For reference purposes, you can find today's bag of swill if you follow the hypertext.

What's In A Name?

Poor George Allen. He's been characterized as "shell-shocked" after these recent mid-term elections unseated him from power. And really, why shouldn't he be? No defeated incumbent experienced as much of a public whirlwind plummet in the polls than Allen. And much of it was spurred by his little flub.... "macaca."
Now Rush is telling his audience that we can't really fault Allen for using the word "macaca." That we unnecessarily saddled Mr. Allen with the baggage of accusations of racism. Let's dissect...

"When George Allen uttered the word "macaca," the crowd at the appearance,watching the slurree, the macaca, didn't even what the word meant. Nobody knew what it meant."

Or at least, so says Mr. Limbaugh. As it turns out, the "sluree" knew what it meant. So did the media (or else why would they have cared?). Would we have let it slide if someone had used, but been ignorant of the implications of a term like "chink" or "negroe" or even "heeb"? Along those same lines, If Allen didn't know what it meant, isn't this a flaw of ignorance? Isn't this an indication of inculcated and institutionalized racism? The term itself is obviously racist. Rush even refers to the person it was directed at as a "sluree." This was EXACTLY the problem with Allen. He was TOO dumb and TOO racist to even recognize that he WAS being racist. His initial refusal to apologize just backs this up.

And the fact of the matter is, "macaca" led to an inspection of Allen's character and we found out much more about Mr. Allen that confirmed the idea of his racist inclinations. Should these things not have been an issue? Should we not have investigated at all? Which brings me to.....

Conservative vs. Investigative

The big thing at issue here for Mr. Limbaugh is that the media (and the Left) goes too far in examining public figures. He outright criticizes the effort to "dig deep." But I would ask, what is wrong with digging deep if there are things to find? What is wrong with criticism if there are concrete aspects to criticize?
If the accusations against Allen did not hold water, they could have been shot down outright. But as item after item popped up, Allen's tendencies towards and associations with racism could not be ignored.
The Conservative tendency, as expressed here by Mr. Limbaugh, is to accept things at face value. To accept the status quo. The opposition to this sort of attitude is rightly labeled as "Progressive." If we want to move forward and actually make things better we should actively pursue issues. We should exam. We should analyze and push our analyzation further. If you will not challenge yourself and the world around you, then you deserve to be passed on by.

And one last thing I just can't let slide.......

So Rush, at the beginning of this rant on Allen and "macaca" invokes the good ol' J man.

"Jesus Christ could come back and announce he's a conservative, and they would give him baggage."

1) Would J.H.C. be down with us not being inquisitive, critical beings? If Christ and Faith aren't questioned, what's their value at all?
2) I realize that it's just an example, but Christ wouldn't announce he's a conservative. The guy was anti-violent and anti-establishment. Would you call that Conservative? (granted, i don't think the dude would call himself a Liberal either...)