The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Let me just say that I agree with the right wingers who decry some on the left's reaction to Rush Limbaugh's recent health scare, examples of which are here:

• Stop the ACLU - Limbaugh Hospitalized, Left Hopes For His Death
• Althouse - "I hope he dies"
• IOwnTheWorld's Snark & Boobs - Rush Limbaugh in Serious Condition. The Left? Disgustingly Giddy
• Weasel Zippers - Rush Limbaugh Hospitalized in "Serious Condition" With Chest Pains...Left Ecstatic...
• Moonbattery - Is Wanda Sykes Happy Now?

However, easy as I find it to dismiss the left wishing for Limbaugh's death as tacky, I wonder if those same people were up in arms this summer when many on the right were wishing similar things for Barack Obama and his healthcare reform?

Conservatives are apoplectic about some of the vile, hate-filled comments generated online in response to the hospitalization of Rush Limbaugh. And rightly so, as a quick glance at Twitter reveals. But before the right-wing faithful rush to condemn "liberal hate," they would do well to look in the mirror first. After all, theirs is a movement that in recent months prayed for the deaths of President Obama and two Democratic Senators.

On this point, Rush Limbaugh himself can speak from personal experience. Before he admitted his Oxycontin addiction, Limbaugh reacted to the death of Jerry Garcia by calling the musician a "dirtbag" and "just another dead doper." This March, Limbaugh happily predicted the ailing Ted Kennedy would be dead before the health care reform he championed ever became law:

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill."

After Kennedy's death, Limbaugh gloated over his prescience, "I predicted it, and I caught all kinds of grief for it out there."

Not, of course, from the 70,000 Tea Baggers who descended on Washington in December. Many proudly carried signs proclaiming, "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy."

So, whilst the right are totally correct to point out how distasteful such hate speech is, they should never forget that they are throwing stones from inside a glass house.

Tags: Limbaugh, Obama, death