To date, I haven’t gotten very caught up in Rush Limbaugh’s ongoing ordeal. After all, drug addiction is a personal, not political problem.
But now Rush is attempting to politicize his problems:
My friends, it is, and has been, obvious to me for the longest time that all these leaks were an attempt to try me in the court of public opinion. The Democrats in this country still cannot defeat me in the arena of political ideas, and so now they are trying to do so in the court of public opinion and the legal system. I guess it’s payback time. And since I’m not running for office, can’t get to me that way. They’re going to seek the occasion of this event in my life to see, to find out if they can do any damage. And that’s as much as I want to say… No, that’s not as much as I want to say; that’s as much as I’m going to say about it at the moment.
This is pathetic. The prosecutors involved may or may not be acting properly in the manner they’re handling this case. But if Rush is being treated differently, it’s because he’s a celebrity, not because he’s a GOP mouthpiece. The prosecutors view Rush as a trophy case, and they’re trying to get the most pop out of it [see also Martha Stewart].
The hypocrisy of this is rich. Rush’s they’re-after-me-because-I’m-x claim follows the same logic as those who break out the race card in court. And we all know how well that’s usually accepted on the right.
Rush broke the law and now he’s trying to blame his problems on everyone else. That’s Republican “personal responsibility” for you.