Babka Blog

Excellence In Baloney Network

I had some errands to run today - a chance to break free from my desk. And so, as I do about every two to three months, I tuned into the Rush Limbaugh Show on the Excellence In Broadcasting Network.

I admire Rush. Seriously. He’s an American success story. And he is really, really talented at what he does.

Apparently he has diminished talents in moral logic. Being a shill for Republicans tends to extinguish your ability to separate truth from error. It doesn’t seem to matter to Rush if has to dissemble, be illogical, or just rant; it's his party, right or wrong.

On today's show, hour two, the serving du jour was baloney. His charge was hypocrisy. And what, pray tell, was this hypocrisy that Rush so cleverly exposed?

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, rescue workers and the National Guard were going to be “occupying” Louisiana (yes, he really said that, which is why I put it in quotes). And the media, even the liberal-Democrats, were lauding the rescue workers and Guard. These are the very same liberals and media (sic) that “maligns” the men and women working in Iraq, rebuilding Iraq – that goes so far as to call them “murderers.”

Oh, the humanity!

I don’t know what decade Limbaugh is living in. Perhaps he’s harkening back to the undeclared war of his youth – you know the one he didn’t serve in but supported. But in these modern times, I don’t hear the mainstream media “maligning” the men and women over there.

I have yet to hear of Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, or read how the Washington Post called them “murderers.” Who could he be talking about?

Is this a straw man?

Oh, it’s that and more, because then he resorted to false analogy to demonstrate the alleged idiocy of these men of straw: Rescue personnel in Louisiana = military presence in Iraq.

Rush, there’s a Golden Rule of difference. Let me break it down for ya...

• In Iraq, our troops represent a foreign power, imposed from the outside. In New Orleans, volunteers and Guardsmen are fellow citizens not merely of the United States, but of their very own state of Louisiana. How would we like it if the situation were reversed... say China decided they need to rescue us from our regime?
  
• In Iraq, the very government that bombed, leveled, shot, wounded, maimed, and destroyed people and infrastructure is the occupier. In New Orleans, Mother Nature is guilty of the destruction, and the aid workers coming are coming to rescue.
  
• Oh, and I’m guessing the Guard and volunteer aid workers don’t like being called “occupiers.”
  
• In Iraq, they didn’t ask us to come, and even many of those who wanted us there wish we’d go home (we can’t take a hint despite more than a thousand deaths since Bush declared victory – undeterred, we’ll send more to die because we won’t get confused or lose focus in light of the facts). In New Orleans, they want assistance...

...And Rush, you’ll be able to see the difference because nightly news won’t be reporting on sniper deaths, ambushes, and road side bombings of volunteer rescue workers and National Guardsmen in Louisiana.

Of course, in the Excellence In Baloney world of Ditto-headery, the only reason they’re reporting those deaths in Iraq now is a liberal attempt to demoralize all of us.