A Good Day for Rushbabies

For as long as I can remember, my parents have listened to Rush Limbaugh on a semi-regular basis. This permeated my consciousness with conservative inclinations and rendered me fundamentally incapable of harboring liberal views. Though I am indebted to Rush for making me inherently right-of-center, I am perhaps most grateful for his ability to make freakishly accurate predictions about the political Left.

Today Time Magazine reports that, though one of Rush’s predictions deterred from a usual topic of politics, it looks as though he retained his accuracy. Limbaugh, who has been referring to the Gulf Oil Spill as “the leak,” may have been right about the impact it has had on the southern United States:

“Yes, the spill killed birds – but so far, less than 1% of the birds killed by the Exxon Valdez. Yes, we’ve heard horror stories about oiled dolphins – but, so far, wildlife response teams have collected only three visibly oiled carcasses of any mammals. Yes, the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region’s fish and shrimp have tested clean, and the restrictions are gradually being lifted. And, yes, scientists have warned that the oil could accelerate the destruction of Louisiana’s disintegrating coastal marshes – a real slow-motion ecological calamity – but, so far, shorelines assessment teams have only found about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year. […]

Marine scientist Ivor Van Heerden, another former LSU prof who’s working for a spill response contractor, says “there’s just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good – I think they lied about the size of the spill – but we’re not seeing catastrophic impacts,” says Van Heerden, who, like just about everyone else working in the Gulf these days, is being paid out of BP’s spill response funds. “There’s a lot of hype, but no evidence to justify it.”

If only Time would cover El Rushbo’s cries against collectivism.