RUSH IS SUDDENLY SILENT

Rush Limbaugh, the most successful conservative radio personality ever, must
come clean over allegations of drug abuse, or he's toast.

I say this sadly, since I'm one of Rush's 23 million fans.

Allegations that he illegally obtained and used huge amounts of addictive pain
pills like OxyContin, the "hillbilly heroin," can't be papered over with "let's
stick to the issues," as Rush told his listeners yesterday.

Unless he proves the allegations are false, he is no better than those goofs on
the left whom he regularly derides as "long-haired, dope-smoking,
maggot-infested" wackos.

It's not right to hold yourself up as being "on the cutting edge of societal
evolution," as Rush often does on 600 radio stations coast to coast, while at
the same time stuffing your face with mind-altering substances that put a lie
to that boast.

It's not right to con millions of loyal listeners five days a week into
believing your "talent [is] on loan from God," when it's really on loan from
the makers of OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone 750.

Last week, as Rush dealt with the fallout from his racial remarks regarding
Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, the New York Daily News broke the story that
he has for years popped illegally purchased addictive painkillers by the
thousands.

But the Daily News - as have most other news organizations jumping on the Crush
Rush bandwagon - took the heart of its reporting from an extensive account in
this week's edition of The National Enquirer.

The Enquirer story contains devastating details, including times, dates,
allegations of taped conversations with Rush as he received the pills, and
e-mails from Rush begging for more and more drugs from his alleged supplier,
Wilma Cline, the former maid at his Palm Beach, Fla., spread.

Rush got so comically sloppy with the pills that they were found scattered on
the floor of his office, and dropped from his bag as he made his way around a
golf course, according to The Enquirer.

In e-mails, he referred to the small blue OxyContin pills as "little blue
babies" and told Cline that when she received more pills she could contact him
while he was on the air.

"[E-]mail is not a distraction," he wrote her on April 1, 2002.

Rush and Cline met secretly in the parking lots of a local Denny's and an Amoco
gas station in Palm Beach, exchanging the drugs and cash in Cuban cigar boxes,
the Enquirer reports.

Rush fans might say to me, "Why, you long-haired, dope-smoking, maggot-infested
creep. What idiot takes the word of The National Enquirer? Why, it is nothing
but a slop sheet for gossip hounds."

Fair enough, I guess. The Enquirer has had its share of libel lawsuit troubles,
and maybe the Limbaugh story will be another. But I don't think so, mainly
because Rush's response isn't what it should be.

"Ha, ha," he should have laughed last week, "this is absolute nonsense, folks.
Just another attempt to attack your humble host. There is nothing to it. It's
completely phony."

But he didn't say that, or anything close to it.

Instead, he posted on his Web site an obviously lawyered statement about being
"unaware of any investigation by any authority involving me," but "if my
assistance is required, I will, of course, cooperate fully."

Then he went on the air last Friday.

"I'm a little frustrated that I haven't yet gotten to the bottom of what all
this is about, and I'm very much desirous of telling you," he said. "But until
I know exactly what this is, it just makes no sense to start delving into it. I
don't want to deal with hypotheticals or respond to what's in the press."

This is crap. He's dissembling.

I kinda' hoped Rush would come up with a tearjerker explanation. In September
2001, he announced that he had gone completely deaf from a rare hearing
disorder. I can't imagine the depression deafness would cause a man at the
height of his career. Who wouldn't have sympathy for a guy who popped
painkillers to deal with the blow?

Unfortunately, according to the news accounts, Rush began popping the pills in
1998, three years before his hearing went out. Rush spent eight years
rightfully dumping on the scandal-ridden Clinton administration, brilliantly
skewering its sleaziness and parsing of language.

Come clean, Rush, without lawyers, without spin. If you're weak, well, welcome
to the club. Being honest with your listeners is more important than protecting
your empire or your ego.

If not, then good riddance, you hypocrite.