Rush Limbaugh, champion of "young black kids"

There's a certain sisyphean weariness to criticizing Rush Limbaugh for being an awful human being. He's just so blatantly, unapologetically awful, that it's rather like criticizing the sun for being too bright or the tides for failing to adapt to your seaside strolling schedule. And maybe my bothering to write about this is due to my needing something jarring to jump-start the blog after my usual mid-week hiatus. But, oh.... this is just so gross. (Via Ambinder):

RUSH: You know what we have learned about the Somali pirates, the merchant marine organizers that were wiped out at the order of Barack Obama, you know what we learned about them? They were teenagers. The Somali pirates, the merchant marine organizers who took a US merchant captain hostage for five days were inexperienced youths, the defense secretary, Roberts Gates, said yesterday, adding that the hijackers were between 17 and 19 years old. Now, just imagine the hue and cry had a Republican president ordered the shooting of black teenagers on the high seas.

[snip]

They were kids. The story is out, I don't know if it's true or not, but apparently the hijackers, these kids, the merchant marine organizers, Muslim kids, were upset, they wanted to just give the captain back and head home because they were running out of food, they were running out of fuel, they were surrounded by all these US Navy ships, big ships, and they just wanted out of there. That's the story, but then when one of them put a gun to the back of the captain, Mr. Phillips, then bam, bam, bam. There you have it, and three teenagers shot on the high seas at the order of President Obama.

Oh, my stars and garters. Do my lying eyes deceive me? Is Rush freaking LIMBAUGH trying to paint the pirates sympathetically in order to take cheap political shots at the President?

I may swoon.

It goes on, of course.

Al Sharpton, the head honcho of the National Action Network, on his syndicated radio show yesterday.

SHARPTON: The so-called pirates, they call themselves voluntary Coast Guard in Somalia, which may be more apt.

RUSH: Well, there you have it, from one of America's true leaders of the civil rights movement, the black community, they're not even pirates. They are voluntary coast guards. So in fact what we have here, according to the Reverend Sharpton, these young kids, black Muslim kids, three of which were ordered shot by President Obama on Sunday afternoon, they're just a voluntary Coast Guard trying to protect Somalia, they're just patrolling off the coast of Somalia as sort of a voluntary National Guard, so-called pirates, they're not really pirates, according to reverend Sharpton. He's confirming me, Mr. Snerdley. Don't look so incredulous. They're just community organizers and they have decided to organize out on the high seas as a means of protecting their beloved country, is all this is about.

Confidential to Al Sharpton: When your rhetoric makes you a useful idiot for Rush Limbaugh, you really need to look into retirement.

But getting back to the Corpulent One, he can't even decide what tack to take on this. On the one hand, he's trying to create the impression of a double standard by implying that Obama's ruthless termination of those poor, innocent young boys would never have been tolerated had it been done by a Republican. (And can you imagine what Rush would have said had Obama not used force?) On the other hand, he's trying to wax incredulous at liberal mollycoddlers and racial victimhood, while simultaneously taking a potshot at Obama's community organizing.

Truly, the man is a wonder.