Friday, July 02, 2004

I sometimes think I have heard everything, but I am always proven wrong. Today, for example, I was driving down the highway with my radio on, and it's a wonder I didn't drive off the road and have an accident, so extraordinary was Rush Limbaugh's latest complaint.

You have to get ready for this: He was upset because the news media always feels compelled to present two sides to every issue. He said it several times, so I know I didn't hear it wrong.

What got him going was the reporting of Saddam Hussein's trial. The statement, though--coming from someone who has paid for his pills by spreading the ridiculous myth of the "liberal" media--is astounding. For years, he has done nothing but complain that the media doesn't present both sides of a story. You just can't please this pompous idiot.

And that wasn't the end of it: He then made the obscenely irresponsible comment that if Saddam Hussein were to be found not guilty, the American left would love it.

There is no one--no one--who isn't horrified by the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein. I know of no one who believes he didn't commit them. What Limbaugh and other right-wing commentators do is take the argument that we bombed the hell out of Iraq on false pretenses and then accuse anyone who disagrees with the bombing as a person who "supports Saddam Hussein."

The most elementary study of logic shows us that this is a false syllogism, but more and more, Americans are not interested in logic or even reasonably clear thinking. The two issues are not related. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator. Yes, Dick Cheney and his gang of liars bombed Iraq for no reason at all, and as a result, we are even less safe than we were before.

If the Cheney White House really cares about the Iraqui people, I hope they don't "care" about them the same way they do about the poor people in Afganistan. After reducing Afgahnistan to rubble, they moved on to Iraq. Whereas before, women and children--and many men--were terrorized by the Taliban, now they are being terrorized by both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

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