Here’s how Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral procession yesterday looked to the Boston Globe and most other well-adjusted observers:
The mood was both celebratory and somber, as people waved American flags and held handmade signs, watching as the senator’s funeral procession wound swiftly to its destination at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where the senator will lie in repose through this afternoon.
Union carpenters holding hard hats, immigrants from across the globe, students with backpacks, office workers in suits, and retirees who stuffed envelopes for his first campaign four decades ago all came out for a miles-long salute that seemed to capture in its multitudes the breadth of Kennedy’s connection to his home state.
One observer, though, saw it differently. Here’s how it looked in the fetid swamps of Rush Limbaugh’s fevered imagination:
Did you know that they lined the caravan route with union thugs? They did, they had to go out and stack people standing on the streets with union thugs.
I played a game yesterday afternoon — I watched a replay of this whole thing and I said “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take a drink, in honor of Ted Kennedy in the caravan going to the library there to lie in repose, I’m going to take a drink for every black person I see on the parade route. And I was sober at the end of the parade.
I’m glad to hear Rush is staying sober, since he’s had some problems with that in the past. But you could be forgiven for thinking he was stoned while making that little rant, since there’s plenty of video evidence that the crowds that turned out for the procession were genuine, diverse, emotional and respectful:
Limbaugh also took time to mock a union worker who had emotionally explained to a reporter why working men and women felt the loss of Senator Kennedy so keenly:
WORKER: We wanted to turn out and pay tribute to the Senator… he’s done so much for organized labor, and for all labor, organized or not, for all working people… so we thought it fitting to come stand out today with the procession.
LIMBAUGH: A union thug, reduced to sniffles along the processional route, saying “Yeah, we just wanted to come out and show —” What do you bet there was a memo that went out? To make sure that there were people lining the streets?
Yes, that’s why on top of the crowds that lined the procession route, 25,000 people lined up yesterday at the Kennedy Library to pay their respects. Because they all got a memo.
It must be sad to live in a world where crowds are always Astroturf, emotion is always fake, and every working man and woman you meet is a “thug.”
Thankfully, most of us don’t live in that world. But we can always count on Rush to send us a postcard, whether we want one or not.