A LITTLE CLOUDY OVER RUSHMORE

We've all had the experience: You're on the highway headed to grandma's
house or wherever, and there's this one fellow pulling up behind people,
tailgating, honking his horn until they get out of his way. Miles and miles
go by. He zigzags in and around traffic. And then, some time down the road,
you and the others he's passed see him by the side of the road, a trooper's
car parked behind with the lights flashing. Some succumb to the temptation
to wave. In the world of political commentary, Rush Limbaugh has for some
time been the head horn-honker. The size 8 of the talking heads. A
melon-sized burr under the hind-end of the liberals. The disc jockey who
became a diss jockey.

Daily, the proud pontificator pronounces from the headquarters of what he
calls the Excellence in Broadcasting network, and he's parlayed his acid
tongue into millions upon millions of dollars. His tastes are said to run
to expensive cigars and stories of late have put the worth of his Florida
mansion at $20 million-plus.

Alas, some weeks ago he was standing by the side of the road, with the blue
lights of the tabloid media flashing his shadow on the bumper. Stories
about drug addiction and the alleged purchase of pain killers without
prescriptions.

Limbaugh said he was taking a month off and checking himself into rehab. He
came clean, acknowledging that his use of pain killers dated to back
surgery. Some other conservatives immediately came to his defense, as if
they expected all the liberal pundits to feast on the Rushter -- just a
shade of hypocrisy there, of course, since the right-is-right crowd rarely
has missed a chance to sharpen the knives and commence to carve on a prone
liberal.

After the clock struck noon this past Monday, Limbaugh had returned after
his self-imposed hiatus, and said over the airwaves, "I have to admit I am
powerless over this addiction I have. I used to think I could beat it by
force of will."

No one with even a drop left in the carton of human kindness, not even a
leftie who makes Ted Kennedy look like Pat Buchanan, would take pleasure
from Limbaugh's misery. Drug addiction, whether to pain killers or
tranquilizers or anything else, is a frightening devil with which millions
have wrestled, something that has ruined the lives of multitudes of
individuals and families.

But you have to wonder whether this very human experience will temper
Limbaugh's over-the-top rhetoric, and his own high opinion of the
flawlessness of the wisdom emanating from EIB. Certainly it ought to calm
him a bit on the issue of what to do about drug abusers, for whom he's
shown little sympathy.

Limbaugh has turned many a philosophical dispute into a personal one, with
Bill Clinton being his favorite bull's eye. (And unfortunately, Clinton and
other of his allies actually chose to respond to some of Limbaugh's
ravings, which pleased the talk jock even more.) Facts were carefully
sifted and seasoned. And it's hard to recall Limbaugh's ire boiling that
hot for that long when it turned out some of those readying the tar and
feathers for Clinton had themselves been weak of flesh.

Mostly, whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Don Imus or Bill O'Reilly or Phil
Donahue or any of the second-stringers with lower wattage but higher
aspirations for radio or cable empires -- or for that matter your
correspondent and other average folks -- a dose of perspective through
personal trial calms the soul. For those who have promoted themselves as
the voices of wisdom on this side or that, a public stumble becomes a
tumble; a stubbed toe, metaphorically speaking, becomes a broken leg. When
you put the magnifying glass on yourself, it's going to make your goofy
book a best-seller -- but it's also going to make a big deal of your mistakes.

Limbaugh's tumble from his self-constructed pedestal in the end ought
merely to be regarded as the result of one individual's weakness and his
attempt to overcome it -- nothing less and nothing more. The defenders who
would reckon his critics merely a bunch of liberal whiners and the man
himself immune to criticism are unrealistic and have gone so far around the
bend they can't remember where the turn was. Likewise, those tempted to
heave stones at the blabbercaster might first want to do inventory on how
many panes or sliding doors they have facing East.

And in the end, a little of that perspective wouldn't hurt any of us. For
no matter how seriously professional "personalities" may take themselves,
they're really in the same line of work as a ringmaster or stand-up
comedian or soap opera star. They're not plotting the next moves in Iraq at
Foggy Bottom. They're in show biz.