Posted by Niall O'Dowd at 8/28/2009 4:42 AM EDT

So Rush Limbaugh is gleefully patting himself on the back because Ted Kennedy died as he predicted before healthcare legislation will be passed. Now he is predicting that Kennedy's death will be used to pass healthcare reform.

Maybe he needs another Vicodin — or ten — to calm down.

He should be ashamed of himself — but bigots never are. As a "recovering" drug addict himself, Limbaugh should know that illness and death are usually off the partisan agenda when it comes to American standards of decency.

There is a fundamental line you do not cross when someone dies: You do not in any way try to exploit that death to score a cheap political point.

I know Ted Kennedy was controversial, but using his death as a rallying cry against healthcare reform is a step too far.

But I would expect little else from the bloated failure Limbaugh, who has almost single-handedly created the culture of right wing hatred in America today.

His incendiary remarks on his radio show are intended to fire up the many right wing nut jobs who tune in to him. They are the kind of lunatics who scream about “keeping government hands off Medicare,” failing to realize it’s a government program to begin with.

Of course, there are left-wing radicals and idiots as well, but none have the platform, or the "medicine" cabinet, that the four-times-married and failed Rush has.

His latest attempt to inflame tensions in the wake of Kennedy's tragic death is the worst political gambit yet from this obese, ugly king of crapola.

His hatred-filled diatribe against Kennedy only serves to further inflame tensions at a time when we badly need an adult conversation about healthcare. Principled conservatives like John McCain know that and have adopted a brave bipartisan approach to deal with the many problems we currently have.

Limbaugh instead has taken the world's greatest cheap shot against a man who cannot answer him anymore, and who embodied the effort to make healthcare affordable for all.

You don't have to agree with Ted Kennedy or even like him, but to insult the memory of a dead man is lowball tactics of a kind that you'd think even a sleaze like Limbaugh wouldn't dare to sink to.

Apparently, we're wrong about that.