On his radio program, Rush Limbaugh is unsurprisingly responding to accusations, implicit from some, explicit from others (like the notorious Sheriff Dupnik), that his radio program and the like bear some guilt for the murders at Tucson. Here are a few notes from his radio program:
Rush and his guests talked about the many websites and Facebook groups devoted to wishing death on Sarah Palin.
Rush tied the Left’s response to their understanding of human nature: “The Left cannot accept the possibility of individual responsibility. The reality of a madman slaughtering people — the reality of their rejection in the last election — they cannot accept that. They’ve just got blown off by every girlfriend they’ve ever had.”
At times Rush became, perhaps understandably, sarcastic. He played a fake message from Sheriff Dupnik: “Continuing to listen to Rush Limbaugh will cause you to smoke marijuana, try to use it as currency, build a death shrine in your backyard, read the Communist Manifesto, be susceptible to subliminal messages from Sarah Palin.” And he sardonically proposed a counter-conspiracy theory:
Who was it who just last November suggested that Obama needed an event like this to revive his presidency? Mark Penn. Because powerful Democrats wished for this as an opportunity for Democrats to help out their sagging base. Then in two months time we have a nutcase opening fire — and leading Democrats are conducting strategy sessions with the president on how to use this. Interesting conspiracy theory, isn’t it?
Rush approvingly paraphrased a letter from Andrew McCarthy: Suppose the shot congressman was a Republican, and the dead federal judge was a Democrat. Who do you think the media would be focusing on?
He punched backed at Dupnik, speculating about the sheriff’s motives: “There are a lot of things this sheriff doesn’t want people to learn. One of the reasons he’s lashing out at me is he’s trying to hide all the things his department could have done to put this guy away before he did this. His department had ample opportunity — I mean how did this guy get a gun?”
Limbaugh also pointed out that Loughner was a registered independent in order to lampoon calls for more “No Labels”-style independence. To be clear, we’re all by now accustomed to political journalists exploiting guilt by association. But this is not even that. The facts are plain: there has been literally nothing, except for one friend describing Loughner as a “left-wing pothead,” to indicate that Loughner had any political sympathies, mainstream, extreme, or otherwise.
Limbaugh said in his program, “This sheriff is an embarrassment to committed law-enforcement officials all over the country.”