Two interesting, but opposing takes on the Limbaugh / McNabb controversy, by journalists David Neiwert and Allan Barra. As odious as I find Limbaugh, his politics, and his willingness to debase political commentary, I do not feel any sense of schadenfreude at his fall. Drug addiction is a disease, and I certainly hope for his recovery; I sense that neither he nor his dittoheads would feel much sympathy if the patient was Bill Clinton or Jesse Jackson.

He is not a new phenomenum, in any event. In the 30's, perhaps the most popular media figure of the day wasn't Clark Gable or F.D.R.; it was a radio priest named Father Charles Coughlin. One of the popular political writers was a gentleman named Westbrook Pegler. Like Limbaugh, each of those men had views that today would euphemistically be called "radical centrist"; that is to say, they were virulent bigots, who found easy scapegoats for the problems of society and used ad hominem attacks as a favored debating ploy. In the end, society turned their back on them, just as it has now begun to do with Rush Limbaugh.