Lighten the F Up!

Rush Limbaugh calls the President a “jackass,” an “economic illiterate,” and an “idiot, where capitalism is concerned.”  This, somehow, equates to “taking his contempt for the President to a new level,” and “opinion media rhetoric gone too far,” and leads to the question “Is it appropriate for an individual broadcasting over government regulated airwaves to call the sitting president a jackass?”

A year ago, we were worried about right-wing talk show hosts using the language of revolution and paranoid fear-mongering in a way likely to incite violence (which, it must be emphasized, has not actually materialized).  And there are indeed legitimate concerns about the spreading of inaccurate and intentionally misleading allegations of fact (ie, Obama’s a secret Muslim, a Kenyan anti-colonialist, a terrorist sympathizer, etc.), and the effects those have on our democracy.  

But now we’re saying that worse than any of this is Rush Limbaugh expressing his opinion that the President is a “”jackass,” an “economic illiterate,” and an “idiot, where capitalism is concerned”? Crikey – if that’s inappropriate, then I don’t see how any criticism of a sitting President would ever be appropriate.  Indeed, I struggle to name more than two or three politicians that I would consider to be something other than a “jackass.”  Fer crissakes, this sitting President’s party proudly uses as its symbol…..the noble jackass!