BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Thursday, October 02, 2003
Rush on drugs. The media
world is going wild today over a
report in the New York
Daily News that "Rush Limbaugh is being investigated for
allegedly buying thousands of addictive painkillers from a
black-market drug ring."
What would appear to be delicious
about this scandal is that Limbaugh is a big-time conservative who's
hung out for years with the just-say-no crowd. What could be better
than learning that the "moralizing motormouth" (the News's
phrase) has a thing for Oxycontin, a/k/a "hillbilly
heroin"?
Okay, had your moment of
schadenfreude? Me too. Now, calm down. It appears that Limbaugh may
not be such a hypocrite after all. For quite some time, Limbaugh has
advocated an end to, or at least an easing of, drug
prohibition.
Here's a transcript
of some comments he made in 1998 on his radio show. An
excerpt:
It seems to me that what
is missing in the drug fight is legalization. If we want to go
after drugs with the same fervor and intensity with which we go
after cigarettes, let's legalize drugs. Legalize the manufacture
of drugs. License the Cali Cartel. Make them taxpayers and then
sue them. Sue them left and right and then get control of the
price and generate tax revenue from it. Raise the price sky high
and fund all sorts of other wonderful social programs.
I'm no Limbaugh fan, and I'm glad
that he
quit ESPN under pressure yesterday
after making racially insensitive remarks about Philadelphia Eagles
quarterback Donovan McNabb.
But though Limbaugh may indeed have
a substance-abuse problem, at least he's got his head screwed on
straight about society and drugs.
Under the sheets with John
Dennis. The luckiest man in media today is John Dennis, co-host
of the execrable Dennis & Callahan show on WEEI Radio (AM
850).
According to this
item in the Boston
Globe (scroll down a bit), Dennis has apologized for comparing
escaped gorilla Little Joe to black Metco students.
Dennis reportedly said that the
gorilla, who hung out for a while at a bus stop before being
recaptured, was "probably a Metco gorilla waiting for a bus
to take him to Lexington."
Obviously what Dennis said was far
worse than the remarks that got Limbaugh into trouble at ESPN. You
could also make a case that Dennis's little joke was worse than the
anti-Palestinian diatribe that got John
"Ozone" Osterlind fired
from WRKO Radio (AM 680) in August.
Of course, Limbaugh is a ratings
monster in political radio who was out of his element doing sports on
TV, and Osterlind was not considered vital to the future of
WRKO.
Dennis, by contrast, is one-half of
a hit show. It just demonstrates that if you've got the numbers, you
can get away with just about anything.
Dylan on the Man in Black.
Bob
Dylan has posted a
wonderful tribute to Johnny Cash. (Thanks to P.C. for the
link.)
Understanding dyslexia. I
worked with the Boston Globe's Gareth Cook from 1996 through
'98, when he was the Phoenix news editor. I never would have
guessed that he's got dyslexia -- certainly not from the blistering
edits he sent back to me.
Anyway, Cook has written
a
terrific column about his
lifelong struggle with this learning disability. It should be a
must-read for teachers and parents.
New in this week's
Phoenix. Former Republican political operative
Virginia
Buckingham settles in at
the Boston Herald; some thoughts on the death and life of the
Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said; and things are looking up
for Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman, recovering from
a serious leg infection.
Also, Herald employees are
offered
a buyout, but no one can
answer the question everyone's asking: Can layoffs be
avoided?
posted at 8:16 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
