Hating Rush Limbaugh

The Daily Caller reported yesterday on public radio employee Sarah Spitz's desire to watch Rush Limbaugh die:

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.

But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

What's genuinely shocking about Spitz's comments is not just their graphic detail, but the fact that she wrote these words while Limbaugh was being rushed to the hospital with chest pains. (The Daily Caller story doesn't give the date of Spitz's email, but the story's author, Jonathan Strong, confirms that Spitz's email was in response to news that Limbaugh was in the hospital.)

Spitz didn't make some sort of abstract "drop dead" insult, but genuinely wished to watch a man--whose life may have been in immediate peril--die. Apparently no one on Journolist rebuked Spitz. In fact, her sentiment wasn't unusual. The Daily Caller reported on reporter David Weigel's response:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh famously said he hoped President Obama would “fail” in January, 2009. Almost a year later, when Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital with chest pains, Washington Post reporter David Weigel had a wish of his own. “I hope he fails,” Weigel cracked to fellow liberal reporters on the “Journolist” email list-serv.

“Too soon?” he wondered.

Weigel, for his part, is contrite about his "joke." Asked if he had personally apologized to Limbaugh, Weigel wrote in an email to TWS: "Not personally -- I wrote my Big Journalism piece in the wake of that and apologized to everyone in there. I apologize to him now. It was a mean and stupid thing to joke about."

Here's Spitz's official "apology":

I made poorly considered remarks about Rush Limbaugh to what I believed was a private email discussion group from my personal email account. As a publicist, I realize more than anyone that is no excuse for irresponsible behavior. I apologize to anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments greatly; they do not reflect the values by which I conduct my life.

She apologizes to "anyone I may have offended." She can't bring herself to directly apologize to Limbaugh. The Washington Examiner gets Limbaugh's reaction to the Daily Caller story: "Not having wished anyone dead, nor having fantasized about watching someone die, I cannot possibly relate to this."

I know that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart, but I really can't imagine any conservative I know wishing that Keith Olbermann would die while he was being rushed to the hospital. Could one of the Journolisters please try to explain why they demonize Limbaugh and hate him so much?