***update: Rush deals with the story with trademark humor…via Drudge: “How did Bob Dole’s luggage get on my airplane? I told my doctor I was worried about the next election”…Mark Finkelstein at Newsbusters has more…wire story here…AUDIO here…audio at The Media Crunch***

The MSM goes nuts over reports that talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh was detained at Palm Beach International Airport “for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs…. among them Viagra“–leaving the unmistakable impression that some of the drugs were illicit. The left side of the blogosphere is in full feeding frenzy. WaPo runs the AP story:

Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

Customs officials found a prescription bottle labeled as Viagra in his luggage that didn’t have Limbaugh’s name on it, but that of two doctors, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

A doctor had prescribed the drug, 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 from the Dominican Republic, said Miller.

The matter was referred to the sheriff’s office, whose investigators interviewed Limbaugh. According to Miller, Limbaugh said that the Viagra was for his use, and that he obtained it from his doctors.

But wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. Why the hell is the Sheriff’s Office releasing the name of the drug–other than the attempted public humiliation of a conservative icon? Why wouldn’t it have sufficed to identify it as a non-narcotic prescription drug?

Here’s Sen. Hillary Clinton quoted in a huge story in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday on Americans’ loss of privacy:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., says she will introduce a “privacy bill of rights” because identity theft and security failures of personal records have become “one of the most important issues facing us as individuals and as a nation.“

Here’s an A1 story recently in the Washington Post on the need for stronger enforcement of federal medical privacy laws.

To its credit, the ACLU went to bat to protect Rush’s medical privacy.

But what about all the rest of the gloaters? Next time they pontificate about privacy, remember this.

Shame.

Brian Maloney has the full rundown on the MSM mob.

Reader Mary L.:

I suspect legions of the the rich and famous do not use their real names on prescriptions for this exact reason - I doubt anyone is stopping by the Walgreen’s and telling the clerk to look under “Jolie” or “Pitt”! And they certainly don’t check into the hospital under their real names. This is a nonstory, with the only aim to humilate Rush. Shame on them.

comments (0)   trackbacks (7)