Rushing to a false dichotomy

I listen to Rush Limbaugh every once in a while. I find him mildly entertainly mostly and occasionally irritating. Yesterday (1/20/04) he made two comments that were not out of ignorance, but instead, I believe, out of a need to inflame.
His first comment was an offhand remark about global warming. I believe that Rush reads enough to understand the concept that the earth is a zero sum system. It's warmer in one place and colder in another. He made the comment that someone (I have forgotten who now) was making a speech on global warming in New York City on a very cold day. He apparently thought that was hilarious. I thought that, ironically, he was making the speakers point for him. Rush defending the libs (i.e. liberals)?? Never. I guess he's just pandering to those who don't understand. How much harder to help people to understand when trusted people like him won't be open to possibility that they don't have to understand something for it to be real. You must be a pointy-headed liberal to believe in things like global warming, or to trust that there are people who know more than you do.
Miracles, in such a case, are the purvue of such pointy-headed liberals since they cannot be understood by reasoning. They are beyond explanation. So the whole water to wine thing that Jesus pulled off in John, chapter 2 and the five thousand plus folks who were fed with a mere five loaves and two fish in Luke, chapter 9: all just myth and folklore, I suppose.
Rush's genius is in reducing his opponents to mere caricatures of themselves. He has clever, demeaning names for those who stand in his line of fire: John Kerry, aka "the French looking candidate" and John Edwards, aka "the Breck girl" are just a couple of examples. I find him a lot more clever when he argues the merits of his case and disappointing and tired when all he can muster is childish name-calling. Maybe I just haven't been listening to the right stations, but I don't hear anyone calling him names the way he does to everyone else.
Yesterday he also went on a tear about John Edwards' comments on hunger in America. Rush pointed out what we already know: we have a lot of overweight kids in this country. I certainly don't argue with him there; we do. But he then went on to say that since we have so many fat kids, we couldn't possibly have a hunger problem. He linked two things that do not necessarily correlate.
It is a false dichotomy to say that fat kids prove no hunger. We live in a country that, despite its tremendous wealth, has many people who struggle to make ends meet, and that includes money for groceries. Saying that since many kids are overweight, all kids have enough food is no more realistic than to say that since some people abuse drugs, all people are taking drugs. Really...doesn't that sound crazy? We know that not everyone can afford to see a doctor, let alone get proper medication. Why then should we deny the existence of hunger in a country repleat with chubby children?
We deny it because it doesn't feel right. We deny it because we can't believe it. But not believing it does not negate the reality. Spin it all you want, Rush, but when my youth group goes to serve lunch at the homeless shelter in 10 days, I am sorry to say that there will be people there who need the help. Fat kids OR hungry kids? No. They are both real problems existing at the same time in the same country. Come down off the Attila The Hun chair some time and check out the real world. You'll be unpleasantly surprised, but you'll be better off for it.