Is Mark Shea the Rush Limbaugh of Catholicism?

I realize that won't make me many friends from my Catholic brethren but it's what I came up with in response to Mark's recent post where he calls Limbaugh a professional blowhard:

So a fake testifies before Congress with fake testimony about her fake need for Catholics at a Catholic university to simultaneously stay out of her bedroom, yet subsidize her birth control. The hearings were, of course, as fake as a three dollar bill too, designed to gin up support for Obama’s fake claims that the Church is under some moral compulsion to pretend that contraceptives are “health care”.

In response, a professional blowhard, being overly blowhardish, forgets the first rule of political discourse, which is that it doesn’t matter how much a fake your opponent is if you are still perceived as a bully and a scoundrel for impugning the honor of a helpless damsel in distress. For days, he makes the mistake conservatives increasingly make and chooses to hate his opponent rather than defeat her.

Result: newly minted feminist icon gets the Poor Dear treatment from a media that is shocked!–shocked!–at blowhard’s boorish and brutal treatment of the fake. Andrew Sullivan, who has literally spent years, micro-analyzing the gynecology of Sarah Palinis suddenly fake horrified. The Obama Administration, fresh from receiving a million bucks from that feminist knight in shining armor Bill Maher, registered fake concern over mean blowhard. Sundry GOP and conservative luminaries and sponsors back slowly away or bolt and run.

Blowhard, finally sensing that he has not actually helped advance the cause of defeating the fake, offers tepid apology. Much fake breastbeating about “civility” from allies of the fake ensues as the political corpse of blowhard is dragged through the streets in triumph.

Meanwhile, the fake who testified before Congress remains a fake and the preposterous claim she is trying to make–that Catholics are simultaneously bound to mind their own business about her sex life while paying for it–goes studiously ignored by the fakes in the media whose job is not to inform, but to sell beer and shampoo and enforce unit cohesion on behalf of the sexual revolution.

An absolute festival of fakery.

He's got a bit more and it's worth a gander.

In response, I left Mark the following:

Mark,

In some ways, and I don’t mean this to be an insult, I see you as the Rush Limbaugh of Catholicism. Why or how so you might be asking? It’s pretty simple. You deal in truth and you unabashedly defend it, sometimes aiming harsh words at those who you disagree with. Rush deals in what I would call truth from a political perspective. I’ve listened to the man since he came on the air nationally back in 1988. Not every day as my job disallows it but enough to understand the man’s shtick and style. He really does point out absurdity by being absurd. And only those who listen to him regularly would know this. Did he cross the line with Sandra Fluke? Clearly though I think the underlying message he was attempting to deliver was sound. Is his apology sincere? I don’t know but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

My bottom line is that Rush, and you, make me think. You both make me take a hard look at my precepts and assertions. Rush from a political perspective largely but a perspective acknowledging the existence of truth. You from a perspective that clearly in the long run will mean more to me. I don’t always agree with you but I value what it is you have to say. I don’t always agree with the methods Rush uses to communicate but I value the message being conveyed. Rush is a sinner. I’m certainly one. And you Mark have said you certainly are. I wish Rush would’ve conveyed his message differently but in the end, I recognize that he is more friend than enemy. Ms. Fluke however is more enemy than friend and so Rush is an ally in the fight that exists out there with those who are telling lies and selling them as truth.

Just as you Mark will occasionally say things in writing that you’ve later taken back, Rush will say things on the air that he will occasionally regret. I think, and allow that I might be wrong, that should you get to know Limbaugh, you might actually find someone you could respect.

I know with certainty that though you on occasion write things I cannot yet accept, I respect you nonetheless because I know you to be, in the end, an ally.

Bottom line is that I’m a Mark Shea fan and a Rush Limbaugh fan. So what does that make me?

I trust Mark will respond.  I'll fill you in if he doesn't do it here.

Comments

[Peter Sean Bradley]

I'm a fan of Mark Shea.

I didn't start out agreeing with Shea on his caustic attacks on neo-conservatives, but over his time, he's brought me substantially in his direction on the torture, crack-down on civil liberties, etc., because I think he's consistent in his critique and he's more right than he's wrong.

I tend to be a Hawk, so this has been a matter of letting my faith take precedence over my nationalism.

[Ted Seeber]

Michael Voris of Real Catholic TV already has that title.