A reader of this site named Christopher Woerner apparently thinks my view of Rush Limbaugh's situation smacks of hypocrisy. He cited something I wrote about some time ago here. This is me now…
What I saw of the gubernatorial debate last night here in California seemed to steer clear of silly topics…like what can be done to solve the state's problems. Instead, they talked a lot about how someone in Jerry Brown's office was overheard calling his opponent, Meg Whitman, a "whore." That's rude but…I dunno. I have a hunch someone in Ms. Whitman's office at some point may have called Jerry Brown an asshole and had the good fortune not to have it get recorded. In any case, Brown apologized a couple of times and Whitman could have scored a few points with me (though not enough to get my vote) if she'd said, "Fine…apology accepted. Now, let's get on with much more important things, like how to get California back on the right track." Instead, she tried to make the whole election now turn on that, darn near suggesting Californians should vote for her because some unnamed person in Brown's presence called her that. Brown, who I generally like — I think he was a fairly good governor his last go-round, better than any since — talked way too much about Whitman's housekeeper. "Vote for me because my opponent is a bad person" doesn't go very far with me. I'd still like the candidate I vote for to have a little competence.
Mr. Woerner then makes the following points in his e-mail. This is him now and I've taken the liberty of numbering them but I've not changed anything else…
1. Obama's still running ads against Sarah Palin with that exact message, and she's not even running, so there's one inconsistency.
2. You didn't suspect that anybody around Fluke called Rush a nasty name without it being caught on tape, so there's another inconsistency.
3. Rush apologized and Fluke didn't accept, there's a third.
4. You cited Jason Alexander's argument about the size of the audience, which is like saying it's ok to steal as long as you don't steal much. Or else Duckman would have required severe censorship if they should ever have found an audience like the Simpsons. This is all inconsistent with your free speech leanings, so a fourth inconsistency is found.
5. So comedians are allowed to use terms like "slut" and "whore" because they don't have the audience of the mighty AM Radio Titan that is Rush Limbaugh. Candidates for Governor of California can use those terms because they aren't stuck on AM radio like a pathetic shock jock. And this is all in the name of fairness and equality. Nope, nothing inconsistent about that.
Okay, this is me now again. Addressing #1, the only anti-Palin ad I've seen from the Obama campaign is one that merely says she's wrong about a lot of the accusations she makes against Barack Obama. She's saying he's destroying the country this way and that way and all these ways. His ads say she's wrong and that people shouldn't believe her. If there's one out there where he calls her a slut or a whore or any personal insult, I haven't seen it. Did you think my premise was that candidates should never respond to their detractors?
Regarding #2: I suspect most people, including some of his devout listeners, call Rush nasty names at times. That's kind of the premise of being a talk radio guy. I even suspect that when Limbaugh goes on the air each day, he thinks about some of what he plans to say and giggles, "Boy, this'll make those Liberals hate me." There is something of a difference between insulting someone in public and insulting them in private…and a difference between (a) insulting a man who plunges himself eagerly into the mud each day and hurls invective and makes millions doing it and (b) insulting a powerless college student who volunteered to testify before Congress. And actually, my big problem with Limbaugh was not that he insulted her but that I think he grossly misrepresented what she said in order to do so.
In the case of #3, Limbaugh offered up a pretty feeble apology for a microscopic fraction of what he said about her. Jerry Brown apologized about eight times and for 100% of the one word in question…and it wasn't even something that he said.
You're right that if something's wrong, it's wrong. (This is #4 now.) But insulting someone in private is in no way comparable to saying it in front of millions of people. If one of your friends told another of your friends they thought you were a liar, you wouldn't and probably couldn't sue them for slander. If someone went on the radio and said it, you could and might. Same thing if someone quoted something you'd written to one or two people in private and passed it off as their own. You couldn't/wouldn't sue them for plagiarism. If they did it on TV, you could and maybe would. And in both cases, a court would consider the size of the audience in assessing damage to you.
But I really wanted to get to #5. You say, "Candidates for Governor of California can use those terms." Really? What candidate for Governor of California called someone a "slut" or a "whore?" Jerry Brown did not insult anyone. He apologized because someone else in his office had done so…in private. Not one person has ever faulted Rush Limbaugh for anything he or his staffers said in private or meant to keep private. To try and defend Rush, you're taking something an aide to Jerry Brown said once that was accidentally heard elsewhere, rewriting history to pretend Brown said it, then equating it with something Rush said deliberately (and over and over) in front of millions. Is that the best you can do?
And really, the consistent principle here, and I stand by it, is that people can say what they want and then they can suffer the consequences, if any, of what they say. A comedian can get up and call people names and be rude…and if the public decides they don't want to pay to see that guy anymore or if club owners decide they don't want to book him, fine. Comedians do lose work and popularity sometimes because they cross some subjective line. Ask Michael Richards. And if Rush or anyone in his line of work goes too far and sponsors desert him or stations drop him, okay…that's how it works. Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a job. It does not guarantee you an audience. If some guy on radio started denying the Holocaust and advertisers began fleeing him in droves, you'd nod and go, "Sure."
In its purest form, Free Speech is your right to stand on a little soapbox in a public park and yell about what's wrong with the government or private industry or French's Mustard or your brother-in-law's bowling scores or anything. If people listen and cheer you on, that's their right. And if they think you're a jerk and they walk away, that's their right, too. I also have the right to stand nearby on my little soapbox, point at you and say, "Don't listen to that man! He doesn't know what he's talking about." That's my Free Speech. As long as I don't outshout you or somehow stop your message from being heard by those who opt to listen, mine doesn't infringe on yours.
I'm kinda baffled as to what Rush's defenders think is the wrong done to him, other than that most don't think there was anything amiss with what he said. I keep reading that he's being "censored" or that people are trying to silence him…which is an odd way to refer to a man who's still being heard by millions each day and quoted all over the 'net. Rush Limbaugh's may well be the most unsuppressed voice of this or the previous century. When Ed Schultz said something similar, he was suspended for a few days. I think that's kind of a token, slap-on-the-wrist punishment but Rush's outfit didn't even do that to him. He still has every bit of power he had to get his message out, except of course that his backers have lost a little revenue. I doubt he will suffer much in the long run but even if he does wind up with fewer sponsors and fewer listeners, it's his own fault.