Rush Limbaugh has died, and leftist celebrities, creeps, and MSM figures – but I repeat myself – are showing the kind of class and empathy we’ve come to expect from them. In a series of repulsive tweets and social media postings, they are demonstrating for the world their complete depravity and moral bankruptcy.
I get it. Rush was smarter than them and funnier than them, and he was able to skewer their pretentious bloviating, while carrying on a master class of tongue-in-cheek bombast of his own.
He was flawed and imperfect, as are we all. But he was a happy warrior for those who love America, and a thorn in the side of the “blame-America-first” detractors on the left. He gave voice to the common-sense conservative views of millions whom the MSM constantly denigrates. He knew that we aren’t deplorables, and he cheerfully counter-punched the condescending scolds who looked down their Pinocchio noses at us.
I don’t need to provide a roll call of hateful leftists who are gleefully dancing on Limbaugh’s grave. Instead, I’ll just mention one typical example, which I came across in a NY Post article on a triumvirate of nauseating UC Riverside professors who sent an email to media sources pitching their own availability for interviews, calling themselves “Rush Limbaugh experts.”
A paragraph into the story, I came upon the name of Reza Aslan, a small-minded bigot so vile that even CNN couldn’t stomach him, and fired him a few years ago. So naturally, he got a job as a professor.
Sidebar: do you remember when Bill Clinton had to give up his law license in the wake of his perjury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? I had thought that that indictment had to be the all-time most damning: not ethical enough to be a lawyer!
But Reza Aslan has outdone even Handsy McGroperton: Aslan is too hateful to work at CNN!
If you haven’t heard of Aslan, consider yourself lucky, and pardon me for introducing you to his work. In addition to sullying the name of C.S. Lewis’ great Christ-figure lion from the Narnia books, Aslan has sullied himself. In the latest press release, he called Limbaugh a, “one-man hate industry,” who “sowed hatred and fear,” and concluded that “America is objectively a better place without Rush in it.”
Judging from his criticism of Limbaugh’s “hate,” you might assume that Reza is a regular font of love in his own writing.
Sadly, you would be wrong.
For a little taste of Reza’s warm-and-fuzzy approach to “commentary,” we need go no farther than his take on Trump’s reaction to a rash of terrorist attacks carried out by some oh-so-peaceful jihadis in London in the summer of 2017. “Oh the joy when this lying conniving scumbag narcissistic sociopath piece of s**t fake president finally gets what’s coming to him.” Also, he also expressed the pithy sentiment that Trump was “a piece of s**t.”
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died late last year, he tweeted, “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f**king thing down.”
Did I mention that Reza is a professor of religion? Yeah.
I haven’t read all of the hadiths and suras and what-not, but I’m not sure there’s one that counsels, “When someone with whom you politically disagree dies, go thou out and publicly urinate on his grave, and celebrate his death as if thou wert a hell-spawn socialist demon-ghoul.”
Now, from what you’ve just read, you might think that I believe that it’s never appropriate to joke about and celebrate somebody’s death. But long-time readers of my column know that that’s not the case, as they may remember from my comments when we used a drone to kill a man named Turki al-Bin’ali in Syria in 2017.
He held the exalted title of the Islamic State’s Grand Mufti, and some of his own people had criticized him as having too high a profile as he traveled around the Middle East. They said that he was “too visible,” a decision which allowed us to give him a good ol’ drone-delivered proctological strike.
At the time, I came up with a dad-joke that I told my daughters after reading them the story: “That’s one Turki who didn’t make it until Thanksgiving!”
Groan if you must. My daughters certainly did.
And as annoying as it may be when someone laughs at his own jokes, I also wrote a line that still makes me snicker when I think of it: “Does anyone else see the irony in a bunch of misogynists so prudish that they force their women to hide themselves in bee-keeper outfits, getting defeated because their Mufti was too visible?”
Boom!
Please send your complaints to the great and powerful CO, founder of the Cautious Optimism website.
So the moral of today’s column is this: It is appropriate to laugh at someone’s death only if that person is either manifestly evil, or engaging in an evil act when killed, or both.
I’ll close with two instructive examples ripped from today’s headlines:
First, on Monday, 61-year-old Harold Runnels knocked on the door of a house in Aiken, SC. When 79-year-old Lois Parrish came to the door, he pushed her aside, forcing his way into the house and pulling a knife on her.
Unfortunately for Runnels, Lois Parrish is married to 82-year-old Herbert Parrish, who is a veteran. Even more unfortunately, he is a veteran who owns a shotgun. And when he saw Runnels threatening his 79-year-old sweetheart, he killed him with his shotgun.
At first, the idea of an 82-year-old defending himself with a shotgun might sound unusual, but not extremely so. Most old folks have the strength to pull a trigger, after all. (Even Joe Biden – if he were still alive – could probably manage that.)
But you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion. I said that Parrish killed him with a shotgun, not that he SHOT him with a shotgun.
That’s right. Octogenarian Herbert Parrish beat septuagenarian-wife-attacker Runnels to death with his shotgun. And I know what you’re thinking: how does an 82-year-old whip someone’s arse with a shotgun?
Well, it starts with taking a wide, well-balanced stance, and not choking down too far on the barrel. Then you have to remember that you don’t need a home run; you just have to make good contact.
So what have we learned from this story? First, even at 82, Herb can still go yard!
Second, just as the leftist thug who attacked Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha learned not to bring a skateboard to a rifle fight, Harold Runnels learned not to bring a knife to a shotgun fight.
Finally, in the feel-good story of February, Breitbart’s headline caught my eye: “Accidental Blast During Bomb-Making Class Kills 30 Taliban Fighters.”
It seems that a clot of happy-go-lucky jihadis had gathered in a mosque (where else?) in the Afghan village of Qultaq to learn the finer points of blowing people up. Even though the crowd included “six foreign nationals who were expert mine makers,” it apparently also included at least one dim-witted lummox who hadn’t yet gotten to the Koranic verses on the subject of, “Don’t touch that wire!”
(Preliminary reports that the dullard in question was one Ahmed al-Biden have not been confirmed.)
The story notes that jihadis fairly regularly experience such mortifying examples of the male scourge of premature detonation. (HA!) For example, “a similar blast occurred at a mosque in Balkh’s Chahabar Bolak district in August.”
Also in the village of Sikandar Khel, and earlier in the Ghazni district, and in the southern province of Zabul.
So what can we learn from this hilarious vignette?
First, all Afghan place names have apparently been translated from the original Klingon.
Second, one way to promote the idea that your religion is super peaceful might be to stop using your places of worship as combination ammo dumps/demolition schools.
Third, don’t be discouraged, jihadis! Remember the sura that goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try– KA-BLAM!
Thus ends today’s lesson.
RIP, Rush.
Avenatti/Reza “not the Jesus-Lion” Aslan 2024!
Martin Simpson 