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Keith Olbermann, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh All Dirty on ‘Retardgate’

by Tommy Christopher | 1:04 pm, February 5th, 2010

» 20 comments

Yes, this is another “Retard-gate” post. Why? Because while I agree that Palin is right to condemn Rahm Emanuel’s use of the term “retarded,” and I agree that Sarah Palin’s failure to call out Rush Limbaugh is hypocritical, I still think everybody is dropping the ball on this.

With very few exceptions, nobody has standing to feign outrage over this, not Palin, not Rush, and not Keith Olbermann. In fact, I think Limbaugh almost has a leg to stand on.

Rush Limbaugh is a humorist, though arguably not a very good one. As such, he doesn’t have a duty to be inoffensive, and he takes that lack of duty very seriously. It’s not his fault that Sarah Palin and her ilk revere him as the figurehead of their entire political movement. Bashing Rush for saying “retard” is like slamming the Wolfman for not using his salad fork.

On the other hand, Rush is a coward who refuses to take ownership of his own words. He claims today that he was “just quoting him. I’m just quoting Rahm Emanuel.”

No, Rush, that’s not true. Here’s what you said: (actual quoting of Rahm in bold)

Emanuel’s getting ticked off out there saying, (paraphrasing) “What are you blaming us for? We didn’t do anything about it, you F-ing retards.” I think the big news is the crack-up going on. But our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are “retards,” “retards.” I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are Looney Tunes. I’m not going to apologize for it.

Let me illustrate it for you, Rush. If I say “Get off me, you fat shit,” I’m just quoting your last 14 girlfriends, but if I say “Rush Limbaugh is a fat shit,” then I’m just calling you a fat shit. Why can’t you just sac up and admit you like saying “retard?”

Now, Palin had a good point when she said that Rahm Emanuel’s comment was offensive. Mediaite’s Lindsay Van Kirk has the right attitude about this. She and her sister showed true concern and patience in trying to open others’ eyes to the hurt that this word can cause.

Where Palin immediately loses is in her demand to have Emanuel fired. She unmasks herself as an opportunist, and her concern as exploitation. Worse than that, she is part of a political movement that has spent years mocking the very notion of sensitivity, which they mock as “political correctness” and claim is literally killing Americans.

Even worse than that is that this is another example of Republicans not giving a shit about something until it happens to them, i.e. Ronald Reagan and stem cell research. In this case, are we to believe that Palin, absent her own child, would favor “socialist” government services for disabled children? The world will never know.

Then, there’s Keith Olbermann. First, he uses the words of an extremely hostile witness, Levi Johnston, to indict Palin for allegedly calling Trig her “retarded baby” in private, without ever considering that many people plow through adversity with dark humor in private. Outside of that context, Keith Olbermann is not in a position to judge.

Furthermore, during the 2008 campaign, Keith made a big show of donating a big check to the Special Olympics, chiefly to shame Palin. By itself, this was exploitative, since Keith never made a peep about the Special Olympics unless there was a point to be scored.

But in the very same episode as his Special Olympics largesse, he ran his regular “McCain in the Membrane” feature. The graphic for this segment? A “short bus.”*

Which brings me to most of you, and myself. Anyone who has never told, or laughed at, a retard/short bus/”special ed” joke, take one step forward. Seriously, Professor Hawking? Never?

Liberal and conservative blogs are teeming with references to “libtards,” “f#@ktards,” “Paul-tards,” every kind of tard imaginable. Nobody cares about offending “retards” until there’s some hay to be made.

So, instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?” Instead of trying to create a generation of people who will go around grumbling “I got fired because of them retards,” why not focus the attention productively?

*In fairness to Countdown, at the time, I emailed the show’s producers about my concern, and while they did not acknowledge it on-air, they did switch to a McCain bobble-head graphic for the segment after that.

Update and Correction: The “short bus” graphic was not used for the “McCain in the Membrane” segment, but for “Double-talk Express.” As such, ignore the endnote, since I’m not sure if they used it again. As a regular Countdown viewer, however, I haven’t seen it used since, for whatever that’s worth.

keith olbermann, Rahm Emanuel, retard-gate, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Special Olympics, Tommy Christopher

timzank

Tommy says “So, instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?”.

I’m with you, well said.
nwjw

Alright, where’s the real Tommy gone? This article makes sense….and is well written…fair…and dare I say it…balanced
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jw-Anderson/1273103911 Jw Anderson

The “Pundits” are still reeling from this incredibly fast news cycle we have all found ourselves in. I agree that we should all take a moment to think about what we think before we tell others what we think. There is nothing wrong with slowing down at least enough where 4th grade common sense can have an effect. The competition for being recognized for making a big enough gaffe in order to get on television has gone beyond limits normally set by most adults in our society. Our collective need for entertainment at any cost has really become one of the most embarrassing aspects of how we seem to function these days. What is really sad is that more people do not take a moment to ponder about the consequences.
RazorsEdge

Tommy,

Nice job on article. Thanks for your quotation use of ‘retardgate’ in quoting phrase where others were trying to make hay out of it on this site included:

rgate

This line sums up well:

So, instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?” I hope you extend that view to other words like say ‘teabagger’ among others?
http://mediaite.com Lindsay Van Kirk

Thanks Tommy, all of your points were very well said.

“instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?”

I couldn’t agree more.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Wallace/508023204 Ian Wallace

Can we stop putting “gate” at the end of every controversy? It is getting fucking old. Hell, the gate in Watergate makes sense because, shock, it’s actually in the name!
youareblind

Had you bothered to listen to Rush (or visit the archives on his webpage) you would clearly recognize that Rush was trying to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the left–those that operate under the pretense of being compassionate advocates for the downtrodden secretly use the R word when amongst themselves (or the president’s case very publicly on late night talk shows– referring to his bowling skills as being on par with the Special Olympics). Do you think it would make more sense to ponder the point that Rush was making instead of getting worked up because you do not understand the meaning of irony?
Also, various forms of the word retarded was mentioned many times in the failed health care bill, and we all know who wrote that.
sarainitaly

great points, tommy.

two points i think that are missed in all of this, is that Palin has a special needs baby, and Rahm is the Chief of Staff, the “The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington”.

She was right to call him out. (not necessarily to be fired) but all the others jumping in and demanding she demand they be fired, etc. is out of line.

and you are right, we all do it… or have done it.
The Real Royal King

It must be lovely to have so many people will to excuse your poor conduct. Palin is a very lucky woman. When I think of all I might be able to accomplish if I were never held accountable for anything, my mind runs wild.
Cecelia

This is the same crap formulation that we whenever anyone dares to treat a liberal as conservatives are treated in the media.

The argument that in order to validly call for the firing of Emmanuel, Palen must personally take on all and sundry of people who have used the r-word, regardless of their point while using it (and Limbaugh has said that he was doing it intentionally to show how media interest would swing rapidly and more intensely to him) is specious.

You admit that Emmanuel is in a decidedly different position than Limbaugh but then call Palin an opportunist for treating him differently (Palin did respond to Limbaugh’s game in using that word, by saying that no one should use it). And you do that for even more specious reasons.

To make that case, you move on to your typical tactic of going nebulous…as in — Palin is a conservative/libertarian and those icky people have long eschewed polite and tolerant standards as being political correctness.

This is such a logical fallacy. LIMBAUGH may argue that the r-word is not a pejorative term, but the whole of conservatism has not. There has not been wide discussion in conservative ranks that terms like the c-word or any number of pejorative terms have been unfairly stigmatized.

To take what has been a public debate (political correctness) shared by people across the political spectrum– that certain words and thought have been stigmatized as a way of squelching speech and ideas, and hang that on Palin in order to put her in a category where she is essentially invalidated and muted, is the ESSENCE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

In the case of left vs right, is there any chance that your move in pointing out the fallacies of the left, will ever be more than just window dressing for equivocation and invalidation of anyone on the other side?
writer

I’m sure that when Al Sharpton called for the firing of Don Imus, Royal King was in the forefront, fighting the good fight against political correctness. Conservatives must be held to a higher standard, as when Keith Olbermann implied that Scott Brown was responsible for anything that anyone in a crowd yelled out.
sarainitaly

writer says:
February 5, 2010 at 5:25 pm

excellent points. as I recall, Obama called for Imus to be fired, too.
Cecelia

Perhaps Tommy would consider a new formulation of his question of ‘When is being a race-baiter worse than being a racist?’, to one where we ask, ‘When is being a hypocrite worse than being a mean nasty jerk?’.
Cecelia

It’s really something when giving “a shit” about the horror of growing embryos for body parts, is interpreted as not giving “a shit” about anything until it happens to you…
http://lauriebethsgrotto.wordpress.com Laurie Beth

This is the smartest analysis I have read about this incident. Way to be, Mr. Christopher.
http://trickletown.vox.com/ Trickletown

Saw the following while perusing the blueblogs awhile back ( WARNING, offensive):
“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin’s mouth and her vagina?”
“Only one retarded thing came from her vagina”.
Sorry, but the point I’m trying to make is that there is a whole lot of people who found that joke absolutely hilarious!
We have a long way to go.
J Baustian

Sarah Palin has foolishly decided to join with the Politically Correct crowd, so I can’t support her in this little riff.

Keith Olbermann is retarded, so enough said about that.

Rush Limbaugh is using this episode to make fun of political correctness, which is what he does best. So, as usual, he comes out in top.
J Baustian

Does anyone else recognize the absurdity of referring to words instead of using them?

N-word, C-word, R-word. What happens when we exceed 26 words that must not be uttered?
J Baustian

Sorry, either RIFT or TIFF, but not RIFF.
Capri

Race-baiter is the same as racist. Race-baiters invent racism where there isn’t any, and play the race card every time things don’t go their way. Hypocrites are the “Do as I say, not as I do” crowd. And it must be a real trip working for Sarah Palin, she fires everybody!

There are times “retarded” is okay to use and times when it isn’t. To say that creating and passing on that chain letter which says your crush will call you at midnight if you send the letter to 143 people in 143 seconds is retarded.

But never ever try to get at somebody by insulting their family. Calling Palin’s kid retarded and saying it in such a perverted way as well is not funny, it’s idiotic “lulz” and says a lot more about the one who spewed that drivel than it does about Palin.

There’s name-calling on both sides, libtard, conservotard, and the libs have a particularly stupid perverted derogatory term they smear the center and right, and far-right with and that is ‘teabagger’ extremely vulgar and says more about the people using it than about the ones they’re foaming at the mouth against.
How about simply nixing words that are vulgar and racist from the vocabulary altogether? Seriously do we really need to see the “c” word, and the “N” word? Maybe there should be a special place apart from the main internet called the idionet where people who like to use that trashy language can spout it to their hearts’ content and leave the civilized people on the rest of the net alone. Yeah, that would cause a split where probably 50% would be marooned on the idionet, but that’s fine with me.