This week Rush had a typically off-base collection of rants regarding the lawsuit which the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) brought against McDonalds regarding the toys in their Happy Meals.  

For one thing, Rush calls this a "kook leftist attack," but saying that McDonalds makes you fat is not exactly fringe science.  Nor is it a political question.  I think most right wing conservatives would quietly agree that McDonalds food is bad for you.  I mean, it's McDonalds, for pity's sake!

Anyway.  CSPI wants McDonalds to stop including toys, because they only encourage kids to buy unhealthy foods, and firm up that link between "McDonalds food" and "super happy fun time."  Which of course then makes kids fat.

Rush attacks this as a matter of personal choice, which is no great surprise for someone whose favorite book was written by Ayn Rand.  

What I find interesting is that Rush spends hundreds of words mocking CSPI and telling them what they ought to do (which by the way deprives CSPI of ITS personal choice, but Rush has never claimed he's not a hypocrite).  But what he fails to do is address the larger issue here, which is the obesity crisis in America.

I wonder what Rush thinks about the fattening of America.  On the one hand, he himself used to be grossly overweight.  His weight gain generally coincided with his drug abuse.  Recently he has started a crash diet and lost almost a hundred pounds.  

Rush Limbaugh is obviously a man who has spent a lot of time thinking about weight gain and weight loss.  Anyone who has gone through that kind of struggle and transformation is going to have some strong opinions on the subject.  So why isn't he sharing them with us?

Just a guess: Rush doesn't want to tell us what he thinks, because what he thinks is that only weaklings eat fast food and get fat.  However, Rush knows that saying this would effectively be an attack on his listeners.  So of course he's not going to say that!  It goes against the first principle of his show, which is to make his listeners feel like members of the secret elite.

Nowhere in his tirade does he say what he himself feels about toys in Happy Meals.  Is he in favor of them?  Is he in favor of things which encourage children to eat McDonalds food?  Does he think that McDonalds is an appropriate food for children?  

He mentions an incident where he behaved like a brat, by buying a couple hundred cheeseburgers from McDonalds in order to support the poor beleaguered company which at the time was being attacked regarding tropical rainforest deforestation and the ecological disaster which is South American high-density cattle farming.  

He doesn't say what they did with those hundreds of cheeseburgers.  Did he eat them all?  I mean, you have to remember that at the time, he was Fat Rush.  

What does Thin Rush think about McDonalds?  Thin Rush apparently thinks that people should have the freedom to eat themselves sick.  Thin Rush would no doubt be against the regulations that keep melamine and lead paint out of those same Happy Meal toys.  Parents should have the freedom to give their kids poison toys if they want!

Photo credit: Flickr/Breakmould