The Triangle

Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: Ed-Op

Media Credit: KRT

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Disagreements happen. Debate and uproar are always bound to occur. However some people - people who wield a considerable amount of influence - sometimes say with the strongest conviction things that do not make any sense to me at all.

Rush Limbaugh, the famous radio talk-show host, last year signed a record-breaking $400 million dollar eight-year contract. Following the inauguration of Barack Obama, Limbaugh simply stated, "I want Barack Obama to fail."

Okay, so it is clear that he is not an Obama fan. But in reality even if the Republican Party's candidate John McCain had won, Limbaugh still would be complaining on his radio talk show - I don't think McCain was "Republican enough" for him.

Although Limbaugh is extremely disappointed and is free to share that disappointment with America, there is no reason to hope the current president fails. Honestly, what purpose does that serve? After all, Limbaugh himself is a U.S. citizen, why would he want to live in a nation with a "failure" of a president?

Limbaugh wields a great authority over his listeners, something that some people work their whole lives toward and never achieve. And instead of using it to provide legitimate political and social criticisms, to inspire people to think about what they want and how they want to live, he merely throws out insult after insult.

His radio talk show is not only limited to Obama-bashing either. Where he really went too far with his accusations was in October 2006 against Michael J. Fox in his campaign ad for Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill. Fox agreed to do the ad and publicly endorse McCaskill, a supporter for embryonic stem cell research.

In response to the campaign ad with Fox, in which he caught America's attention shaking from his progressing Parkinson's disease, Limbaugh said, "This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting, one of the two."

Although Limbaugh later expressed a small degree of remorse about his accusations against Fox, saying, "I will apologize to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial act," he later stated that Fox was simply "using his illness as a way to mislead voters."

While Limbaugh can disagree all he wants with embryonic stem cell research, he has absolutely no right to make such accusations against Fox. The former "Back to the Future" kid, now retired from acting, is plagued by Parkinson's, a disease for which there is no cure. With the campaign ad, Fox's intentions of bringing public awareness about Parkinson's were immediately shot down and inaccurately twisted by Limbaugh.

Continued...

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