Back in May of last year, liberal talk show host Ed Schultz called conservative talk show host a “right wing slut.” Reaction was rather fierce, and Ed Schultz offered what a real apology should look like. Rush Limbaugh and fans, take note:
Laura Ingraham herself was initially a bit snippy about it, tweeting “MSNBC suspends Schultz. Oh great, now his ratings will go up,” but later got to the better part of herself and tweeted, “Ed Schultz: Apology accepted.”
A key difference here remains that Laura Ingraham is herself a professional media figure with a 5.5 million daily listener audience and a frequently-seen figure and substitute host on Fox News. She is, in other words, quite able to defend herself. And no, Rush Limbaugh is not the only one with a problem with shooting his mouth off in a foul manner. It remains, however, that there is an acute disparity of power between a media mogul with a daily listening audience of about 15 million and a lone citizen activist giving invited testimony to Congress. I have no great love for Rush Limbaugh–decades ago I found him funny and refreshing but these days mostly just foul and irrational–but I think if he wants to retain any sense of dignity and decency, he should be looking to Ed Schultz for what real contrition looks like. Especially towards a target who is not a fellow media mogul but rather an ordinary citizen who just had the guts to take a stand, whether you agreed with that stand or not.
(Further argument/discussion here.)
Dean Esmay is the author of Methuselah’s Daughter. He has contributed to Dean’s World, Huffington Post, A Voice for Men, Pajamas Media. Neither left nor right wing, neither libertarian nor socialist.