Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the news that a group of New York Times journalists had been detained in Egypt, where the government has been actively trying to discredit protesters by tying them to foreign agents.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is being breathlessly reported that the Egyptian army -- Snerdley, have you heard this? The Egyptian army is rounding up foreign journalists. I mean, even two New York Times reporters were detained. Now, this is supposed to make us feel what, exactly? How we supposed to feel? Are we supposed to feel outrage over it? I don't feel any outrage over it. Are we supposed to feel anger? I don't feel any anger over this. Do we feel happy? Well -- uh -- do we feel kind of going like, "neh-neh-neh-neh"? I'm sure that your emotions are running the gamut when you hear that two New York Times reporters have been detained along with other journalists in Egypt. Remember now, we're supporting the people who are doing this.
New York Times journalists, of course, are traitors in Limbaugh's eyes, so he's amused by the possibility of them being detained and abused in a country infamous for its use of torture. He later learned that some Fox News journalists had been beaten and hospitalized, and immediately changed his tune:
Also, according to Mediaite, Fox News' Greg Palkot and crew have been severely beaten and are now hospitalized in Cairo. Now we were kidding before about The New York Times, of course. This kind of stuff is terrible. We wouldn't wish this kind of thing even on reporters. But it's -- it's serious. And you know, Anderson Cooper got beat upside the head 10 times when he was there. Still feeling it -- still feel sorry about -- reporters all think that the protestors ought to welcome them, they're on the same side.
Does anyone really believe that Limbaugh would have let his audience in on the "joke" had someone from his self-identified tribe not been affected? Limbaugh has long made a joke out of torture, hawking his "Club Gitmo" schwag and using "Club Gitmo" commercials as bumps between segments. He's also aired skits about terrorists getting their news from The New York Times, another "joke" that's entirely flush with his stated beliefs.
The basic point here is that Limbaugh doesn't seem to get that a dictatorship detaining and abusing journalists as a way to censor protests against the regime is an objectionable principle. Such methods are merely objectionable when used against people he identifies with. Limbaugh has spent the last two years railing against "tyranny" and "fascism," and when confronted with it, in one of its purest possible manifestations, he can't take it seriously, because he has no idea what either of those things actually are.
There's something to be said, though, that hearing about the Fox reporters gave Limbaugh pause to reconsider what he'd said -- that really does not happen often. In other parts of the conservative blogosphere, you don't even have that.
