Clarence Thomas-Rush Limbaugh Lovefest

Two current newsmakers--the scourge of “phony soldiers” and the man a New York Times editorial today calls “The Angriest Justice”--started this week with Rush Limbaugh telling Clarence Thomas that “those of us privileged to know you and love you know a man we wish everybody knew as we do.”

If Justice Thomas is still short of being beloved, it is not for Limbaugh’s lack of trying. In a record hour and a half interview, the radio host did his best to sanctify the man who officiated at his third wedding in 1994.

It was an instructive encounter for those who know both as publicly less than loving--Limbaugh, the college dropout son of a family of Southern judges and prosecutors, and Thomas, the Catholic seminary dropout raised by a righteous grandfather he honors in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

In their long embrace on the airwaves, Limbaugh, who usually trashes everybody, and Thomas, who usually resents everybody, were different people in an alternate universe of sweetness and light.

Talking about the stormy confirmation hearings of 1991, Limbaugh noted, “The thing that I've noticed--I'm not sucking up here--I don't hear any bitterness today about anything that's happened or been said about you.”

“Well, Rush, I don't really have the luxury to be bitter...When you are trying to do your best...you don't have the luxury of having those sorts of negative things in your life.”

Today’s Times editorial notes, on the evidence of Thomas’ book, that “the rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears.” Limbaugh’s venom against “phony soldiers” who are against the Iraq war had politicians trying to get him removed from the air.

But on the Rush Limbaugh show, Clarence Thomas is a down-to-earth guy who confesses he would like to drive trailer trucks for a living. They seem to have a calming effect on each other.

Phony Soldiers With Real Bullets

As Washington debates the humongous issue of Rush Limbaugh’s outburst about unpatriotic “phony soldiers,” there is news today about murderous drive-by shootings in Iraq by quasi-soldiers.

The New York Times cites a report by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: “Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded.”

In what is now becoming familiar asymmetry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday was asking Limbaugh’s bosses for an apology as the House Committee was preparing to grill State Department and Blackwater officials about the behavior of bodyguards whose mission is supposed to be defensive--195 shootings from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 a week, incidents in which 163 times they fired first.

Blackwater is emerging as one more piece of the disheartening picture of Wild West chaos in Iraq, with millions of American dollars disappearing and civilian profiteers free to treat locals as targets in a turkey shoot.

Among those testifying today will be Blackwater’s owner and founder Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and intern in Bush I's White House, who has contributed $200,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998.

According to the House report, his company has dismissed 122 employees in the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, insubordination and failure to report incidents or lying about them.

Congressman will be asking about what they have been doing in our name while the Senate keeps America safe by trying to get Rush Limbaugh fired.