The Politics of Fat

or, the media schoolyard bullies

It gets tiring. The media's most popular, intelligent, and supposedly open-minded personalities -- news personalities, also supposedly -- being obsessed with how fat Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore are. Which they are, mostly, even though Rush's weight has gone down and Moore's seems to fluctuate. There's no debate there. But I have trouble seeing the correlation between their weight and their politics or their ideals. And apparently there is one.

A political cartoon that explains
Limbaugh's ideals and how they may differ
 from GOP rank-and-file leaders.

Keith Olbermann -- a man who goes out of his way to attack racists,sexists, and homophobes -- misses no opportunity, every night, to make sneering asides about Rush, pointedly dropping words and phrases like "large," "heavy," and "immovable object" in a winking way to make sure that we know Limbaugh is fat. And, with all the crazy, hateful stuff that comes out of Rush's mouth every day that's ripe for parody, focusing instead on slowing down that CPAC footage of him jumping up and down in order to get the Republican troops pumped up. Look! He's jiggling!

Jon Stewart, in talking about said speech at said conference, joked that Rush "brought down the house... maybe they should build it out of brick." You see, he's fat.

But it'd be one thing if pundits just threw this stuff out to be mean. No, they specifically attempt to tie Rush's weight problems into his political philosophy. Stewart sarcastically mocked him once as a "picture of self-reliance and restraint, not a creature of appetites," before going on to do a Jabba the Hutt joke. Really? Rush wants Obama to fail because the President doesn't have an eating disorder?

Olbermann, noting that Limbaugh referred to a Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill, wondered if it was politic to note that Ted Kennedy was dying from brain cancer, then suggested, in the same breath, that it was okay to mock Rush for dying of the fat: "Do advertisers worry about a morbidly obese man making fun of a man fighting brain cancer?"

Dissecting Rush's BP spill statements, one by one.

Not to mention Al Franken's bestseller Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, which makes tons of jokes about Rush being fat, and, oh, yeah, occasionally touching upon his racism, sexism, hatred of the poor, and all around nasty disposition. But the important thing to remember here is: he's fat. It comes before idiot in the title.

But hey, that's just the liberal hate machine, right? No.

Every time Michael Moore pisses off the conservatives, we get the same thing from the other side. Except that the Republicans make a point of not being "politically correct," so they make up for in brutality what they lack in hypocrisy. Here's Glenn Beck talking about Moore's film Sicko: 

I thought we`d start up the show off with a little dessert today and there`s somebody out there who knows a little something about dessert. It`s Michael Moore, a wildly fat man with an anti-American streak even wider than his waistline... Moore, fiction and fat -- fact, sorry... So, Michael, if you want to slip on a quadruple extra-large Che Guevara T-shirt and sip caffe con leche while you listen to the "Buena Vista Social Club", be my husky guest...

You know what this is? It`s exactly like the end of "Miracle on 34th Street", where the judge is forced to actually rule against Santa Claus. But that was make-believe. Our bearded fat man is for real, very real... Democrats, when are you going to wake up, man? Your party has been hijacked by a wide load in a baseball cap who`s hell-bent on Castro-inspired socialism. He didn`t care about you. He didn`t care about this country. He`s a self-centered egomaniac. He`s the fat kid who`s still dying for a heaping helping of approval no matter what malicious lies it takes to get it.

See how that works? Fat kids lie. Because they're fat. Eating a lot of food makes you greedy. About everything.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, on Conan promoting Team America, didn't even care about making a connection:

The US health care system is a complex
 issue, as shown here.

Conan: Michael Moore is depicted in this film (Team America) along with a lot of other celebrities. And I talked about it with one of our producers after we saw the movie because you guys sort of go after Michael Moore. And I thought, “That’s surprising,” because Michael Moore was in Bowling for Columbine, it’s his movie, he interviewed you (points to Matt) on Bowling for Columbine and I remember thinking I thought those guys were friends with Michael Moore. Did you have a falling out? 

Matt: It wasn’t so much a falling out. He asked me to do the interview for Bowling for Columbine because I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. So I thought, okay, I’ll talk about growing up in Littleton, Colorado. What he did that made us a little angry is he put an animation in right after my piece in Bowling for Columbine that is very South Park-esque in its look. And I think 99% of the people who saw [it] think Trey and I did that animation.... I mean, he didn't explicitly say, “Matt and Trey did this animation.” But he made it look like it. And that’s what he does in his movies. He uses two images together and creates meaning where there isn't one. 

A cogent and thoughtful statement, whether or not you believe that Moore's deception runs through everything he does. Then Trey chimed in.

Trey: And he’s fat.

Ah, there we go. He's not only deceptive and manipulative, he's fat! Big laugh. Anyone complain and ask for Trey and Matt to apologize publicly? Nope. Yet they wouldn't have gone on Conan and ended with "And he's a Jew." or "And he's a three-pack-a-day man." or even "And he's a wife-beater."

Michael Moore also gets a lifelong ideological ban from complaining about how the American health care system doesn't cover the people who actually pay for insurance, because he's a fattie and somehow, therefore, a hypocrite. Or unqualified. Here's perennial Presidential contender Mike Huckabee, in a conference call with reporters, saying something you never heard about:

Wikileaks will, um, make you fat.
I guess. I give up.

"Frankly, Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs so much in this country. He clearly is one of the reasons that we have a very expensive system. I know that from my own personal experience," said Huckabee, who lost more than 110 pounds and became an avid runner after he was diagnosed with diabetes.

Rush isn't allowed to complain about drug abusers because he's a drug abuser, or the sanctity of marriage when he's been married three times. And that's fair. But before anyone mentions those things, they mention that he's fat. The word "fat" always, always comes before "pill-popping," "junkie," "racist," "draft dodger," "hypocrite," "blowhard," "impotent," "coward," and "idiot." I did some checking. Clearly, it is the most important thing you should know about him.

"michael moore" and "socalist": 4,090,000 hits.

"michael moore" and "fat": 5,180,000 hits.

"rush limbaugh" and "sexist": 1,610,000 hits.

"rush limbaugh" and "fat": 5,650,000 hits.