When You Can’t Say it Well, Say It LOUD.

Rush Limbaugh acted like Rush Limbaugh this week. After a young Georgetown law student testified before Congress regarding the current birth control debate, Limbaugh went on the attack, calling her a slut, insisting that by advocating for health care that pays for birth control, she was asking to be paid to have sex, and suggesting that she upload sex tapes in exchange for this concession in her health care policy… since, by his argument, taxpayers are paying her to have sex. This, of course, erupted in an army of outcry against Limbaugh, and though he’s lost sponsors, his army of ditto-heads stands galvanized and ready to defend.

To be clear - I’m not a supporter of the mandate, and I disagree with Ms. Fluke, the law student who received Limbaugh’s wrath. But his comments are a repugnant symbol of so much that’s wrong with politics today.

Welcome to the strange world of a pundit. Limbaugh – like talking heads on both the right and the left – lives and dies by his ability to make headlines. His presence in the national political conversation reminds his readers and sponsors that he still matters. It’s not unlike young celebrities releasing sex tapes or allowing nipple slips in front of paparazzi. All press is good press, even if you’re getting it by acting like a fool.

In a culture of narcissism, celebrities must continually project themselves into the conversation in order to feel validated. For a pundit, that often means gravitating towards the extreme, regardless of how disconnected our comments might be from reality. Limbaugh is on his 4^th marriage – not exactly moral high ground, and though he’s since apologized for the statement, he’s done so with enough caveats and qualifications to make for a profoundly unapologetic apology. He laments, “I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress.” A strange statement from a man who relished every moment and detail of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The pundits on the left have pounced on the issue, holding it up as an obvious example of the right’s hatred of women, conveniently forgetting the comments of folks like Bill Maher, who regularly spew similar vitriol about Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol. This is an equal opportunity offense by conservatives and liberals.

To me, what’s sad about Limbaugh’s comments are that they’re so… ordinary. Our speech is full of hyperbole – from political discourse to dinner descriptions. Just cruise through a twitter timeline. It seems like we can’t have a conversation about ordinary, everyday things. We can’t be civil and mediated. All of life is the best and the worst. The hero and the villain. There is no grey. There are no degrees. There is only black and white.

To our over-stimulated and over-hyped world, ordinary life is boring. Put a pundit on television who is willing to color in shades and nuance the issues, and you’ll find yourself reaching for the remote. Loud sells, and we’re all buying it.

The only alternative for us is to turn it off.

We can turn off the media that is screaming and shouting polemic day and night. And we can turn off the little polemic machines in our hearts. All of it is rooted in a kind of Phariseeism, wherein the whole world is judged against our picture of how it was meant to me. The alternative is to cultivate a posture that embraces complexity, and refuse to cooperate with a culture that believes we must shout to be heard.

This political debate is an important one. It’s important on a variety of levels, and Christians who are called to love enemies and bless those who curse us should be far removed from the demonizing polemics of pundits on the right and left. Frankly, that’s a good general rule for all of life, but respect and humility make for boring television.