This video, from 1990, shows Rush Limbaugh filling in for Pat Sajak on the latter’s short-lived (if you blinked, you missed it) TV talk show…and getting clobbered, metaphorically speaking, by an anything-but-captive audience:

In the first segment, the Pigman tries to tackle the subject of abortion. He uses a Ms. Potato Head doll to represent then-NOW leader, Molly Yard, in a bit of insult-slinging that I suppose was meant to be funny. It’s plain that he expects his audience to be a bunch of dittoheads, nodding along with his premise, which is “Oh, what a shame that those baby-killing feminists would put decent, God-fearing Idaho farmers out of work by threatening to boycott their potatoes unless the governor vetoed that anti-abortion bill!”

And that’s exactly what doesn’t happen.

When the Pigman announces that the poor beleaguered governor of Idaho has indeed vetoed the draconian legislation under intense pressure, people get up and cheer like mad. And the first one on her feet is a black woman who gives Rusty a tremendous (and heavily applauded) chewing-out for his anti-choice crapagandizing on the radio. Oh, she knows exactly who he is, and she’s not a whit impressed! She points out that rhetoric like his is costing women their lives all over the world, wherever abortion is still illegal. And the audience clearly loves her for saying it.

The next segment is even more fun. Rusty, not yet chastened, tries to take on Affirmative Action. His premise that it’s Affirmative Action that’s racist (and not the white sheet-wearers who oppose it), goes over like a lead balloon. Coming on the heels of his encounter with the Badass Black Lady and her strong pro-choice support from the crowd, you’d think he’d realize that this was the worst possible topic to bring up.

But not our Pigman! He was tone-deaf long before his addiction to OxyContin forced him to get those cochlear implants, apparently. And he comes off like a whiny playground bully who screams when those he provoked give him a righteous ass-whipping. Just listen to his voice go up, and up, and up…

Stick around till the end, and you’ll see the funniest part of all: Rush Limbaugh explaining why the audience is no longer there. They’ve all been “asked” to leave because they wouldn’t stop challenging his nonsense! But nobody’s been evicted, oh noooo. And of course the Pigman is so into civil debate, yes he is…which is why his radio show nowadays is so heavily guarded by call screeners that if you want to challenge him, you have to pretend you’re a dittohead when you call in. Which, every so often, someone does…before getting rudely cut off by the studio gatekeepers on the unseen side of the piss-yellow mike. Rush, notoriously tetchy, doesn’t really like a debate, unless it’s him talking and you saying “Megadittoes!” Which is really not a debate, either; it’s a monologue, and a not terribly enjoyable one to hear.

But of course, the Pigman is NEVER rude! (Stop laughing, you there in the Peanut Gallery!)

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