El Rushbo on Exercise Freaks

My cyberfriend Joe recently commented about El Rushbo's diatribe on healthcare where he blamed "exercise freaks" for "putting stress on the health care system". Here is an excerpt from Limbaugh's June 11th broadcast:
"In socialized medicine, government health care -- you heard him say, the overweight are to blame. Yeah, folks, I gotta tell you something.

I think those of you that regularly exercise -- playing softball, baseball, basketball, soccer, mountain biking, running, rock climbing, skiing, skating, running -- you're the people getting injured. You're the people showing up at the hospital with busted knees and tendons and skin cancer, ankle sprains, knee and hip replacements, broken bones, concussions, muscle, ligament, tendon, cartilage strains and tears, tendinitis, rotator cuff tears. All you exercise freaks, you're the ones putting stress on the health care system. What happens when people don't regularly exercise and keep their weight relatively under control? Nothing! They probably don't even know their doctors' names. So you're urging to go out there do all of this stuff and you're ending up in the hospital all the time with these injuries and some people think these injuries are badges of honor. A knee surgery scars a badge of honor shows toughness. Yeah. Toughness, somebody else has to pay for."
Not sure if I really need to say anything else.. El Rushbo's words speak for themselves.
I think maybe he needs to have a session with Mike Huckabee.. Mike might be able to help him see the merits of regular exercise and weight control.. not that I am saying that El Rushbo needs to exercise :)

15 comments:

  1. You couldn't tell that his tongue was firmly rammed in his cheek? Sounds like radio irony to me....

    I'm no particular fan of his, but he's smarter than that quote sounds.

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  2. Tongue in cheek for you and me TZ.. but what about the caller (from the transcript) who began her call with:

    "Rush, I agree with every syllable, every sentence you say, O'Great One."

    Maybe she was poking fun.. but possibly she meant it.. they don't call them dittoheads for nothing.. but maybe you have never met one.. I have.. some of my friends quote Rush like the bible.

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  3. I think maybe he was being tongue in cheek BUT would not be surprised if a large part of what he said is what he believes.

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  4. I think he needs more than a session with Huckabee. I think he needs a whole lot of sessions with a good shrink. I really do.

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  5. I have to admit, one of my best friends has had so many sports injuries and surgeries, and he is not an ounce over weight - I am confident that his doctor bills have added up to somewhere between 10 to 50 times my doctor bills and I am probably close to 100 pounds over weight.

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  6. With Rush.... you have to put him in a sifter... and take the good and let the rest fall through...

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  7. I'm sure that nothing from Rush would be stopped by my seive. I'm sure that he believes in his far-right ideology and is willing to say and do anything to defeat politicians who do not agree with him. Rush is willing to stoke racial bigotry to increase opposition to Obama. Rush supports "birthers" who somehow continue to believe that Obama was not born in the United States. Rush doesn't have to be stupid enough to believe his lies; he succeeds as long as his audience is stupid or bigoted enough to believe what he says. Rush is no better than Jerome Corsi, author of "The Obama Nation" or Mary Matalin, who published Corsi's book. No lie is too harmful or too unbelieveable if it serves his objectives.

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  8. that's one of the worst ideas i've heard

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  9. I can't believe ANYONE takes this particular statement seriously. Rush may be (certainly is) a conservative idealogue, but he's not an idiot! People don't seem to get it. Rush is not a politician, he's not running for office, he never will. He's an ideological entertainer that uses all of the tools of the trade ... including SATIRE and SARCASM. Did any of you ever watch the Colbert Report? It's the same thing, only on the other end of the spectrum. Why doesn't anyone ever attack Colbert or Stewart for their ridiculous statements? By the way, they have their own form of 'dittoheads' just listen to the cheering and applause when they use ironic satire against the conservatives (or use drug references ... ). You'd think these guys are as much gods as Rush is. Frankly, I enjoy listening to all three of these guys. They reveal more truth through their satire than the network politspeaks do through their barnyard rhetoric. You just have to think outside of the box a little, and you will soon get it.

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  10. "Why doesn't anyone ever attack Colbert or Stewart for their ridiculous statements?"

    Because they call it the fake news and it is on the Comedy Channel. I wish that Rush would call his stuff the fake news and call his network the EIC (Excellence in Comedy).

    That said, I do agree with what you are saying Ken.. maybe the gullible Dittoheads (on the right and left) are the problem. I think that these folks see Rush as the conservative alternative, not to the Comedy Central guys, but to the folks at MSNBC and CNN.

    What do you think? Is Rush the conservative alternative to John Stewart or Anderson Cooper?

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  11. I can't imagine that anybody could put Limbaugh, Stewart and Colbert in the same category. Stewart and Colbert are satirists that target conservatives and liberals with humor, obvious exaggeration and honesty. Limbaugh is not humorous; at best he is insulting. Limbaugh's goals are to misinform his audience, slander liberals and moderate conservatives, stoke racism and religious intolerance and the corruption of our democratic processes.

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  12. I am seriously beginning to think that the Limbaugh-bashers out there never listen to him. I think he's hilarious! He is very apt at satire and uses it often. I get the feeling that all of the exposure that the 'bashers' get are the isolated and often out-of-context quotes that are published by the liberal media. Is Rush a conservative idealogue? Sure! And he's the first to admit it. But he's not an idiot. Neither are Colbert and Stewart. They are three very intelligent men who have found their niche in the market, and as long as they have faithful followers, they will continue to do what they do so well.

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  13. Great points Ken.. these guys are all very smart and driven entertainers.. but their rhetoric is not to be taken seriously.. we need to dismiss them in the same way that we do Letterman and Conan.. great to watch and maybe even make you think.. but forcefully sway our thinking.. maybe not.

    Heard someone say today that Rush will not mention the name of Palin again if she gets a radio show.. guess we will have to wait and see on that one.

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  14. Rush is about promoting Rush. He's an entertainer and commentator. He makes no bodes about his leanings, clearly, but he promotes his views through absurdity.

    I used to listen to him and he's quite smart and knows of what he speaks. (He's too much of an apologist for the party rather than a champion of an ideology for me now days.) He used to say he was illustrating absurdity by being absurd and that's clearly what he's doing here. Singling out and laying the blame for the high cost of health care on the out of shape is as silly as what he said. Why not single out smokers or Mothers (pregnancy is costly) or the elderly or kids or ...? We all make choices that effect our health negatively or increase our health care costs.

    There are a lot of things said that sound good on the face. Then you substitute something similar in the statement - like Rush has done here - and now they sound outrageous. Rush is asking, if blaming athletes is stupid, why isn't blaming overweight people?

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  15. Thanks for the interpretation of the Rush-ian tongue Doug!

    I do wonder about taxing junk food in the same way that we tax booze and smokes.. maybe the sin of gluttony needs to be taxed.. maybe we just super-tax it when he order is super-sized.. just don't tell Rush I mentioned it :)

    Now you gotta be wondering if I am using a bit o sarcasm myself :)

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