Poutrage

Unsurprisingly, today's talking point from the right-wing media is that comedian, Wanda Sykes went too far in her speech Saturday night at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Sykes jabbed at Rush Limbaugh, mocking him for his comments about wanting Obama to fail, saying it was borderline treason, she hopes his kidneys fail and that he was supposed to be the 20th hijacker on 9/11, but was so strung out on Oxycontin that he missed his flight. The White House issued a statement today saying 9/11 was off-limits, which isn't surprising, but the conservatives still aren't letting it go, saying all her attacks on Rush were over the line... have these people never actually listened to Limbaugh? Sykes was tame! Let's take a look at more glaring hypocrisy from the right:

Jokingly calling Limbaugh treasonous was over the line, yet Ann Coulter is free to write a book called Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and Rush is free to call the president a thug.

Sykes "crossed the line" with hoping for Limbaugh's kidneys to fail. I guess some people see it as poor taste to make light of an illness, but that didn't stop Rush Limbaugh from mocking Michael J. Fox for having Parkinson's Disease. Or Ted Kennedy's brain tumor.

And saying Rush Limbaugh was supposed to be the 20th hijacker is beyond the pale, but please ignore the fact that Rush just described Obama as "the follow-up to 9/11." Seriously... and that was just last month.

The fundamental difference here is that Wanda Sykes' performance was roast-style joking. Yes, it was edgy and controversial, but it was still comedy; I can't speak for Sykes, but I don't think she really wants Limbaugh's kidneys to fail and she obviously doesn't believe he was the 20th hijacker. Yet Rush Limbaugh says shit like this every single day and it only makes the news when it's really over the line.

All this uproar over Wanda Sykes is just more manufactured outrage from the masters of pretending to be offended. It's hilarious that the party that's always whining about left-wing "political correctness" is always the first to cry foul when someone hurts their wee little feelings. Here's the truth, the Republican Party is still pouting over the fact that they got their asses handed to them in the election, so they'll grasp at any straw they can to smear Democrats. Just look at the last few weeks of phony outrage: moaning about the unfair treatment of some beauty pageant bimbo that ran her mouth about gay marriage (even though she's clueless to the subject), attacking Obama's choice of mustard, and now Wanda Sykes making a couple mean jokes about someone who spews venom on a daily basis. Here's a tip to the right-wing smear machine, don't dish it out if you can't take it.

And just for some laughs at how absurd it is to defend Rush Limbaugh while calling Wanda Sykes harsh, here are some more of Rush's greatest hits:

"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

"Liberal black politicians" envy Fidel Castro's "dictatorial power"

"Everybody knows it was the vacuum cleaner that liberated women more than the pill"

"I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in [Donovan] McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve."

Obama's Supreme Court pick will be "a teenage single mother, who's gay, is a lesbian, who's dirt poor, African-American, and disabled"

"AIDS was going to get really bad but it didn't"

For more on Rush Limbaugh's racism, sexism and generally stupidity, just check Media Matters.