De Projectione apud Limbaugh

Dear Dr. Bones,

I don't remember about you, sir, but I had not much use for the former Freudianity back when it was fashionable. Now that it is has become hopelessly passé except for desperate attempts like this one to regalvanise it, usually, as here, to discredit some political or sentimental/‘ideological’ enemy, one must . . .

. . . . Oh well, when there is nothing nice to say, it is time to change the subject at least a little.

So let us look at Mr. Poster’s modus operandi without worrying about whether he fetched it from St. Sigmund or not, whether the said M.O. be strengst wissenschaftlich or only cheapjack scientistic. [1]

Neocomrade Dr. R. H. Limbaugh, long-time missionary from the Party of Big Management to the unwashed and beastly mob, is accused by Mr. Poster of bigmanagin’ his dittobrains with ‘projection’. What does he mean by that, exactly, once all the stale Vienna sausage about ‘paranoia’ and "defense strategy" and yimmer and yammer has been tossed out the window like an amblongus pie?

Not an easy question. There are so many amblongusses [2] crawling around here that it no cakewalk to think them away. It it were a can of worms, one could go by one’s general antecedent notion of an empty tin of Campbell's Cream of Tomatoe[3], but it is not.

The amblongus marked "You convince yourself that you only hate the other guy because he hated you first" is not without taint, but it is not so toxic we cannot disentangle it a little, Dr. Bones, for purposes of dissection.

The good news is that Mr. Poster almost certainly grasps that the Witch Doctor of Democracy believes his ‘projections’ with complete subjective sincerity, at least when caught in very article of projectin’, and probably all the time. We are spared the ludicrous notion that RHL secretly admires and reveres those nomina clara whom he badmouths and swiftboats in the course of his radio performances. No doubt the Party neocomrade does not believe the following two propositions

(1) "Two plus two makes four"

and

(2) "President Summers and Mr. Barák Husáyn Obáma are deliberately laying the holy Homeland™ waste so as to gratify the spite of all those Blacks and Tans out in the boondocks of the world who ‘hate US because we are free’ " [4]

in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, the idea that he does not believe the second at all, that he is cynically pretendin’ to believe so as to advance the private-sectorian interests of his Party-of-Grant golfin’ buddies is just . . . silly. Dr. Limbaugh is very far from bein’ even half bright enough to be cynical, no matter what he ties behind his back.

Mr. Poster has got over the great pons asinorum, then, which is more than most can claim. Sigh.

Not so happy is that the proposed diagnosis ignores how Himself has expressly and repeatedly denied hatin’ anybody at all. Of course He believes that proposition, -- say it His way,

(3) "Rush Limbaugh is ‘a lovable little fuzzball’ "

-- as well as the others cited, with that naive and unreflective self-sincerity alloted by Father Zeus exclusively to children, drunkards, and Uncle Sam. [5]

There bein’ ex hypothesi uingnuttensium no hatred at Rio Limbaugh, of course there cannot be any projection of hatred thence. Q.E.D.

From the point of view of a decent political grown-up, the correlation of farces here looks a bit different, and has more to do with Mr. Poster than with Neocomrade Dr. R. H. Limbaugh. For is it not pretty plain, Dr. Bones, that ‘Xenghis’ would not be very willing to accuse his foe of ‘projecting’ cute an’ cuddly fuzzballism?

And now, that’s enuf of that.

I wish you, sir,
Healthy and affordable days.

___
[1] Notice how the scribbler approximates to nastiness even as he professes to be turning away from it. ‘Pretermission’ they calls that gizmo.


[2] Orthography from the original.


[3] Orthographie by gracious nonpermission of Neocomrade J. D. Quayle, Freelord Hoofinmouth in the peerage of Wingnut City, Viceroy to George XLI, Charlie McCarthy to the Edgar Bergen of Kristol Minor, &c. &c.


[4] An objector might object that Himself would never word proposition (2) as I have worded it.

Respondeo: Right you are, sir! Right, yet not very much to the point, because anybody who can't distinguish the cake from the icin’ just because the sugar sprinkles have been scraped off and replaced with a paste of sand and minced cockroaches needs to learn how to do that trick before she goes up a dab hand at rhetoric and agitprop like Neocomrade Dr. R. H. Limbaugh.

"If you can’t keep your eye on the ball, stay out of the kitchen!"


[5] Dr. Limbaugh manages to belong to all three categories more or less equally. Or so it seems to me.