LIMBAUGH: ONE SICK BASTARD

So The New York Times runs a story about NYC schoolkids struggling in un-air-conditioned classrooms during the recent heat wave -- and Rush Limbaugh twists it into a suggestion that we send schoolkids to Guantanamo:

RUSH: We got an idea from a drive-by caller, no less. A drive-by caller is a guy with a great point but can't hang on. The drive-by caller suggests that when it gets really hot in New York and New Jersey schools, we just send the kids to G'itmo. It's air-conditioned at G'itmo! Not only that, look at the increased quality of lunch they will get at G'itmo as opposed to what they're getting in their schoolrooms and lunchrooms in New York and New Jersey. Well, H.R. says vegetables are torture to kids. Let me tell you something. (interruption) Well, no, wait a minute, Mr. Snerdley. (interruption) Snerdley says, "You can't send kids down to G'itmo because they pray down there and you got separation of church and state." This is my point all along. G'itmo is a place that sounds like a great Christian retreat, a great religious retreat. Every religious practice on earth is respected there. Every religious practice on earth is allowed to be practice and the items necessary to fully engage in worship are provided free of charge by G'itmo. Whatever your religious needs are, if you're there, they will be taken care of and the taxpayers of the United States are going to pay for it. But we could segregate the students from prayer if it would be too harmful. We can let terrorist prisoners pray all they want, but not school kids. Hell's bells, folks, not on our watch. That isn't going to happen. So we send the school kids down there to air-conditioned G'itmo. Koko, I want you to make a point about this on our brochure, that G'itmo is air-conditioned, that the food down there is even better than what American taxpayers provide their own kids in lunch -- and I want you to make it clear that every religious practice on earth is respected there with the worship tools necessary provided free of charge, unless you're an American school student and then you wouldn't go.

"Rush, what you are saying? It's a prison!"

Really? I'll tell you, when I was in school I felt like I was more in prison than these guys at G'itmo are. I couldn't get out of the classroom. All I could do is look out window and see where I wish I was, but I couldn't go there. I was being made to do a bunch of garbage I didn't want to do like paste and draw. Anyway, it's a good thought. It's a great comparison, is it not? The food at G'itmo? Hell, the food at G'itmo is better than what our own soldiers eat!

You think he's joking about the brochure? Here's the Club G'itmo brochure.

Sample image:



Oh, and you can get a T-shirt that says, "Club G'itmo -- Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad."

Meanwhile, of course, Senator Richard Durbin is getting grief because he's upset at reports like the one he quoted on Tuesday from an FBI agent who was at Guantanamo:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water.  Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more.  On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees....

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Know what? I got a thousand bucks here for Rush. I can't afford to part with it -- I probably make in a year about what Rush makes in a minute -- but it's his, or it goes to the organization of his choice, even if that organization is ideologically repulsive to me. All he has to do is spend one hour -- not eighteen or twenty-four -- in the position described above in a room with a temperature of 100 degrees.

We won't even hold him without trial in indefinite detention that could last the rest of his life.

I'd appreciate it if as many of you as possible joined me in this offer, putting up whatever you can. I think George Soros should offer millions. I'd like this to be a highly public challenge to Rush, and one that's potentially extremely lucrative, to him or to some group he deems worthy.

You say it's paradise, Rush? Fine -- show us just how pleasant it really is. Come on, big guy -- you're not afraid, are you?

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(And no, I don't know why Rush spells "Gitmo" with that pointless apostrophe.)

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UPDATE: In comments and here, Barbara has suggested I set up a PayPal account for this. Well, maybe -- though it took me nearly three years to put comments on this damn blog. Meanwhile, please spread the word, and think about what you might be able to pledge. Be bold -- I assure you you'll never have to part with a dime.