Al Gore III Drug Bust, Rush Limbaugh Offers Advice

FROM ONE WHO KNOWS

Rush's Advice For Al Gore III







Though he could have spent time comparing Al Gore III's drug bust media coverage with his own, Rush Limbaugh instead took the high road yesterday, offering constructive advice to the former vice president's son.

While Limbaugh's past addiction was treated by the mainstream media as a law- and- order issue, with his mugshot plastered across television screens nationwide, Gore's arrest is being portrayed as a cry for help from a troubled young man.

Opening up about his own treatment in ways we may not have heard before, Rush described the process that got him back on his feet:

CALLER: Rush dittos from the Left Coast. My question is I'm wondering if we can expect a visit from Reverend Sharpton out in California advocating no preferential treatment and jail time for Algore's son like he did for Paris Hilton.

RUSH: I don't think Algore's son got preferential treatment. He was booked. He was charged with what he was charged with; he had to make bail of $25,000. I think his sister came in, and he's got a court date coming up so it's a little premature. There would be no reason for the Reverend Sharpton to show up. It's really a sad thing. I hope that they're finally able to get Algore III some focused and serious treatment, because this can be beaten. It can be done. But one of the things that I think -- and I probably even shouldn't opine this -- one of the things that's a problem here is that public figures think they put obstacles in their way.

They think it's much tougher to deal with things like this because they're public figures. It doesn't matter. It has to be dealt with and there are ways to do it. When it's kids, I tend to put myself in the shoes of the parents on something like this, and having been through this myself, you know, I can't laugh at it, and there really isn't anything funny about it, and you just hope that they're able to brush away whatever the obstacles to getting serious treatment started.

I'll just tell you this, folks, and I haven't spoken much about this for a host of reasons. I plan to someday, but I haven't been able to do so yet. But I think I have mentioned that the five weeks I spent -- I saw the other day somebody reported I went to Sierra Tucson, for rehabilitation. That's not where I went. I went to a place called The Meadows, and it was for a host of reasons that I don't have time to delve into now, it was the most valuable five weeks of my life in terms of understanding various aspects of why I was choosing things I was choosing and doing things I was doing and it was miraculous. I was saying to myself the whole time I was there, "I wish this would have happened to me when I was 15, 18, 20." This is valuable for people who don't have addiction problems, I think.

So Algore III is, based on my experience, a prime candidate to have this help him immensely, and for the rest of his life and it's all a positive if you take it seriously, go in there and roll up your sleeves and get into it. It's not hard physically. It's just that you have to get out of denial and you have to be willing to be honest with yourself about who you are and why you're where you are and how you want to change it.

But, boy, if he can pull that off and do it, it would be one of the greatest things that could ever happen to him. So I hope Sharpton does stay out of it, and I hope a lot of people don't start making fun of the kid here, the young man, because put yourself in the shoes of the parents here. The kid is not a political figure; he's not a public figure; he's trying to live a life of anonymity, in fact.

But Rush did have one critical observation, however:

RUSH: There is one thing about the Algore III story that puzzles me. All of these people pushing these hybrids, what have they not been telling us? How in the world do you get a Toyota Prius to go a hundred miles an hour without a cliff to go over? This is the first time I have ever heard one of these hybrids will do a hundred miles an hour.

And if it will, what's the point? How much fuel are you burning at a hundred miles? How much damage are you creating to the environment when you're driving one of these things a hundred miles an hour? I thought one of the points of having these things was you couldn't go out there and burn up a lot of gasoline and get lousy miles per gallon statistics and so forth and so on. His sister picked him up in a Maserati. A V8 400-horsepower Maserati took Algore III home.

What Rush won't say on the air still needs to be mentioned here, however: this story underscores the difference between the left and right on such issues. While liberals are still busy deriding Limbaugh as a "pill-popper", Gore III instantly generates sympathy for choosing the same treatment path.

After he completes the program, will conservatives ridicule Albert III the same way? It certainly seems unlikely.


ELSEWHERE: Ted Nugent on why hippies still smell. Melanie Morgan covers Cindy Sheehan's un- retirement.

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