush will hold no public events of any kind on Wednesday, an exceptionally light schedule this close to next Tuesday’s midterm elections. That sparked questions about whether [tag]Bush[\/tag] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}