Here’s How to Handle People Like Rush Limbaugh

James D. Retter is off the mark on a couple of points (“A Rush to Judgment on Limbaugh?,” Counterpunch, May 25):

Rush Limbaugh, no matter what one may think of his opinions or subject matter, is a thorough professional. He has a great voice, is totally prepared each day and is impeccable in his presentation.

And the proper way to handle someone like Limbaugh when he makes statements like “feminism was established so that unattractive ugly broads could have easy access to the mainstream” is not to whine about the unfairness of such drivel.

People like Limbaugh love that. Retter should say something like, “Why shouldn’t ugly women have access, Rush? You did.”

EARL EAGER ALBERT

Temple City

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Retter’s piece, while displaying annoying self-righteousness, is also a study in a gross oversimplification of a complex public policy debate: He states that Limbaugh’s “daily diatribes helped defeat both universal health care and lobbyist reform.” Quite a feat for a radio talk-show host!

First of all, Retter fails to remind his readers that the health care bill was defeated when President Clinton’s party still controlled Congress.

The fact is, when influential Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) declared during the debate that there was no health care crisis, but a welfare crisis, this did more to ensure the bill’s defeat than anything Limbaugh could have done.

In a democracy like ours, where a show like Limbaugh’s coexists with outlets like Pacifica Radio, ideas are constantly being debated and discussed in the “marketplace of ideas” and people are free to listen to whatever they want and to make up their own minds about politics and public policy.

VICTORIA ALBRIGHT

Thousand Oaks

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Hey, wake up. It’s show-biz, OK? Some of my acquaintances just love Limbaugh and the rush they get in hearing him say things over the air that they feel but don’t have the guts to say.

Problem is, he is playing them all like a tin drum. He hasn’t had an opinion he can call his own since his show started to get high ratings numbers. He’s discovered what his audience wants to hear, so he feeds it to them. And they lap it up every day.

If you don’t think he analyzes every “opinion” before it gets on the air just to see if it sounds like something Rush Limbaugh would be for or against, you’re as deluded as he is.

The emperor has no clothes. Thank God, he’s on radio.

CHRISTOPHER M. SMITH

Camarillo

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Should we stop Limbaugh or call him a big fat idiot as Al Franken does? I say turn off the radio or don’t buy from the advertisers. Or quite possibly keep listening and buying from the advertisers.

Choice, isn’t that a mainstay of the Democratic Party that wants to pull the Limbaugh plug?

MARK MASANIA

Los Angeles

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Yea! Hurrah! Bravo! More! Encore!

RACHEL ROSENTHAL

Los Angeles