From an editorial in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Editorial: Missouri Speaker’s legacy: It’s El Rushbo’s House now

….Mr. Tilley forever will be known as the man who turned what lawmakers like to call “The People’s House” into Rush’s House.

On Tuesday, Mr. Limbaugh repaid the favor, lavishing praise on Mr. Tilley to his national radio audience and replaying clips of his induction speech.

Mr. Tilley, who has turned monetizing public service into an art form, sold out the people for 15 seconds of fame.

Cha-ching.

Previously:

There’s no room for sluts in the gallery. There is for prostitutes. (March 5, 2012)

Destined to be one of the top political quotes in the history of Missouri (March 5, 2012)

Steve Tilley owes Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil an apology (March 6, 2012)

Rush’s Bust (March 6, 2012)

What has your representative said about honoring Rush? (March 7, 2012)

Rush Limbaugh’s bust ain’t exactly a hit in small town Missouri (March 7, 2012)

Rush Limbaugh (r): on derangement (May 14, 2012)

The first inductee into the Hall of Infamous Missourians (May 15, 2012)

Speaker Steve Tilley (r): on Rush Limbaugh and intolerant liberals (May 15, 2012)

A significant chunk of the introduction before this excerpt sounded suspiciously like “He has his faults, but at least he doesn’t kick his dog.”

And, again, projection, with absolutely no sense of irony, in the republican controlled House chamber. Speaker Steve Tilley (r) on intolerant liberals:

Speaker Steve Tilley (r): ….But these aren’t the kinds of things that the radical liberal groups want to make known when they talk about Rush. Instead these liberals who try to put forth the illusion that they believe in a philosophy of tolerance or understanding, they’re anything but tolerant. And they’re anything but understanding

But fortunately there are only a handful of them here in Missouri. I think I read where the latest anti-Rush rally in Columbia actually broke single digits. [laughter] Which, Rush, it’s actually an improvement because they had an anti-Rush rally at the Capitol where there were more media than protesters….

Because we should always display tolerance for people who use their power and influence and microphone to call a young woman expressing an opinion on public policy a slut.

Oh, we understand all right.

“….I think I read where the latest anti-Rush rally in Columbia actually broke single digits. [laughter] Which, Rush, it’s actually an improvement because they had an anti-Rush rally at the Capitol where there were more media than protesters…”

The march to the Capitol, April 28, 2012.

Does anyone think that the general public will ever have direct access to that bust of Rush Limbaugh? Just asking.

Previously:

There’s no room for sluts in the gallery. There is for prostitutes. (March 5, 2012)

Destined to be one of the top political quotes in the history of Missouri (March 5, 2012)

Steve Tilley owes Dred Scott and Buck O’Neil an apology (March 6, 2012)

Rush’s Bust (March 6, 2012)

What has your representative said about honoring Rush? (March 7, 2012)

Rush Limbaugh’s bust ain’t exactly a hit in small town Missouri (March 7, 2012)

Rush Limbaugh (r): on derangement (May 14, 2012)

The first inductee into the Hall of Infamous Missourians (May 15, 2012)

Have you written your Missouri Representative on Speaker Tilley’s decision to put a bust of Rush in the Hall of Famous Missourians?  

Here is what I wrote my Representative — Denny Hoskins, CPA.

Representative Hoskins,

Do you agree with Speak Tilley that Rush Limbaugh should be honored in the Missouri Hall of Fame with Harry Truman, John Ashcroft, Buck O’Neil, and Samuel Clemons  to name just a few?

If you agree, would you please explain what have Rush’s contributions been to warrant him being with the list above?

If you disagree, what are you doing to convince the Speaker this is a terrible choice?

Thank you for your time,

 

Today, Representative Hoskins replied.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting me about Missouri’s Hall of Famous Missourians.  

The Speaker of the House determines whose bust is included in the Hall of Famous Missourians and the Speaker raises private donations to pay for the bust.

Since I was elected, I have advocated for Blind Boone to be inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, however, the decision is made by the Speaker and unfortunately Blind Boone has not been selected despite our best efforts.

Thanks again for contacting me.  I appreciate your input.

Sincerely,

Rep. Denny Hoskins, CPA

I recognized that Representative Hoskins was not involved with this decision.  

I thought my questions were very civil. I wonder why Representative Hoskins did not answer them.

Maybe I’ve missed it something, but it seems to me that GOP Senator Roy Blunt’s been keeping his head down for the past few days. Everybody seems to have weighed in on Rush Limbaugh’s latest foul spewings  and GOP Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley’s desire to reward him by placing his bust in the capital despite – or because of – it them. But ol’ Roy, whose anti-contraception grandstanding  helped give Limbaugh just the right occasion for his most recent over-the-top, misogynistic rant has been ostentatiously silent.

Blunt’s Democratic opposite number in the Senate, Claire McCaskill, didn’t have any difficulty calling a spade a bloody shovel. She was emphatic during an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball that “he shouldn’t be in this hall of fame next to Harry Truman and Mark Twain.”  Why do you think that Roy’s going to ground when it comes to doing the right thing and condemning Limbaugh’s attack on Sandra Fluke, not to mention addressing the appropriateness of bestowing high state honors on a man who routinely attacks women, racial and ethnic minorities, and even innocent, garden-variety liberals in the most disgusting terms possible?

It’s distinctly possible that Blunt may have decided that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. He was actually booed by a heckler when introduced last night at a Kennedy Center event where an audience member seemed to think he’s the “devil.”  

Such developments have to be frustrating for Blunt, who has been trying really hard to pretend that women’s reproductive health has no standing in the discussion of the contraceptive issue which, according to some on the right, is elevated to a higher level because a cadre of conservative Catholic Bishops want it to be their way or the high way for all of us, Catholic or not. This position, of course, ignores the issues that arise when questions of the public good, such as contraception, intersect with the rights of institutionalized religion to dictate public policy – a far more complicated discussion than Blunt and the right-wing base he hoped to energize can actually accommodate.

Nevertheless, now that the the “religious freedom” charade has blown up in Blunt’s face via Limbaugh’s poorly timed verbal grenades, Blunt ought to step up and tell us whether or not Limbaughs “choice of words” reflects his own views about women and birth control – and whether he thinks it’s appropriate to lavish honors on the nation’s foremost practitioner of hate speech. Of course, if he finds that he cannot manage to speak ill of the petulant voice of right-wing America, he’s not alone – the ever-waffling  Mitt Romney, Blunt’s guy in the GOP primary, seems to be equally busy trying to find the just the right weasel hole when the topic of Limbaugh is raised.  

UPDATE:  Blunt may be keeping his head down in regard to Limbaugh, but he seems to be finally throwing in the towel when it comes to the great religious freedom crusade he was fantasizing about. I guess he read the tea leaves and decided that trying to foment holy war wasn’t working and might even hinder his push towards more exalted heights of Senate leadership.