Buzz Dixon is a fine writer and one of my favorite people, even though he and I rarely mark our ballots the same way. He writes the following about the matter of Mr. Limbaugh and his pill-popping…
There's actually a 4th position out there, but one that isn't getting a lot of airplay/bloggage. This is not because this POV is being deliberately blocked so much as the people holding it have a wait-and-see attitude. These are the supporters of Rush Limbaugh who are very troubled by the hypocrisy of his words vs. his deeds re his drug use. We're waiting to see what he has to say when he gets out of treatment. Anything less that an open admission he was a hypocrite when he advocated strict punishment of drug abusers is not going to fly with this group. Acknowledgement of hypocrisy would have to be followed by sincere steps to insure his listeners it will not happen again.
He is, roughly speaking, in the same place Jimmy Swaggart was when he was caught peeking at prostitutes' privates a decade or so ago. It is possible for him to regain much (but not all) of the lost trust through contrition and genuine reform of his habits. However, if he fails that trust again as Swaggart did then he will lose all mainstream credibility and have only hard core easy-to-dismiss followers. I don't want that to happen. I want the man to rebuild as much of his credibility as he can, but if he is not honest enough with his audience to acknowledge he was a hypocrite then he will lose all credibility with most of them.
You may be right, Buzz, but I'm doubtful. I haven't listened to Rush in years but when I did, it struck me that his main appeal involved reassuring conservative listeners that the world was just the way they wanted to believe it was. When the news was bad for Democrats, he spun it so it was worse. When the news was bad for Republicans, he spun it so it was bad for Democrats. When a caller veered close to facts that called his interpretation into question, he cut them off and gave himself the last word to explain why they were not only wrong but why anyone who suggested whatever the caller was trying to say was ignorant and could be ignored. Rush is a smart guy and at times, tremendously entertaining. But I think his act is all about playing to an audience that likes to see things through the filter he provides and they'll be eager to believe whatever he has to say.
My guess is he'll emerge from rehab proclaiming not only that he's clean but that that proves that anyone with a drug dependency can lick it in thirty days if they really want to accept personal responsibility. He'll portray his problem as medicinal and argue that since he didn't start taking the drugs for recreational use, it's completely different from the addictions that crack whores and other users bring on themselves. He'll hint that he was "set up" for the bust, congratulate himself on licking his problem, and thereafter urge that people show compassion for those who have his particular, non-intentional kind of addiction. Since he's white and wealthy and powerful, he will pay a token fine and receive some sort of suspended sentence or probation…or less. And the vast majority of his listeners will buy every word of it and admire him all the more for his courageous stance.
You could be right. But if you're waiting for the guy to say, "I've been a hypocrite," I think you'll be waiting for a long time.