Rush Limbaugh vs. Integrity

Someone stop me … I need to stop listening to Limbaugh at all. I only had his show on for a little while this afternoon, and felt the need to rebut his nonsense again.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Limbaugh’s issue with hope, and today he was upset about people questioning his integrity. He has called for Republicans to vote in Democratic primaries in order to make sure that the Clinton vs. Obama race remains contentious. On air today, he was singing his own praises for causing chaos. What really disturbed me, though, was when he set out to define integrity.

It started with a call from “Terry in Sandy, Utah.” (Fair Warning: That link takes you to the transcript on Limbaugh’s site.)

Limbaugh does engage in his usual remarks, claiming that any caller who questions him or his methods must be lying — either in not really listening to him (in that Terry doesn’t remember Limbaugh endorsing Clinton) or not even really being a Republican (his comment about reading liberal blogs).

CALLER:  — because I’ve always looked up to you and thought you were great.  This one issue — I’ve never called before, I love listening — but it has absolutely disgusted me because we are better than that.  That’s why I’m a Republican.  That’s why I’ll never vote Democratic.  They’re not better than that.

RUSH:  Do you like losing?

CALLER:  I like integrity — listen, here’s the key.  You, sir, and I, sir, have only three or four things in our entire life that we have absolute 100% control of, and nobody else can control it for us.  And one of those two or three things is integrity.  Get the picture?

RUSH:  Do you like losing?

CALLER:  No.  Absolutely not.

RUSH:  Do you like the Democrats winning?

CALLER:  I would sooner live in a country that the majority of the people that are my peers choose if it’s against what I want, because it’s our way.  I will voice my opinion; I will always voice my opinion; I will always be on the Republican side –

RUSH:  Yep.

CALLER:  — but I will do it with integrity.

RUSH:  Well, there’s a difference between you and me, then

Terry is the kind of person that we should all be — he will stand on his beliefs, he will vote his conscience, and expects everyone else to do the same. But he’s not out to monkey around with anyone else’s primaries. Terry is right — we have control over very few things, and one of them is our integrity. Note that Limbaugh dismisses questions of integrity with questions about winning and losing.

I’m not really going to get into Limbaugh’s gibberish about Democrats and Independents voting in Republican primaries. Whether Limbaugh likes it or not, there are Republicans who like John McCain. His attack on the NH primary, which is a semi-open primary, presents a clear example of his ability to speak without waiting for facts.

For one thing, his complaint isn’t based nearly as much in fact as he claims. To spend more time than necessary engaging with it only serves to validate the charge.

More importantly, Terry is right that that isn’t the point. Once upon a time, conservatism wasn’t just a collection of positions. It wasn’t just an economic ideal.  It was based on the fundamental idea that there are those things which are right and those things which are wrong. We should do the former, and never the latter.

Limbaugh, however, goes on to explain his position:

RUSH:  I do not think I am compromising my integrity here at all.  Zilch, zero, nada.  This is simply faking people out.  This happens in all walks of life, get real.  This happens in corporate America; it happens in universities.  It happens everywhere on the line of succession at any business or company that you want to mention.  It happens on the athletic field; it’s called gamesmanship.  But the bottom line is this, it’s political warfare.  This is not beanbag; it’s not civics 101.  If we don’t watch it, we’re going to allow the Democrat Party to totally corrupt our party while we sit around with “integrity” and let it happen.  You may want that to happen, but I don’t.  Period. 

Sigh …

Yes, this kind of thing does happen in all walks of life. People lie, they cheat, and they steal. They do whatever they can get away with, rather than what is right. People cheat on their wives and husbands while they’re on business trips, kids smoke in school restrooms, and use radar detectors to avoid getting caught speeding. Those all happen to be wrong.

Later, Limbaugh talked about the foundation of integrity. He defined that integrity is based on the rules. If you’re not breaking rules, then you’re not committing any violence against your integrity. I shook my head and sighed …

Actually, that means you’re not committing voter fraud. I’m convinced that there is a chasm between that behavior which is criminal and that behavior which shows integrity, and in there we find a wide variety of behavior. It’s perfectly legal, for example, to let the door go as you walk through, and hit the elderly lady with a bag of groceries. The fact that it isn’t illegal doesn’t make it appropriate.  Legalism is following the rules. Integrity is a higher standard. It goes beyond merely following rules and doing what is right.

When Daily Kos was calling for Democrats in Michigan to vote in the Republican primary simply because the Democratic primary would not seat delegates, he was wrong. Limbaugh has stooped to the same level.  As I said before, voting is an important and serious thing. It should not be done spitefully, and it should not be done simply to mess up someone else. No one should ever vote for a candidate s/he doesn’t like and doesn’t want to see win — and certainly not just because s/he thinks that the other party might be very unhappy with that person as a nominee.

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