Time Magazine: Rush Limbaugh, Louis CK, and the Somebody-Else-Did-Something-Bad-Once-Too Argument

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Rush Limbaugh, Louis CK, and the Somebody-Else-Did-Something-Bad-Once-Too Argument

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/03/14/rush-limbaugh-louis-ck-and-the-somebody-else-did-something-bad-once-too-argument/

Here’s an easy way to tell when a political side realizes it’s on the bad end of a public controversy: rather than defend itself, or whichever of its allies is in trouble, it starts mentioning, loudly and frequently, examples of when someone from roughly the opposite political side did something comparable in the past. It calls a double standard. It declares media bias. It hopes it can reframe the controversy into a relitigation of past controversies and countercharges of “false equivalence” and leave the public thinking that, well, everyone’s kind of guilty, so what the hell?

It’s a change-the-subject strategy, or at least a change-the-target strategy. It’s the equivalent of a boxer in trouble trying to get into a clinch, in hopes of catching a breather when the ref untangles them and breaks it up. It’s the Somebody-Else-Did-Something-Bad-Once-Too argument, and it is apparently the tactic of choice for defenders of Rush Limbaugh right now.

So it was inevitable that, with Limbaugh’s show bleeding advertisers after he called Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute for advocating insurance coverage of birth control, that there would have to be a counter-target, and that ended up being Louis CK. The comedian, and star of FX’s brilliant Louie, was chosen in December to host the June 8 White House Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner, but he dropped out at the end of last week when conservatives and commentators, including Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, complained about filthy remarks he made in 2010 about Sarah Palin.

His comments about Palin–most of them from a Twitter rant he went on in September 2010 while drunk on an airplane–were nasty, and ugly, and specifically personal and sexual. Warning: I’m going to quote some of them—because I don’t think these kind of comments should be mitigated by bleeping— so avert your eyes if you don’t like reading very foul obscenities:

[d_r]

1. my three-year-old daughter does this

it is a sign of immature moral development

[Kalidurga]

2. The Late Dear Leader was a bad man...

So, I guess Rush is off the hook, he hasn't killed anyone that we know of or thrown them in a jail to starve to death.

Seriously what is up with this defense. And even if it was a valid defense are we really comparing a twitter account that maybe 100 people have seen(possibly more I am really not up with the twitter) and has nothing to do with being tax funded. It has nothing to do with being regulated by the FCC or any other agency. Also, if IRCC, Sarah Palin was a public figure at the time and Louis did not utter one word of slander, he didn't call her anything well except for something about birthing a downs child, but he didn't really say anything about her character, he didn't go after her for being anything other than an idiot. In a small measure I believe Louis CK should have been punished in the same way we want Rush punished. All of Louise Ck's twitter ads should have been pulled and he should have been ridiculed for his obscene comments.

[Blue Owl]

3. Ru$h can still go suck a bag of dicks

Both the bag itself -- AND each one individually...

(thanks to Louis CK for that bit!)

[yurbud]

5. didn't he pay to do that in the Dominican Republic?

[tanyev]

6. Gosh, I hope all the Democrats who have done interviews with Louis CK

and made him an honorary member of Congress will speak out against the awful things he said. Oh, wait....

[Doctor_J]

7. Maybe Louis CK should be yanked off of AFN

wait...