MAYBE RUSH WILL GET DOSE OF HUMANITY

I wish Rush Limbaugh well. Truly.

After a story in the National Enquirer that actually turned out to be true,
the radio star admitted an addiction to painkilling drugs.

Limbaugh announced his intention to begin a treatment program, his third
attempt to kick a habit that started in the late 1990s.

Addiction to drugs or alcohol is an illness that has touched many families
in some way. When someone, even someone with whom you share very little, is
affected, your first reaction should be best wishes for a complete recovery.

I have a few other wishes for Limbaugh. Maybe during his 30-day rehab, the
man who in the past has advocated harsh punishment for drug users can find
compassion for people who, like him, are flawed human beings.

I certainly don't believe the world will be a safer place with Rush
Limbaugh behind bars. Though I'm not sure drug offenders without Limbaugh's
money and options would agree with me.

I'm just wondering if with rehab comes reflection.

Limbaugh is a rich successful media personality. (With an eight-year $285
million contract, he is part of the big media he attacks.) What makes his
world so attractive to some is its lack of ambiguity.

It's a world of right and wrong, heroes and villains. In this mean-spirited
world, "empathy" is empty psychobabble.

Limbaugh's life has always contradicted this world, though never so clearly
as now.

I have never objected to Rush Limbaugh as an entertainment personality. He
can be funny, though it's the kind that can make you cringe.

It's when he becomes political sage that the hypocrisy is hard to ignore.

Limbaugh disdains those on welfare though -- according to this week's
Newsweek --he was briefly on the dole. The affirmative-action foe used his
father's connections to get a radio job after dropping out of college.

He has lambasted liberals for dragging the subject of race into places it
doesn't belong. Yet he lost his job on ESPN for doing exactly that. The man
for whom no personal relationship is off-limits for criticism is on
marriage No. 3.

Now his lack of sympathy for celebrity drug users is coming back to haunt him.

Limbaugh never apologizes, never explains, no matter how thin the logic in
his arguments.

He can mock the looks of a president's daughter and he's only kidding. His
swipes at the homeless and helpless are easy drive-bys against troubled
individuals who just may need help.

He's not known for getting bogged down in details; his listeners don't seem
to care.

Would it be too much to ask Limbaugh to care? After what I'm sure will be a
difficult fight to overcome a drug habit, how hard could it be to
acknowledge that complex political and social issues deserve more than a
punch line at the expense of people who offer a different view?

Of course, then Rush wouldn't be Rush. He'd just be human.

Mary C. Curtis