Newsweek 'Gaggle' Blogger Snarks About Rush Limbaugh Courthouse, U.S. Attorney Row

Rush H. Limbaugh, Sr., only had a storied legal career, the respect of Missouri Democrats and Republicans, and a stint of service to his country as Eisenhower's ambassador to India.

But to Newsweek's Holly Bailey, President Bush signing a bill naming a federal courthouse in honor of Rush Limbaugh's grandfather was a substantial distraction from the real "people's business" in Washington:

Never mind the whole U.S. attorneys' mess: President Bush is busy doing the work of the people. What's he up to? On Wednesday afternoon, the White House press office forwarded reporters this nugget from the president's schedule:

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

On Wednesday, March 21, 2007 the President signed into law:

H.R. 342, which designates the United States courthouse in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as the Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse.

Bailey cleared up any confusion for readers who might be unaware that Rush Limbaugh is the third in a line of Rush Hudson Limbaughs, and that his grandfather was a hard-working and well-respected pillar of the legal community in southeastern Missouri who died 11 years ago at age 104.

But in closing her March 21 "Gaggle" blog post, Bailey snarked that it's "Good to know that the president isn't letting another little scandal distract him from the people's business." [continued...]

Of course, courthouses and post offices are named in honor of distinguished dead and living Americans all the time, but this time around the ceremony is a risible distraction in Bailey's eyes.

What's more, it doesn't occur to Bailey that maybe it's the mainstream media's obsessive single-minded focus on the U.S. Attorney row that's crowding out reporting on the nation's business in Washington.

Such as, I dunno, the defense supplemental for the war in Iraq.

Nah, can't let the people's business take the media's attention away from drawing out the latest non-scandal scandal.