Critics say that Rush Limbaugh likes to talk out of his ass. But that's only half the story: Rush can't stop talking about butt, either. It's too bad that Sigmund Freud's long dead, because Rush is the old shrink's dream patient, with an obvious diagnosis: Limbaugh has an anal fixation.
Rush is riding high; on Wednesday he made headlines with a faux-resignation as head of the Republican Party, handing the reins over to nemesis Colin Powell. But even as his power in the party grows, El Rushbo remains fixated on political humiliation -- his, and other people's -- and it's amazing how frequently such humiliation focuses on the hind quarters.
Last week, Limbaugh lamented that President Obama will likely get away with destroying the economy, because "he's being followed around by a bunch of sycophants who are going to die of anal poisoning" -- a disease that Google suggests Limbaugh himself invented. Most notoriously, the talk radio king complained in January: "We are being told that we have to hope [Obama] succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president."
Limbaugh's tuchis talk is so constant, it doesn't seem to be just the joking around of a clown. (Is it mere coincidence that he got out of serving in Vietnam because of an anal cyst?) When he talks so vividly about being, well, taken by the president, there has to be a little psychosexual stuff going on. Anal rape jokes, in particular, are a running theme for Limbaugh. In fact, they're one of his favorite ways of describing acquiescence or obedience. Note the recurring racial theme.
Occasionally, though, someone shows the proper defiance.
And those who do willingly submit get nothing but contempt from Limbaugh. A favored term of abuse for these is "butt boy."
Of course, bending over has its risks. As we saw last week with his reference to Obama sycophants, Limbaugh has a very specific formulation for what you can catch from too much of it.
That's probably why Limbaugh is so wary of bending over himself. He's told us so many times:
Still, sometimes it's nearly impossible for a public figure to avoid being probed anally.
Limbaugh even thinks anal rape is funny when it's no joke. He's played testimony from a rape trial just for laughs; here he is talking about a rape victim:
LIMBAUGH: Now she's on the stand in our first video clip here trying to explain when this happened. I think she got raped or some such thing like that, and -- and she's trying to explain to the jury and the judge and all the lawyers, everybody in court, how it happens. And -- well, just watch. It speaks for itself.
Unidentified Woman: He lifted my nightgown and he put his finger in my rectum ...
Falls forward
Laughter
Unidentified Voice: ... unintelligible
End of excerpt; laughter
LIMBAUGH: I'm so -- I'm so -- I'm trying not to laugh, as you can see ...
Trying not to laugh at that -- well, aren't we all? But no wonder he thinks anal rape can be funny. The only part of a woman Limbaugh seems to be able to see is her badonkadonk.
That's a ton of junk to come out of one trunk, even an oversize one. Rush's stream of caboose comments reads like fiction, as if he were a character from "Portnoy's Complaint." But as Limbaugh himself says, "We don't make anything up here, folks. We don't have to. Philip Roth, the great novelist -- he says, 'I'm going to stop writing novels. I can't make up anything more weird than real life.'"
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The occasional de facto leader of the Republican Party gets his say.