Today my eye was caught by one of the "Pearls of Wisdom" on Rush Limbaugh's home page.  The daily Pearl of Wisdom is accompanied by a picture of Rush shouting something on a bullhorn, and isn't that just perfect?  Of course he would be shouting on a bullhorn, not sitting and talking like any reasonable human being.

Rush likes to portray himself as Cassandra, the woman who spoke only truth, but who was fated never to be believed.  Except that you can get in on the ground floor, as it were, by following his truth.  You and Rush, you're a group of truth-sayers, huddled together in the darkness, fighting off the wolves by brandishing burning torches.  Listen to Rush, and laugh at all those fools who refuse to!

Rush Limbaugh used to be a fairly amusing blowhard, but now that we have elected a Democrat - and a not wholly white one, to boot - his paranoia and outrage has been ratched up another anxiety producing degree.  And his particular brand of frothing hysteria is toxic to a reasonable dialogue in this country.  Put simply, Rush Limbaugh is a troll.

Today's "Pearl of Wisdom" was this:

"If Barack Obama really wants to help kids in school he will cut their parents' taxes and he will cut the taxes of their employers."

Really?  Really.  I see.  And how will cutting taxes help kids in school?  Kids in school need textbooks, they need teachers who are being paid a living wage, they need classrooms which are not crumbling beneath their feet, they need desks which are not slowly falling apart or jabbing the students in the back.  They need pencils and pens and markers and chalk.  They need school lunches, because for too many of them, the school lunch is the only full meal they will get that day.  They need safety measures to protect them from kids who want to bring knives to school.  

How will cutting their parents' taxes provide these things?  How will cutting the taxes of the company which employs their parents provide these things?  

Please, Rush, do tell, because I am genuinely interested to hear it.  I know I sound snotty, but I can't help it, because my eyes are rolling so hard.  I do not believe that you have any frickin' clue as to how cutting taxes will help school children, so perhaps that is what sounds snotty.  

Another "Pearl of Wisdom" is the following:

"The Drive-By Media, the State-Controlled Media, the American left thinks that you and I pose a greater danger to them than any foreign enemy that's armed with weapons, including nukes."

This is plainly untrue.  No one thinks that Rush Limbaugh is a DANGER TO LIFE AND LIMB.  Except in the sense that I don't feel we have much to fear from "foreign enemies" these days.  Rush Limbaugh poses a metaphorical danger, a corrosive influence on public discourse, and a poisonous sense of what is and is not just in the world.  What is the opposite of "community values"?  That's what Rush has, and his quote about school children is a prime example of this.

I wonder how many school supplies Rush has donated to schools?  After all, his taxes under George W were, by his own account, optimal.  I say the proof is in the pudding - or it isn't, as the case may be.