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The Other (And Even More Hateful) Rush

WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush manages to outdo the original in his vicious attacks of Barack Obama and others -- even likening the president to a rapist.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 12/18/2009


Looking at the biographical details Erik Rush has provided about himself, one wonders: How does he make a living?

As his personal website states: "Born in New York City in 1961, from 1975 to 1985 columnist and author Erik Rush was a club, stage and studio musician. He's also been involved in biomedical research, sales, marketing and media production." None of that speaks of lucrative employment, nor does it explain how he can afford to be a WorldNetDaily columnist, which almost assuredly does not pay a living wage. Rush's books include one published by a print-on-demand house, as well as one (apparently available via a real publisher) advocating that the U.S. annex Mexico. That does not bespeak of subsistence either.

Rush's only apparent claim to fame -- as stated in the second paragraph of his bio -- is not a profitable one either (thus far, anyway): "Erik was the first to break the story of President (then Senator) Barack Obama's ties to militant Chicago preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright on a national level in February of 2007." And even then, Rush was hauling out the smears, saying on an appearance with Fox News' Sean Hannity that Wright's church was "something that you'd see in more like a cult."

Nevertheless, WND touted that as a reason for adding Rush as a regular columnist in March 2008. His column is named "The Other Rush," a feeble attempt to ride the coattails of Rush Limbaugh. But Limbaugh arguably rarely displays venomous anger to the extent Erik Rush has.

Erik Rush

Before there was Obama to kick around, however, Rush got his start at WND looking down on rap music. A May 2003 column took an elitist view on the subject, dismissing rap as "no more a substantive or integral part of black culture than pimpery or drug addiction" and "one of the lowest forms of so-called 'art' born of a culture that labels urine-immersed religious icons and public sex acts with root vegetables as art." Rap performers are dismissed as "gesticulating, unhygienic illiterates" and "undereducated, foul-mouthed, marginally-talented thugs." He also claimed that rap comes from an urban culture where "entitlement programs and class envy are firmly entrenched," and that anyone who likes or promotes rap is "culturally impoverished."

By contrast, he writes of himself: "I started teaching myself piano when I was about six, and now play five instruments. I'm currently working on the sixth." Indeed, he paints himself as a failed former professional musician pretending that he had too much integrity to make it in the biz: "Years later, as a semi-professional musician frustrated with the degree to which I perceived I would have to compromise my artistic integrity to avoid living in a Maytag box while working in the music industry, I made a passing – but prophetic – comment to a bandmate: 'Before you know it, people are going to be making millions spouting that foul-mouthed crap we used to hear out on the stoop – and we'll still be trying to get our foot in the door.'" Bitter much, Erik?

Rush also liked to hurl Nazi smears, such as in a December 2005 column likening those to criticized the idea of a "war on Christmas" -- press release-generated though it might be -- to Holocaust deniers and Nazis: "To me, that sounds a lot like the pre-World War II assertions that the Jews were the name of Germany's pain and the postwar contention that the Holocaust was a Zionist fabrication." Rush added: "Yet the incremental attainment of power on the part of the Nazis in Germany, their duplicity and their denials during their early days parallels the actions of the Left in recent years to a chilling degree, particularly concerning their vociferous denials with respect to attacks on Christianity."

Rush brings that same spirit of bitterness and denigration to his attacks on Obama. From a Feb. 5 WND column:

Having Barack Obama as our first black president is analogous to Dennis Rodman having been America's first black basketball player. No one can deny Mr. Rodman's credentials as an outstanding basketball player, unless one is a mental deficient. However, no one can deny that he is also a skanky creep, unless one is a mental deficient bereft of any character whatsoever.

[...]

Then, this pretentious clown (and I mean that in the most Ringling Brothers sort of way) publicly ripped into corporate executives for the economic problems the world is facing to perpetuate the myth that they are responsible, when he knows – he knows – that the Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (the only senator to take more from Fannie Mae than Obama himself) contingent in Congress actually brought it all about. It is his own party that gingerly and eagerly flicked the first domino with its augmentation of the Community Reinvestment Act.

To the informed, this is not a matter of giving a new president the benefit of the doubt to see if he'll "make good" and "do what's right" for America. The informed have known since 2007 (if not earlier) that Barack Obama is the worst of the Democratic left, a practiced liar and a Marxist.

[...]

This national Obamagasm is like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" or "Star Trek" (the original): Only one, or perhaps a select few, recognize the monster for what it is; everyone else is either oblivious, or somehow paying slavish deference to it. By the time it is unmasked, the damage it has done is incalculable.

Oh, but Rush's Obama-hate is just getting warmed up.

After a March 5 column in which asserted that "President (I use the term loosely) Barack Obama was voted in by guilted whites and brainwashed blacks. He might even be an illegal alien," Rush followed up on March 12 by likening Obama to a rapist:

Despite the evidence that Obama was a closet communist, at this point I presumed he'd have settled into being something slightly more to the left than Bill Clinton and work his evil incrementally.

[...]

Indeed – like the proverbial cellblock rapist, our president is "ramming" as much of his Marxist agenda down our collective throats as quickly as he can. One would think he fears that someone might come around the corner at any second and catch him.

Rush's September 3 column recounted the case of O.J. Simpson, calling him a "pathological narcissist for whom whimsy, pleasure and image were paramount" -- then likened Obama to him:

Many Americans, and even a few trained in behavioral science, have identified President Obama as a deeply pathological narcissist. He has also managed to masterfully control his environment. While his detractors contend that his façade has been maintained by a complicit press, this may only be partially true. According to experts, the profoundly narcissistic frequently astonish casual observers when the extent of control they have been able to maintain over their environment (primarily, people close to them) is finally revealed.

Rush also has a habit of embracing paranoid conspiracy theories. He used his March 26 column to promote the idea that Obama "is going to great lengths to ruin us on purpose," adding: "It could be that President Obama, rather than comparing himself to FDR or Lincoln, as others are wont to do, likens himself to George Washington – or perhaps Vladimir Lenin."

And it goes on:

It's clear Barack Obama has never considered himself an American, though, ironically, he managed to get himself elected president of the United States.

-- April 9 column

The worst, however, and the most atrocious lie our president has told – or is likely to tell – is the one that follows:

I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

That would be the oath of office he took on Jan. 20, 2009. Instead of supporting and defending the Constitution, he perforated it. You can guess what he's been doing with the pieces – every day since he was sworn in.

-- June 11 column

I recall an episode of the 1970s documentary "Scared Straight" in which one of the teenage subjects (whom the authorities were attempting to turn from his evil ways via direct exposure to convicts) divulged that it was his intention to enroll in technical school to learn about security systems. That way, he reasoned, he would have carte blanche with respect to any establishment he wished to rob.

So I believe was the objective of one young Barack Hussein Obama when he set about the study of constitutional law. This does make sense; in many ways, President Obama's machinations have been akin to those of a stalker or bullying neighbor who has sufficient knowledge of the law to keep his actions just inside the law, while smugly flouting all notions of morality and ethics.

-- Aug. 6 column

As I have affirmed previously, the apparent confidence on the part of far-lefters that each and every one of them, from door-to-door canvassers to those who hold high office, are going to be among the unassailable elite in the New Order is positively mind-boggling. Many of us now take it as a given that Obama has been a dedicated Marxist for all of his adult life, and that it is his intention to insinuate as much government into American institutions, and the lives of Americans, as possible.

-- Oct. 29 column

The administration of President Obama, folks such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rep. Barney Frank and the Democratic leadership in Congress are participating in something bigger than they are as well – but it is anything but good. They are currently engaged in the process of dismantling the superstructure of our nation, which has been the most fruitful, dynamic and just system yet devised, and replacing it with a soulless monolith that has proven itself to be morally, spiritually and economically stultifying everywhere similar structures have been erected. In it, people such as the above and their collaborators will rule rather than govern, and those who are now seeking positive change and competent leadership from them will discover that they have chosen nothing less than tyranny. It is both heartrending and horrifying that they have around half of America's electorate convinced that their intentions are good, but that in which they are engaging is patently evil.

Yes – evil. I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again – a term which the aforementioned half of America has been conditioned to believe is a relative one.

-- Nov. 26 column

Rush has made similar attacks on members of the Obama administration and other Democrats. He claimed to suspect that Nancy Pelosi "has some trouble walking and keeping her heart beating at the same time," called Kevin Jennings (target of numerous false claims by WND) a "radical homosexual druggie," and wrote of Attorney General Eric Holder: "[S]uffice it to say that Eric Holder is but another floatie in the septic tank that is the Obama administration, albeit a pretty significant one."

That's right -- Rush called Holder a piece of shit.

Anyone who may have ever hinted at anything less than Rush's own burning hatred of Obama could be a target. In his May 14 column, Rush called comedian Wanda Sykes and Internet gossip Perez Hilton "surrogates" of Obama ,who "instill fear into the collective American subconscious." Rush offered no evidence that Sykes and Hilton are working under the direct orders of Obama or are speaking for him -- you know, the common definition of surrogate.

And Rush declared in his Dec. 17 column that "it's pretty much time for a war on the Hollywood left and their political affiliates," adding: "When I see Matt Damon, Danny Glover or some other celebrity in front of a camera, hawking their latest social-justice effort with wide-eyed enthusiasm, I am reminded of baby chimps – yes, chimpanzees – playing with a brightly colored Fisher-Price® toy for the first time. They resemble thinking human beings superficially, but there is no real cognition to speak of going on there."

Rush is also not afraid to stray from the facts to make his points. In his April 23 column, Rush insisted that the "tea parties" earlier that month were "anti-spending ... (as opposed to anti-government or anti-Obama, as characterized in the press)." In fact, to most observers, they looked rather anti-Obama (not to mention a bit anti-Semitic).

in an Oct. 29 column, Rush embraced right-wing talking points about an incident in which White House correspondents came to the defense of Fox News in order to make sure the Fox News reporter was included in an interview with White House “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg. As Rush put it: "The White House's intention was that all members of the White House press pool would be allowed to participate in the interviews with Feinberg – all, that is, except for Fox News."

The truth, however, is much less sinister. As Talking Points Memo reported at the time (which Rush failed to acknowledge):

Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).

But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who'd asked for the interview.

The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn't on the list, was told that they hadn't asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox's Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.

Simple as that, we're told, and the networks don't want to be seen as heroes for Fox.

Like any good smear merchant, Rush has attempted a pre-emptive defense. In his Sept. 17 column, he wrote: "Attempts on the part of the political left to characterize all who oppose Obama as fringe elements and racists are among the most craven, loathsome exertions I have ever witnessed." And in his Dec. 10 column, he asserted: "My personal philosophy is that the practice of hatred is decidedly unconstructive and unhealthy. In fact, my spiritual beliefs all but forbid it."

But isn't even more craven and loathsome -- not to mention the very definition of hatred -- to liken the president of the United States to a rapist and a murderer and literally calling one of his officials a piece of shit?

Rush went on to lament: "Since Obama took office, any pretense of shame, propriety or decorum has gone out the window." It's unclear whether Rush considered this to be an ironic statement, since Rush's WND columns have been little more than a demonstration of his own lack of shame, propriety and decorum.

Since that has proven all too profitable for other right-wingers before him (including his quasi-namesake), perhaps Erik Rush has decided to try and make that his road to riches.

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