TROPICAL STORM RUSH BUILDING UP STEAM

by Steve Young

Think the winds of Hurricane Ike did a dirty on the country?

Wait till you see the shitstorm against the New York Times that will hit the broadcast mainland the moment Rush Limbaugh gets behind the golden EIB mike Monday morning. And expect the rest of the Lords of Loud to take up the fight soon after.

Why? This weekend the Times did a bit of background on Sarah Palin and it seems the Governor is more prepared to run the KGB than she is to be Vice President.

But while the Obama campaign might appreciate the levee of facts being constructed, it won't do a damn thing to stop the flood waters from the Right. In fact it will only energize the low that created the storm in the first place.

The Lords of Loud will take offense on Sarah's part and when Hannity brings Palin in for her hard-hitting interview, she'll have plenty of time to slam his pitch out of the park.

The Dems will cry foul and that the interview was nothing but a campaign ad, but as Hannity told me, "I don't do my show for critics, I do it for viewers and listeners."

What the McCain campaign knows well, it is those viewers and listeners who vote.

What they don't care about is that the devastation that follows ain't so bad when you're in charge of the weather.

And as if to prove his disregard for any type of civility, this past week, on 9/11 yet, Limbaugh rained down a deluge of revulsion. The man is a creature of habit. A habit of diminishing humanity by endless means. Whether mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's or lying about...well, anything to make his point, Limbaugh has never met a swamp bottom he couldn't crawl under.

But he topped it all this past week as he chose one of America's most solemn days to use as an ugly partisan club with which to hammer Democrats.

In one single commentary commemorating 9/11, Limbaugh:

Blamed the Clinton administration for "handicapping intelligence agencies and forgoing a strong military response."

Claimed "Clinton associates wished that the attacks had happened on Bill's watch so he could have had a chance at greatness."

Alleged that soon after the attacks Hillary Clinton "echoed conspiracy-based claims that Bush knew of the attacks beforehand."

He continued, making other allegations against other Democrats, buy how many and how valid or false his points might have been are not of any matter on this day. On any other day we could quibble over the credibility. But not on 9/11.

What does matter is that this man who says he speaks for so many millions, has shown that absolutely no sense of respect for the events, loss of life and the tragedy suffered by all Americans seven short years before.

And that, my friends, is just one more American tragedy.

Yep. It's time to pick up a new umbrella.