Limbaughtomy

There must be a word for it.

There must be a technical term for a figure of speech that violates the very precept on which it’s based. Irony is sort of close, but that’s when the speaker knowingly says something at odds with the intended meaning. I’m looking for something that’s done without knowing it.

Hypocrisy is closer, but it’s a bit too broad. It refers to saying something that’s at odds with what the speaker does, thinks, or says in other circumstances. What I’m talking about is when the very statement is at odds with itself.

Paradox sort of captures it, but not quite. It suggests more of a puzzling quandary than a straightforward violation of a statement’s own content.

With the litany of Greek-based terms for rhetorical figures, you’d think that there’d be one that would label this phenomenon clearly. Perhaps there is, but I’m not aware of it.

Maybe one could be invented. To dust off my knowledge of Greek, maybe it would be called something like “autoparabaistis”— which would translate to something like “self violation” or “self transgression.”

Or maybe we could simply call such phrases examples of “Limbaughtomy.” It has a Greek ring to it, and the similarities with “lobotomy” add a nice touch.

This question came up after seeing reports of a recent example of such self-violation by Rush Limbaugh.

Commenting on the recent announcement by John and Elizabeth Edwards that her cancer has returned and that they still plan to go ahead with the presidential campaign, Limbaugh vomited forth the following:

Political people are different than you and I. And, you know, most people when
told a family member's been diagnosed with the kind of cancer Elizabeth
Edwards has, they turn to God. The Edwards turned to the campaign. Their
religion is politics and the quest for the White House.

Normally, taking Limbaugh's banal rhetoric apart would be beneath the dignity of this website, but the ugliness of this particular remark deserves a riposte. So, let the flensing begin.

It’s bad enough that Limbaugh accuses the Edwards, people I assume he doesn’t know personally, of unspeakable crassness, but in doing so, Limbaugh commits the very crassness he accuses them of: using a personal tragedy for political purposes.

To paraphrase Limbaugh, most people, when told that someone has incurable cancer, show compassion; Rush showed malignance (play on words intended). Putting political point-scoring (and relatively meaningless point-scoring at that) ahead of basic decency, Limbaugh attacked people he doesn’t know as Godless power-grubbers, and he does so for no other reason than the pleasure of doing it. This kind of vituperative rhetoric is, dare I say it, an addiction for El Rushbo.

It would be nice to simply write him off, as Keith Olbermann does, as a “comedian.” But to many millions of Americans, he’s not a comedian—he’s their primary connection to the public sphere.

Yet how do even Limbaugh’s fans not recognize the inherent idiocy of politicizing a woman’s cancer by attacking her and her husband of politicizing it?

The answer, I suppose, lies in the question itself: they’re Rush Limbaugh fans.

Some issues to discuss:

Do you think Limbaugh actually believes what he’s saying, or is this truly empty political rhetoric for its own sake?

To any Limbaugh listeners, do *you* really believe what Limbaugh said?

Disregarding the morally bankrupt and logically self-destructing comments of Limbaugh, to what extent does Elizabeth Edwards’s diagnosis affect what can and can’t be said of John Edwards?