Had a political discussion with Mary Beth the other night, in the context of the Arizona shooting, and the extent to which vitriolic talk from the right wing helped to enable it. Though I’m not one to blame the Sarah Palin set for pushing Jared Loughner over the edge—the shooter seems to be certifiably crazy enough on his own, thank you—I do think the whole incident is a great excuse to review the level of discourse in the media and figure out if it helps to enable those on the fringe. Barring that, we can take the chance to evaluate whether the tone of such rhetoric helps or hurts society as a whole.

Of course the conversation landed on Rush Limbaugh, who dwells just far enough on this side of crazy that Mary Beth doesn’t mind listening to him in the car. (Point of reference: she agrees with me that Glenn Beck is a bloomin’ idiot.) I, meanwhile, can’t listen to him for more than 20 seconds without executing a perfect facepalm, which is unsafe while operating a moving vehicle.

Naturally Mary Beth said I can’t really judge Rush Limbaugh unless I’ve really listened to him with an open mind. At this point I got really drunk or something, blacked out, and when I regained consciousness I found myself having committed to listening to Rush Limbaugh for at least a week’s worth of shows, for at least an hour per day. Starting today. Right now. And I’m making a serious, serious effort to maintain my mental stability and understand the points Rush is trying to make. I can do it.

Okay so first thing about listening to Rush is his tone of voice. Mocking, pontificating, negative, sarcastic, generally mean-spirited. No one will ever accuse him of excessive sentimentality, or a shortage of things to say, or even of tremendous accessibility. And as one who’s disinclined to agree with his opinion, it’s a huge wall to get over.

I shall persevere, though! I’m taking stream-of-consciousness notes as Rush talks, which given his word-per-minute count is quite a challenge. I’ll post back with my thoughts as soon as I finish chewing on this here strip of rawhide.