If, at long last, Rush Limbaugh fans can’t see what their hero has become, they most likely never will.

Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, a slut and a prostitute for expressing her support of requiring health insurance companies to cover birth control. Limbaugh called her a femiNazi who wanted taxpayers to pay for her having sex and told her to post videos of her having sex online so “we can all watch.”

After Limbaugh sponsors began canceling their lucrative advertising contracts, and no doubt after consultation with his lawyers, Limbaugh apologized saying he didn’t mean a “personal attack on Ms. Fluke.”

Limbaugh is a radio talk show giant, a master manipulator who some pundits see as the only remaining identifiable policy maker for the Republican Party. No politicians we know of in the Republican Party have openly separated themselves from his vicious, outrageous conduct, so dependent are they on him to keep the looney fringe right wing “base” on their side.

Limbaugh began his career claiming, legitimately, to be the only national voice for the conservative point of view and millions who weren’t hearing their voice in the major media tuned in. They liked hearing their point of view affirmed.

His bombast was entertaining, more instructive than destructive. Listenership and ratings soared. In those days there actually was much to be learned listening to the man.

But over the years Limbaugh’s presentation has soured. He’s found personal attacks and passion attract more listeners than rational debate. He sets up individuals and groups as targets of scorn and ridicule and drums up hostility amongst the “dittoheads,” as listeners call themselves, by appealing to their frustrations, fears and sense of victimhood. He builds ratings by convincing his listeners they are victims of a conspiratorial elite who are deliberately trying to take their money and freedoms.

He is mean spirited, vindictive and abusive. Ms. Fluke is just one victim of his savage rants. Most are politicians, particularly President Obama whom he attacks mostly personally with startling abandon. Listening carefully to his rants on Obama should tell listeners a lot.

Typically Limbaugh, in a stuttering, screeching hissy fit, will describe Obama as “angry,” “arrogant,” “mean spirited,” a “megalomaniac” who uses “class warfare” to “manipulate” and fool the people. It’s in these moments of raging attacks on Obama that Limbaugh describes himself with breathtaking precision.

He calls top Republicans on the carpet if he believes they aren’t performing aggressively enough. He recently scolded House Speaker John Boehner who was on the phone with him on air in what should have been a humiliating five minutes for the speaker. We were embarrassed for him. If he was humiliated he isn’t saying so — won’t risk being “Fluked” by Limbaugh’s ire.

Some mainstream media critics claim Limbaugh, and the less effective but equally vindictive Glenn Beck, don’t deliver votes. Clearly, our elected representatives believe otherwise and so do we. The partisan war in Congress literally echoes with the spirit and substance of Limbaugh’s tirades.

Meanwhile, Congress has become perhaps the most universally disliked institution in the country today.

— The Clay Center (Kan.) Dispatch

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