Rush Limbaugh uses the term ‘retarded” a lot, video:
Hat tip video: Media Spatters [1].
Tim Shriver, Special Olympics, soils his nappies, from Ben Smith, Politico: [2]
But the Special Olympics, which organized a delegation that ultimately accepted Emanuel’s apology and his pledge to stop using the word, is now asking Limbaugh to reconsider his language.
“I incredulously listened to the segment in your show in which you repeatedly and offensively used the term ‘retard; in reference to our meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel,” Special Olympics chief Tim Shriver wrote in a letter to Limbaugh today, asking that he invite Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne onto his show to explain the pain the word causes.
Allah Pundit, Hot Air [3], on Shriver:
He can’t accept apologies [4], but I guess he can demand them [2].
With no respect to Shriver, he doesn’t know what pain is. I am old enough to remember the old adage: “Sticks and stone may break my bone s, but words will never hurt me.”
The new adage may well be, “State Department SUV’s and stones may break my bones” from Tucker Carlson and Jon Ward, Daily Caller: [5]
The State Department has refused to answer basic questions about an accident that took place in Washington on Wednesday night, in which a U.S. Diplomatic Security Service vehicle struck Daily Caller employee Sean Medlock as he was crossing the street.
An agent in the vehicle, Mike McGuinn, did not identify himself to Medlock at the scene, or apologize for running him down. Indeed, Washington, D.C., police drove to a local emergency room to serve Medlock with a jaywalking citation as he lay prostrate in a hospital bed, while a man who identified himself as “special agent” stood by watching and taking notes.
While the use of the word retarded may hurt the feelings of Shriver’s special group, Sean Medlock knows the real meaning of pain. Don’t compare hurt feelings to vehicular assault and broken knee caps.
As for the use of the term retarded, it is relatively recent euphemism. I recall interviewing at the Rochester ARC (Association of Retarded Citizens). It is pointless to ban euphemisms. As one euphemism is supersededThe the new euphemism starts generating hurt feelings. It is cycle that never stops.
As for the vehicular assault, hit and run on Medlcck, I urge Mrs. Clinton to get to the bottom of the scandal in her State Department. Did Mike McGuinn mistake Medlock for Monica Lewinsky?
Addendum: Addition thoughts and history from Paul Shlichta. American Thinker [6]:
P.C.ers have a ludicrous talent for replacing a fair term with a worse one. Consider “handicapped,” a word once used for people with a deficiency in physical ability. It was a good word, honest and yet optimistic. As in its popular racetrack use, it implied that someone had a difficulty that others didn’t have, but that with courage and perseverance, he could overcome it and win. But P.C. decreed that it could cause discrimination (another useful word that was exiled to verbal Siberia) and demanded that it be replaced by “disabled” — a much more pejorative word that, as used in modern electronics, implies total incapacity. But then “disabled” was proscribed and replaced with “challenged,” a condescendingly hypocritical euphemism that has become the butt of countless jokes.
In the same Pecksniffian spirit, “retarded” — now called (I’m not making this up) “the r-word” — is has been declared offensive.
While you may never find the pot of gold you seek, those who seek to be offended always will be.
Addendum ][:(Eric)
First of all, I speak as the parent of two special needs kids.
Secondly, and that said, words mean things, as Limbaugh himself is so fond of pointing out. They also, I will add, have consequences. My instinct here is that what those who object to various words really have problems with, is their meaning, and, the consequences of that meaning.
The issue here, it seems to me, is people trying to escape the consequences of their situation by eliminating the words describing it. As David points out, this is nothing new. As he also correctly points out, these things are constantly changing.
Consider, as an example, the word “homeless”. In the past, we in the west would use such words as vagabond, tramp, vagrant, beggar, bum, derelict, mendicant or panhandler. Of course, the such words, and such descriptions, are no longer considered to be “politically correct”. We could even toss in Rush’s use of “Urban Outdoorsman”. in each case, such terms are considered a pejorative. At least, they are by those to whom they apply.
We are going to have to get used to the idea, I think, that there is no escaping the consequences of the situation by changing the words describing that situation.
I think we’re also going to have to get used to the idea that many people complaining about one label or another are probably seeking power, by means of what can only be described as ‘group politics’. That would be particularly true of leftist politicians, in my view. For example consider the leftist politicians around the aforementioned Rahm Emanuel,a nd their reaction to the homeless before, and then during the Clinton presidency… how we were told that homelessness was Americans number one issue during the campaign, and how that problem vanished into thin air even before some flunky’s knees ever warmed the carpet under the oval office desk. There was a Democrat in the White House so there could be no more homeless problem. Remember?
Now, the problem here is a bit more complex, given you simply cannot make a problem like mental retardation disappear. Nor apparently can you make professional offense takers disappear, either, particularly when you make your bread and butter by means of group poli8tics and pandering to the subscribers of same.
The very reason Rahm Emanuel was chosen for his current role was his suppose it ability to make deals, and play to all sides, particularly in Congress. I think we can safely assume that that ability is either totally gone or so totally crippled is to be laughable, given the state of things in the Congress these days. Indeed, some Democrats are already willing to sacrifice Rahm Emanuel as a scapegoat [7]for the failures of the Obama administration. What this ignores, of course, is that the problem isn’t one person, but the ideas that arrive that one person. Ideas, obviously, the far left is not willing to give up, as yet. I wonder if they will ever be so smart.
Given his comments, so too does Rahm Emanuel. Think on this… Rahm Emanuel comparing Democrats to “retards” and then apologizing to the “retards”. Seems to me, there’s something poetic about that.
Rahm Emanuel being hoisted on his own political petard, for starters. He has lived and will die on the basis of group politics. I think the only question left open at this point is how badly that will damage the Obama administration, going forward. One cannot help but think that eventually the word “Democrat” will become a pejorative. Given the approval ratings of the Democrats in Congress and the one in the White House currently, I’d say that situation is already well underway, due in no small part to people like Rahm Emanuel.