DRMIZER
10-20-2003, 10:44 AM
The Center for American Progress "Bill Bennett Hypocrisy" award went to a most deserving recipient this week, Rush Limbaugh. Until last week, Limbaugh was in the service of two masters, playing both the mighty trumpeter for the army of interests waging the costly and devastating war on drugs, and also apparently playing the junkie who scored black market drugs in the service of his need for a fix. Limbaugh sneered at the ruinous consequences of the war on drugs, particularly for people of color. Fairness, he blustered, did not require reductions in the incarceration of people of color, but rather an increase in the incarceration of whites who, all too often, get away with illegal drug use.
Anyone expecting that Limbaugh or his apologists would lay down their arms and take up Limbaugh's call for the incarceration of white drug abusers like himself, or better yet, call for a dramatic overhaul of American drug policy, is in for a rude awakening. With appalling chutzpa, the conservative choir has excused Limbaugh's hypocrisy while simultaneously accusing "liberals and the media" of either themselves doing drugs or defending those who do. Indeed, according to the warped logic of one of his most vocal supporters, Limbaugh's hypocrisy is acceptable in large part because of the media's hypocrisy.
The right-wing's defense of Limbaugh is taken directly out of the Right's playbook: "When caught red-handed living a lie, deflect attention from your personal responsibility and shoot one directly across the bow of those perpetual evil-doers, 'the liberals and the media.'
Limbaugh's camp has to be relieved-indeed ecstatic--that the so-called "liberals and media" are squandering this moment to voice support for what is essentially a foregone conclusion. The reality is that Limbaugh is unlikely to serve any jail time for his illegal drug use for reasons that everyone in the anti-incarceration movement knows.
That analysis might begin in the conservative dug-out with their shockingly disparate sentiments of concern and support for the likes of Limbaugh, and their hardened, condemnatory attitudes toward the drug dependency of members of out-groups. We are told to "feel the pain" for Limbaugh and other right-wingers who are caught in hypocrisy while condemning those unlike them to the most punitive treatment conceivable. When members of their own group falter, people tend to attribute the cause to circumstances largely beyond their control. In Limbaugh's case, the cause was debilitating back pain. But with regard to out-groups, their "criminal" behavior is read not as circumstantial, but as the product of inherent characteristics so deeply entrenched that they must be rooted out through unyieldingly punitive measures.
Matt Drudge on MSNBC, "(i)t makes me want to reach out to him and say we love you Rush, we know you are going through terrible hell." Of course, anyone going through drug addiction is going through terrible hell, but the magnitude of drug addiction faced by others is rarely if ever addressed by the likes of Drudge. The fact that Limbaugh would risk his entire career under the weight of this addiction simply reveals how devastating drug dependency can be. "He must have known these things were damaging his hearing his whole career. He's the king of talk radio, everything is on the line. (I)t suggests a really hellish addiction, does it not?" Of course, the fact that millions of others face this addiction, and confront ever decreasing opportunities to rid themselves of it has not tempered the conservative support for the war on drugs. And if one wanted to press conservatives about their drumbeat of personal responsibility and choice, it's not too far off track to remind them that Limbaugh, unlike millions of others, had resources and the opportunity to seek treatment for his addiction. If there is any culpability to go around, shouldn't it attach to those, like Limbaugh, who have been bested by their addiction despite treatment, yet who continue the drumbeat for mass incarceration for those who have had no such opportunity?
Given the ability of wealthy and well-connected people like Limbaugh to secure their own treatment and escape punishment, there will be little pressure to make treatment and other non-criminal interventions available for ordinary Americans most threatened by today's drug laws. In all likelihood, Rush will return, rehabilitated politically, if not physically, and this sorry chapter will fade into distant memory.
Anyone expecting that Limbaugh or his apologists would lay down their arms and take up Limbaugh's call for the incarceration of white drug abusers like himself, or better yet, call for a dramatic overhaul of American drug policy, is in for a rude awakening. With appalling chutzpa, the conservative choir has excused Limbaugh's hypocrisy while simultaneously accusing "liberals and the media" of either themselves doing drugs or defending those who do. Indeed, according to the warped logic of one of his most vocal supporters, Limbaugh's hypocrisy is acceptable in large part because of the media's hypocrisy.
The right-wing's defense of Limbaugh is taken directly out of the Right's playbook: "When caught red-handed living a lie, deflect attention from your personal responsibility and shoot one directly across the bow of those perpetual evil-doers, 'the liberals and the media.'
Limbaugh's camp has to be relieved-indeed ecstatic--that the so-called "liberals and media" are squandering this moment to voice support for what is essentially a foregone conclusion. The reality is that Limbaugh is unlikely to serve any jail time for his illegal drug use for reasons that everyone in the anti-incarceration movement knows.
That analysis might begin in the conservative dug-out with their shockingly disparate sentiments of concern and support for the likes of Limbaugh, and their hardened, condemnatory attitudes toward the drug dependency of members of out-groups. We are told to "feel the pain" for Limbaugh and other right-wingers who are caught in hypocrisy while condemning those unlike them to the most punitive treatment conceivable. When members of their own group falter, people tend to attribute the cause to circumstances largely beyond their control. In Limbaugh's case, the cause was debilitating back pain. But with regard to out-groups, their "criminal" behavior is read not as circumstantial, but as the product of inherent characteristics so deeply entrenched that they must be rooted out through unyieldingly punitive measures.
Matt Drudge on MSNBC, "(i)t makes me want to reach out to him and say we love you Rush, we know you are going through terrible hell." Of course, anyone going through drug addiction is going through terrible hell, but the magnitude of drug addiction faced by others is rarely if ever addressed by the likes of Drudge. The fact that Limbaugh would risk his entire career under the weight of this addiction simply reveals how devastating drug dependency can be. "He must have known these things were damaging his hearing his whole career. He's the king of talk radio, everything is on the line. (I)t suggests a really hellish addiction, does it not?" Of course, the fact that millions of others face this addiction, and confront ever decreasing opportunities to rid themselves of it has not tempered the conservative support for the war on drugs. And if one wanted to press conservatives about their drumbeat of personal responsibility and choice, it's not too far off track to remind them that Limbaugh, unlike millions of others, had resources and the opportunity to seek treatment for his addiction. If there is any culpability to go around, shouldn't it attach to those, like Limbaugh, who have been bested by their addiction despite treatment, yet who continue the drumbeat for mass incarceration for those who have had no such opportunity?
Given the ability of wealthy and well-connected people like Limbaugh to secure their own treatment and escape punishment, there will be little pressure to make treatment and other non-criminal interventions available for ordinary Americans most threatened by today's drug laws. In all likelihood, Rush will return, rehabilitated politically, if not physically, and this sorry chapter will fade into distant memory.