Glass Houses

I'm sure that everyone has heard of this by now, from the Washington Post:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Rush Limbaugh could see a deal with prosecutors in a long-running prescription fraud case collapse after authorities found a bottle of Viagra in his bag at Palm Beach International Airport. The prescription was not in his name.

Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at the airport after returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. Customs officials found the Viagra in his luggage but his name was not on the prescription, said Paul Miller, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

[Snip]

Limbaugh's doctor had prescribed the Viagra, but it was "labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes," Roy Black, Limbaugh's attorney, said in a statement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection examined the 55-year-old radio commentator's luggage after his private plane landed at the airport, Miller said.

Investigators confiscated the drugs, which treat erectile dysfunction. Limbaugh was released without being charged.

Now this is no big deal. It is not rare for a doctor who has a famous patient to prescribe a drug like Viagra in his own name to protect that famous patient's privacy and this is not illegal under Florida law. It is unfortunate for Mr. Limbaugh that the fact that he suffers from erectile dysfunction has now been splashed all over the world's media, but the fame which makes this story newsworthy has brought him a personal fortune which must be getting close to a billion dollars now so I wont cry too many tears for him.

What makes this story stand out to me, a loyal Rush listener for years, is the fact that for years now whenever a story about Viagra or any of the other drugs which treat ED would be in the news Rush would latch onto it like a dog with a particularly tasty bone. And he would not be praising modern medical science for developing a treatment for a condition which robs a substantial number of men of an important part of their quality of life. No he would be raving about how this indicated that America had become obsessed with sex, implying that a man who might wish to continue enjoying sexual relations after prostate surgery was playing an important part in the decline of Western Civilization.

I guess we know why he found the topic of Viagra so fascinating now.