Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Bill Maher Comments on the Rush Limbaugh Drug Addiction Story
Bill Maher
A fair number of Independents could be lured in, or back to, the Democratic Party. For me, a litmus test for that would have to be confronting the Drug War, and as I see the media and the Democratic presidential contenders both taking a huge whiff on the opportunity the Rush Limbaugh story provides, I am not encouraged.
For many years, I've been asked 'why do you read the Enquirer?' and have always said, "because I want to know what's going to be in the New York Times next week."
So, a week after I read the Limbaugh story in the Enquirer I read the rehash of it today in the Times, and again: Media, Pols, hello! If any time was the perfect time to make the case about the massive double standard that is the Drug War, this is it. Rush tearfully talks about his addition to a "medication." Yeah, well everybody likes their "medication" in different forms, pally. It would be funny, but substantially the same thing, if on the 6:30 news they sold bourbon and had the voice intone, "Ask your doctor if Jack Daniels is right for you."...
...And Rush, if you don't see it that way yet, let me put it like this: When you're furtively meeting people in parking lots and exchanging ANYTHING in cigar boxes through car windows - OK, that's a drug addict. Issues of personal responsibility is where I often walked with Rush, and this is a classic. A true test of the man. If he comes out of rehab and says, 'I was wrong about our approach to drugs,' he could single handedly change the way America looks at this problem. If he admits that what separates him and Noelle Bush from crackheads is nothing. Nothing except money, race and lawyers. OK, well that is actually quite a lot. But nothing in the way that makes one of them a stronger or better human being. ...