Pubdate: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL) Copyright: 2006 The Palm Beach Post Contact: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333 Author: Frank Cerabino, Palm Beach Post Columnist Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain) TIME FOR LIMBAUGH, COULTER TO BE MODEL CITIZENS I feel bad for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office. The way things are going, it might make good sense to create a prosecutorial unit called the Right-Wing Pundit Office of Aggravated Mopery. Things used to be simpler before national scolds like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh moved here and began exhibiting their boundless hubris and flexible personal virtues in our midst. It's so much easier for prosecutors to deal with the real business of the day: street crime committed by people with dead-end lives, little education and rotten futures. That's the bread-and-butter of state court o not highfalutin Palm Beach gasbags with self-administered personal exemptions to the law. I'm sure Barry Krischer and his staff of prosecutors would be thrilled if Coulter and Limbaugh would either just sell their homes or try being the model citizens they pretend to be. For Coulter, that would mean using her actual address on her voter's registration. For Limbaugh, it means an end to being so creative with his meds. Monday, two months after Limbaugh accepted a probation offer to settle a doctor-shopping case involving his addiction to prescription pain pills, he was detained at Palm Beach International Airport for having 29 Viagra pills prescribed to his doctor. I guess Limbaugh doesn't only have a bad back. This is what happens to a guy who spends 14 solid years obsessing about Hillary Clinton. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office turned the matter over to prosecutors. Maybe there's a plausible explanation. So far, Limbaugh is playing it for laughs. "I'm trying to figure out how Bob Dole's luggage got on my airplane," he said, then launched into his second one-liner: "I told the doctor, I was worried about the next election." This, you can be sure, is only his opening gambit. If Krischer's office pursues the case, you can bet that Limbaugh will dust off his recently retired witch-hunt defense. It's all so tedious. Coulter, who came to Limbaugh's defense in his previous prescription caper, wrote a piece last December called "Why Can't I Get Arrested?" "What's a girl to do to become a 'person of interest' around here?" Coulter wrote. "Mr. Krischer, where do I go to get rid of my reputation?" Two months later, she voted in the wrong Palm Beach precinct - using the address of her Realtor, rather than disclosing where she really lives on the island. Voting in the wrong precinct and having somebody else's prescription are, technically speaking, criminal acts. But going after Limbaugh and Coulter is such a chore, such a thankless task of trying to get people who ought to know better simply to behave like grown-ups and take responsibility for their actions. Instead, Coulter has hired former federal prosecutor Marcos Jimenez, a lawyer from the Miami firm that helped George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential Recount, to clean up her voting irregularity; and Limbaugh has gone back to veteran criminal defense attorney Roy Black, to mop up his prescription troubles. I know it's not easy being Coulter or Limbaugh. Painting people such as combat veteran John Murtha and 9/11 widows as traitors is tough work. But it would be awfully adult of Coulter and Limbaugh to exhibit a little more compassion to the local prosecutor's office. Just a little personal responsibility is all it would take. Is that too much to ask? - --- MAP posted-by: Steve Heath