"If it was their intention to prosecute?" reports Dealey, "they would have done so already. Their office policy, Krischer continued, was not to prosecute the drug addict, but to go after the pusher."
The media's reports of Limbaugh's addiction elicited such howls, however, that Krischer suddenly changed his mind. Now Limbaugh, the recovering addict, was Public Enemy Number One. The West Palm Beach prosecutor went after Limbaugh's medical records from four doctors, skirting the subpoena process. His office released confidential correspondence between the prosecutor and Limbaugh's lawyer. Mysteriously portions of Limbaugh's medical records popped up all over cable television for a day or two.
Not a peep of protest from the Floyd Abramses of the world was heard, and the silence remains as Limbaugh continues to defend himself against this obvious harassment.
That brings me to another of Bob Bartley's beliefs. He thought that the institutions of the Old Order, that is to say the institutions of moribund liberalism, were passing. He thought the New Order, that is to say rising libertarian conservatism, was going to have to establish its own institutions -- at least, for the most part. Thus it is incumbent on nonliberals to defend the First Amendment.
We are fortunate that the ACLU has gone to the defense of Limbaugh. To assume other First Amendment defenders are going to play their part is futile. The time is now for the friends of personal liberty to remonstrate against the prosecutorial excess being practiced in West Palm Beach.
What Krischer is doing is wrong. It is a threat to the rule of law and to free speech. Limbaugh should be treated as any other recovering addict might be. Let us hear from the commentators of the New Order.