I want to discuss Rush Limbaugh's CPAC address to the nation, but I just can't. As my eyes try to read the words and my brain tries to digest them, my eyes are drawn inexorably over towards the right, and my brain tries to process the fact of that shirt. I am no fashionista, but I think I can safely assert the following: no one should ever address the nation without either buttoning up, or wearing an undershirt. With the exception of Angel, and even so, I'd rather see him in a business suit for a national address. Mr. Limbaugh, I have watched all five seasons of "Angel." You're no David Boreanaz. I know this is the shallow, sidelong sort of attack that Rush sneers at, and rightly so. But I don't care. The semiotics of that shirt are simply too rich and fascinating to contemplate. I have been trying to avoid discussing that shirt ever since he gave his address. It has finally come to the point where I must discuss that shirt, or risk a cranial hemorrhage. First, we must assume that Rush looked at himself in the mirror and thought, "I look good!" Because before making a public address, everyone will look at themselves in the mirror to double check their appearance. Even if they relied on a stylist, there is always that nibbling voice of doubt, is there not? He would never have thought, "I look inappropriately sexual" and then stepped out onto stage. This is not performance art. Rush Limbaugh is playing it straight. (Even if that shirt isn't. Rimshot!) The most charitable thing that can be said about that shirt is that it is inappropriately sexual. It is one thing to be a centuries old vampire played by David Boreanaz on a television show on The WB, and wear a collared shirt opened to the sternum. It is quite another thing to discuss politics on national television while doing the same. Why would Rush Limbaugh wear clothing which is inappropriately sexual? This is an interesting question, and I think that it speaks to his lack of confidence in making the leap from radio to television. Rush is aware that on television, appearance counts. And furthermore that one wants to be sexy when one is on television. The point that Rush is missing, then, is that this is a different kind of television. This is an important public discourse, on serious topics such as politics and the nation's welfare. The fact that it happens to be on television is strictly unrelated. The television, in this sense, is a red herring. Rush knows that sex sells on television, so he decided to give it to them. The most salient fact about that shirt is that Rush himself seems unaware of its implications, or of its effect upon his audience. In fact, his very own article and transcript prominently features pictures of that shirt. Is he so tone-deaf that he fails to realize that the entire country is mocking that shirt? Or does he simply not care? Or does he know and understand, and highlights that shirt anyway because he is so desperate for any kind of attention? It's hard to say. What is not hard to say is this: that shirt demeans us all. But mostly, it demeans Rush Limbaugh. So in that sense, I am a fan of that shirt.