Limbaugh, Thomas Friedman and Slutty Comments

As readers of this column know, I was raised in a home where Mom was a Republican and Dad a Democrat.  Politics was served at every meal and the only rule was you had to keep one foot on the floor.  I have kept this tradition of loving the opposition alive by marrying a Democratic atheist, while remaining a Republican Lutheran.  I recommend this combination because it teaches one tolerance, manners and—most important of all—a constant reminder that truth does not go directly from God’s mouth to your ear. 

            I was reminded of this on the evening of the 28^th when my husband and I went to hear Thomas L. Friedman speak at the Distinguished Speakers Series at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas.  Both of us like to read Mr. Friedman’s column in the New York Times.  Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer (three times over).  He is also the author of several books, the most recent of which is, That Used to be Us: How American Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We Can Come Back.  Mr. Friedman is as good a speaker as he is a writer.  The evening was thoughtful, instructive and intellectually rewarding.  Most of all, despite the ponderous and possibly negative title of his book, Mr. Friedman is an upbeat person who sees ways for America’s best years to lie before us.  He also couch’s his criticisms in realistic and measured terms, keeps to supportable facts, and allows for differences of opinion. 

While my handsome and long suffering spouse agrees with everything Friedman says, I tend to agree with most of his facts, some of his conclusions but only a few of his suggested remedies.  On some issues, like the impact of gerrymandered districts on Congressional polarization we are in complete agreement, on other topics, less so.  The point being that during the entire evening I felt as if I had been invited to an intellectual buffet.  I was being offered one deliciously prepared mental dish after another.  I was being challenged to think, evaluate, learn, compare and conclude.  I was being treated like an equal.  Mr. Friedman did absolutely nothing to make me feel threatened, harangued or demeaned.  Maybe that is because he is secure enough in his own knowledge, ethics and studied opinions that he does not feel threatened by me or anyone else in his audience.  This is a man I would happily invite to dinner.

 

Enter, from stage right, the T & CA, Mr. Rush Limbaugh.  You would think that this would be someone I could agree with, right?  Wrong.  I have tried him a few times and the result is always the same.  Five minutes of listening to name calling, vague insinuations and yelling and I am gone.  Mr. Limbaugh’s recent reference to college co-ed testifying before Congress as a, “slut” is just the latest in a long, long line of jejune comments from a man whose monetary success and popularity confounds me. 

 

Limbaugh is a man of limited ability and less preparation.  He counts on dazzling his gullible listeners with pap instead of substance.  Don’t Limbaugh’s apostles realize that if this person could make more money pimping for the left that he would be there in a shot?  Can’t they see how small a mind and how empty a soul he is?  Just because someone agrees with your philosophy doesn’t mean you should blind yourself to their hypocrisy, nor their baseness, nor their lack of personal morality.  Limbaugh is a man I would never invite to dinner. 

 

Be calm, be civil and keep the faith.