Brief Weekend Bonus: Rush Limbaugh Has Become the Rude Pundit's 1994 Parody of Him:
Back in the early-mid-1990s, as he's discussed here before, a young Rude Pundit ran a weekly radio show on Knoxville, Tennessee's WUTK-FM called Radio Free Theatre. Once a month, we'd feature a parody of Rush Limbaugh called, oh-so-cleverly, "The Rich Flemball Show." The Rude Pundit wrote the monologues and an actor, Mark Creter, would portray Flemball, taking calls from unsuspecting listeners (along with some set-ups).

Without getting into a big story, here's a quote from a 1994 episode, where, discussing his new book, See, I Told You I'd Eat It, Flemball mocks Jesse Jackson: "Take, for instance, my chapter on crime in this country. I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson saying, 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with hope, hope in their schools, hope in their communities, hope in their homes. Only through hope will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.' And then he went on and on, talking about personal responsibility. But, as I show in the book, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's axiom fails completely. Simple change the word 'hope' with 'souped up white Cadillac' and you'll see what I mean. 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with souped up white Cadillacs, souped up white Cadillacs in their schools, souped up white Cadillacs in their communities, souped up white Cadillacs in their homes. Only through souped up white Cadillacs will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.'"

Oh, how funny. It's an analogy so inane, meaningless, and ludicrous that no one who said it could possibly be taken seriously. Flemball was meant to be an extreme version of the rotund radio host.

Now, here's Limbaugh this week, talking about the contraception coverage debate: "You know, folks, millions of women enjoy sex in the back of a car. You have some women that can't afford a car. What are we to do? What is our solution to women who prefer sex in the backseat of a car but can't afford a car?"

Limbaugh has become, in the most literal sense, his own parody.