Scum

So on one side is Michael J. Fox, who is tragically, seriously afflicted with Parkinson's disease, and has made a political ad supporting Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, because her opponent, incumbent Jim Talent, has vociferously and consistently opposed stem-cell research. The ad is very moving and effective.

On the other side you have noted sex tourist/pillhead/serial liar/moral leper Rush Limbaugh, who has outdone himself by asserting that Fox deliberately either didn't take his medication or "acted" up the characteristics of his disease.

Of course it's untrue, and medically impossible, like it even needed to be said. So what is Limbaugh's purpose in even bringing up such a revolting accusation? What practical effect did he hope to achieve in taking this needlessly offensive tack? Does Limbaugh think that Fox has been faking it all this time, that he's just doing this political ad thing for shits and giggles?

I understand that by definition, the people who still take a cheap carny huckster like Limbaugh even remotely seriously are terminally stupid to begin with. But you know, a few companies still sponsor Limbaugh's show, for some reason. Perhaps it's time to make it not worth their while to do so. It's happened before, and maybe it's time it happened again.

This is not a free speech issue; Limbaugh is free to puke whatever morally craven bullshit he wants on the air. But short of waiting for Peggy Noonan to register her clucking disapproval at all the incivility -- which will never happen if the perpetrator is not named Gore, Clinton, or Streisand -- there's not really another way to register contempt at such vile nonsense. If I were a believer in the power of prayer, I'd simply pray for karma, but it doesn't seem to catch up to these people, at least not to the degree of their scummy rhetoric.

And sadly, Limbaugh (and Coulter, Hannity, Savage, and the rest of these animals) is really as much a symptom as a cause -- he gives his morlocks what they want, and what they want is a toxic brew of ignorance and spite, psychological projection, affirmation, emotional investment. It's important to keep that in mind, that while Limbaugh is smart enough to know better (and when you get right down to it, his personal problems may actually be a manifestation of his profound guilt at knowing better, which I suppose would be somewhat karmic), he presides over a far-flung rabble of emotionally-stunted idiots who take his buffoonery as received wisdom.

And they vote.