Wishing Rush dead?

posted at 9:45 am on June 24, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The Corner notes a “disgraceful” entry from the Kansas City Star’s editorial cartoonist today, one which strongly hints that Lee Judge wants to see Rush Limbaugh dead.  Take a look at this sophomoric “tribute” to Tim Russert:

In its defense, the Star has this on Judge’s blog and notes that readers may find these unpublished cartoons  “offensive”.  Good editorial cartooning usually offends someone, although normally the offense touches on policies, ideology, or peccadilloes.  It usually doesn’t find breathing offensive, not even for murderous tyrants.

Yesterday, Christopher Hitchens warned about the coming sainthood of his friend, Tim Russert.  He mourned Russert’s loss but didn’t believe, as some did, that journalism died with him.  While he believed that Russert had made his mark in political journalism, Hitchens wrote that Meet the Press would soldier on without him and that the world would keep revolving in the same manner it has for eons, rainbows and all.

This is the ugly flip side of the media anointing that has taken place with Russert’s death.  Now, instead of just beatifying Russert, Judge crudely suggests that God made a mistake in not smiting Rush instead of Russ.  (Maybe it was a clerical error?  A typo on the scroll?)  And why does Judge find Rush so offensive that he casts him as the beneficiary of a whimsical Supreme Being?  Because Rush offers his opinions to millions who agree with him, while Judge produces badly drawn cartoons that attract …. well, dozens!  He can’t even draw well enough to distinguish Russert from Limbaugh, having to rely on labels to identify his characters instead.

One does not have to agree with Russert to mourn his passing and note that it is a tremendous loss for political journalism.  One also does not have to agree with Rush to understand that he has built his audience honestly, through hard work and free speech, in maybe the only nation where this could even be possible.  For those who don’t understand that, wishing death on one’s political opponents is the only reaction open to them, I suppose, and for that they should be pitied — and then ignored.

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