JB

From an October 5th, 1995 radio show (courtesy of Ellis Henican and Newsday):

Even though blacks and whites break the drug laws in roughly equal percentages, [Limbaugh] noted, black druggies go to prison far more often than white druggies do. But to the liberal-bashing host, this was no reason to ease up on blacks.

"What this says to me," he told his listeners that day, "is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

I think we've been taking Limbaugh's remarks about Donovan McNabb out of context. It's now clear that they were much more than the smug posturings of a rabble rouser who simply wants attention. Rather, they reflect a deep moral commitment: Just as Limbaugh doesn't want black quarterbacks to get a free pass from the sports media, he doesn't want white drug abusers like himself to get a pass from the criminal justice system.

When Limbaugh turns himself into authorities and demands to be treated no differently than African-Americans arrested and convicted of drug offenses, we will all see how wrong we all were about this man.

UPDATE: All sarcasm aside, if Limbaugh has become addicted to drugs, he deserves our sympathy, no matter what our views about his politics, and no matter whether he broke the law. As the above quote suggests, in the past Limbaugh himself has had nothing but scorn for people who have come to that sorry state. That disdain reflects less his conservative political views than the fact that he has, for most of his public life, been a callous, insensitive bully. Moreover, he has learned that being a callous, insensitive bully has gotten him a loyal audience and enormous adulation from a public that likes raw, obnoxious ranting from their political commentators. He has learned to enjoy the high he gets from being outrageous and merciless and goading his listeners into similar feelings of outrage and mercilessness. That is to say, Limbaugh has become as addicted to verbal thuggery as he has to painkillers.

If he is now addicted to drugs, we should be sympathetic to his plight, for addiction is no small matter, and living with it is a lifelong struggle. But we should also hope that he learns something from the troubles that are now raining down upon him-- that he, like the rest of us, is fallible and imperfect, and therefore deserving of love, and deserving of mercy. It is true that he is not a man much given to forgiveness, and that he has made a very successful living out of bullying, aggression and hatred. But perhaps he will discover, in a time of darkness, that there is more to life than aggression and demagoguery, and we, in turn, will discover that there is much more to him than the rather obnoxious and unsympathetic character he portrays on the radio. If he can turn his life around, and learn to bestow mercy on others as well as receive it, he might be well on his way to ridding himself of both of his addictions.