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Limbaugh's antidote
Wanda Sykes vs. Rush Limbaugh
Patrick D. Hazard
My media diet is severely restrained here in Weimar, Germany. BBC Worldwide Service nights, New York Times via Internet before breakfast, and Herald Trib, Guardian, TLS and NYRB from 9 to 11 a.m., back home in time for "Larry King Live," today blessed by a rollicking intro to the 46-year-old black lesbian Wanda Sykes, a D.C. area gal and marketing major who became a National Security Agency procurement officer. Ultimately she found this career so boring, she started cracking wiser and wiser.
Consider her stint at last year's White House Correspondents Dinner, where Sykes dragged Rush Limbaugh over the coals for his meretricious politics— for example, his expressed hope that Obama would fail. That qualified in her judgment as Al Qaeda-type stuff. Sykes fantasized that Limbaugh was the 22nd World Trade Center terrorist who missed his flight from an overdose of his favorite drug. Bushies booed. "You think wanting Obama to fail is not terrorism?" Sykes replies.
Sykes is equally engaging as a lesbian spokesman. She explained how much harder it was to explain her sexual proclivity to her Army Colonel dad and mom than her color. No black "coming out"— you're just there. When her knockout French lover had twins, Sykes went into a fake tizzy over the possibility that Mel Gibson might be the inseminant! "Will you have more kids?" asked Larry. "Only if we have them before I turn 50. No more diapers then." Her easygoing style does more to disarm Proposition 8ers than polysyllabic discourse.
Her Laura Schlessinger putdown was equally civilized. She speculated that Dr. L was so surprised to have a black listener that she blew it. And Sykes mocked Dr. L.'s credentials as a self-help authority: No psychiatrist there. Not even a psychologist! "A physiologist, for God's sake. Might as well take counsel from a masseuse!"
Now, it just happened that, by a fluke, as I sought out my nightly BBC source, Rush's signal broke through, referring incessantly to "Imam Obama," twizzling Birther nonsense and extemping intemperately on Obama's "contention" that he was a Christian.
The difference between Limbaugh and Sykes is the latter's freedom from hatred and putdowns. Rush stokes the fires of America's under-lettered and bewildered. Wanda smiles her teasing ways to a collective giggle.
Limbaugh and Fox want to win the next election. Sykes seeks a society in which damn foolishness is mocked away, give or take the next election. For that alone she deserves an Emmy.
Consider her stint at last year's White House Correspondents Dinner, where Sykes dragged Rush Limbaugh over the coals for his meretricious politics— for example, his expressed hope that Obama would fail. That qualified in her judgment as Al Qaeda-type stuff. Sykes fantasized that Limbaugh was the 22nd World Trade Center terrorist who missed his flight from an overdose of his favorite drug. Bushies booed. "You think wanting Obama to fail is not terrorism?" Sykes replies.
Sykes is equally engaging as a lesbian spokesman. She explained how much harder it was to explain her sexual proclivity to her Army Colonel dad and mom than her color. No black "coming out"— you're just there. When her knockout French lover had twins, Sykes went into a fake tizzy over the possibility that Mel Gibson might be the inseminant! "Will you have more kids?" asked Larry. "Only if we have them before I turn 50. No more diapers then." Her easygoing style does more to disarm Proposition 8ers than polysyllabic discourse.
Her Laura Schlessinger putdown was equally civilized. She speculated that Dr. L was so surprised to have a black listener that she blew it. And Sykes mocked Dr. L.'s credentials as a self-help authority: No psychiatrist there. Not even a psychologist! "A physiologist, for God's sake. Might as well take counsel from a masseuse!"
Now, it just happened that, by a fluke, as I sought out my nightly BBC source, Rush's signal broke through, referring incessantly to "Imam Obama," twizzling Birther nonsense and extemping intemperately on Obama's "contention" that he was a Christian.
The difference between Limbaugh and Sykes is the latter's freedom from hatred and putdowns. Rush stokes the fires of America's under-lettered and bewildered. Wanda smiles her teasing ways to a collective giggle.
Limbaugh and Fox want to win the next election. Sykes seeks a society in which damn foolishness is mocked away, give or take the next election. For that alone she deserves an Emmy.
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