Limbaugh’s new racket: kids books
by digby
My piece for Salon today tackles the disturbing fact that Rush Limbaugh’s writing is now being used in elementary schools:
Limbaugh’s book was a runaway hit and the next installment called Rush Revere and the First Patriots was just as successful. It’s possible that it was simply a function of the wingnut welfare racket, but one suspects that plenty of his fans bought the books for themselves. And maybe they even shared them with some kids. In fact the pilgrim book was so popular that it won a major award from the Children’s Book Council. It was a bit controversial for a couple of minutes but in the end Limbaugh received the honor and even appeared at the ceremony and gave a speech. He said, “I love America. I wish everybody did. I hope everybody will.”
And Limbaugh may have just found the way to save the hysterical wingnut screed market: sell them as text books. This week a third grade teacher called in to his show to tell him that she was using his pilgrim book to teach kids about the civil war. Apparently, the lessons conveyed by the talking horse and the football player (did I fail to mention the football player who travels through time with Rush and his whiskered equine pal?) are so universal they can be applied to any historical period. More importantly, she believed that reading from the book in the classroom, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the lesson they are supposed to be learning, will get them excited about Rush Limbaugh and his books and they’ll rush off to the taxpayer funded library (if it isn’t closed) to devour more of them.