Readers React: Medal of Freedom went to the wrong person

Rush Limbaugh’s lies have done harm to his gullible listeners

Feb. 8, 2020 5:05 AM PT

Re “Radio host Limbaugh awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom” (Feb. 5): Donald Trump invited two American citizens to his State of the Union address.

One is a black American World War II war veteran who fought as a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen. He placed his life on the line in the air war against Nazi Germany. He left the service with many distinguished service awards and the rank of colonel. He made this sacrifice even though his government permitted his home town in Alabama to segregate him from the all the civil and public rights enjoyed by white citizens.

The other is a radio talk show host who spent 40 years spreading racist fear. Most recently he promoted the racially motivated slur that President Obama was not born in the United States and thus was an illegitimate president.

Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom, an award granted to the likes of Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, to the radio talk show host. His choice speaks volumes about the soul and spirit of Donald Trump.

Frank Ferrone

El Cajon

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Trump sends a sad message to his base

Leave it to Donald Trump to reach another low point in American history. His decision to award a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh is a clear-cut case of pandering, polarization and grand theater.

If the bombastic, hateful and xenophobic Limbaugh is our paragon of virtue, then the real state of the union is even more pathetic and morally bankrupt than ever.

Regina Hanan

Scripps Ranch

This letter writer should be much more concerned about the messages kids received from that SOTU address and the people who cheered for it. It contained 33 lies and gave the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbough. He called five year-old Chelsea Clinton “the dog in the White House” and many more worse racial slanders.

When will we stop praising the American dictator?

Larry Schmitt

San Diego

Limbaugh’s lies likely hurt gullible listeners

Re “Limbaugh announces he has lung cancer” (Feb. 4): As a conservative radio host with a huge following, how many people besides himself will die of lung cancer because he adamantly denied the link to smoking.

How many more will suffer because he also denies human-influence climate change? Isn’t it time to stop listening to demagogues and read the facts?

Yale Kadesky

Escondido

Conservative talk-show guru Rush Limbaugh, has been mesmerizing his rabid fan base for over thirty years. They tune in for three straight hours a day, five days a week, and reruns on weekends, to hear him say: (to a black caller) “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” They laugh and guffaw when he chides President Obama with: “Barack the magic negro,” or (about the NFL): “Looks like a game between the Crips and the Bloods.” Limbaugh’s adulation soars with: “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”

For his reward, as an adviser to Donald Trump, he has received the coveted Presidential Medal of Freedom. The plan for re-election appears to include inflaming the racial fears of white voters who are still smarting from a black man in the White House, so he can activate intergroup hatred. With the help of a drug-riddled talk-show bigot, adored by so many, we will soon see at the polls if physicist and activist Albert Einstein’s observation: “America’s worst disease is racism” is, in fact, sadly accurate.

Dennis Kostecki

Sausalito