I don't always agree with her, she is manifestly a bomb-thrower, and her language and reasoning sometimes go off the rails. But damn do I love Ann Coulter's columns sometimes. She's in fine form as she rails against Rush Limbaugh's detractors:
"In liberals' worldview, any conservative who is not Jesus Christ is ipso facto a 'hypocrite' for not publicly embracing dissolute behavior the way liberals do."
Judging from their reaction to Rush's predicament, many liberals' souls are black with hatred, spite, and envy. That's a far worse problem than a chemical addiction or buying medication without a prescription.
I doubt I would fit as a true liberal in anyone's book, but I think the reflexive Limbaugh Bashing and Limbaugh Defending is helping us miss an opportunity.
According to some statistics I have read, fully 1/3 of inmates in State Prisons around this country are there on non-violent drug charges, for possessing and using an illegal drug. Rush as admitted using an legal drug that he obtained and used illegally. Maybe this might be a good time to start a discussion of our policies in this country to non-violent drug use and whether it makes much sense to criminalize what appears to be, in many cases including Rush's, an illness.
I loved Ann Coulter's argument and I am grateful to her for giving it. Jonah Goldberg did really well with his defense of Rush.
I read the best description of a hypocrite in a Father Houghton novel. It went like this, "A hypocrite is not one who does not practice what he preaches, it is one who does not believe what he preaches."
Also, to my knowledge, Rush did not admitted to obtaining the drugs illegally.