Ego Rush

The human ego never ceases to amaze me. The capacity for one person to artificially inflate his or her importance to near godlike levels is truly astounding. Today’s case in point is a man who is fast becoming something of a regular here on You’ve Got to Be Kidding: Mr. Rush Limbaugh.

It’s making the rounds on the news feeds that His Rush-ness has made an open challenge to MSNBC (the most popular cable news network among Intello-Americans). The challenge is simple, for MSNBC to go 30 days without mentioning a story involving Rush. Limbaugh’s logic is that this will cause the ratings of MSNBC to plummet. The following is Limbaugh’s exact quote:

“Throughout the busy broadcast day, MSNBC cannot go an hour without mentioning me or playing video of me or having me discussed,” Limbaugh said. “I challenge you, MSNBC! Thirty days without anything mentioning me. No video of me, no guests commenting on me. See if you can do it.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22731.html#ixzz0G5s77Dbw&B

Like a big stinking onion, let us peal back the lairs of idiocy involved with this one. First, what are the stakes of this challenge exactly? If MSNBC does indeed do this, what do they get? If Rush is challenging, then he must be offering a prize. So what reward will there be? Rush never mentions one so let me offer some suggestions of my own:

1. Rush agrees to put his show on hiatus for an equivalent 30 days.
2. Rush agrees to go on a celebrity reality show where we can watch him be humiliated for our amusement (I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Biggest Loser, and an Amazing Race team with Bill’O all spring to mind).
3. Rush gives President Obama one get-out-of-BS-free card. Obama can cash this card in on any one piece of legislation and when he does, Rush has to order the GOP to stop the BS and actually help Obama get something done.
4. Rush agrees to be water boarded alongside Sean Hannity (coward) with Keith Olbermann water boarding one and the winner of a charity raffle water boarding the other.
5. Rush agrees to commit Seppuku. (OK, that’s going a bit far, I admit.)

The next layer of our Onion of Wrong is actually some really sneaky trickery on Rush’s part (the man is not as stupid as he looks). Again, it relates to the terms of the so called challenge. What exactly counts as a “mention” on MSNBC? Theoretically, if MSNBC so much as acknowledges this challenge, then they lose and Rush mocks them for it. If they don’t talk about it and just drop any Boss Limbaugh material, then they’ve just caved to Rush’s demands. It’s a lose-lose situation.

The great stinky core of our onion (and yes I’m officially done with that metaphor) is that Rush doesn’t get the point. MSNBC isn’t giving him coverage and free publicity, they are mocking him. Limbaugh specifically cites the footage of his CPAC speech a couple of months ago. Yes, MSNBC plays the footage of him bouncing up and down behind the lectern when ever they talk about him, but only because the image of a bouncing fat man with no sense of decorum is funny.

Rush, the smart kids are MAKING FUN OF YOU! I can’t put it any clearer than that. The simple fact that Rush doesn’t get it is precisely why we won’t stop.

Until next time, I’m RyuSensei, and I’m not kidding.