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# Rush Limbaugh to give SMC commencement address
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/rush-limbaugh-to-give-smc-commencement-address/
- Published: 2005-04-01T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:32:03.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*Beef jerky, gun assoc. to represent at lecture*

*By MICHAEL FUSS A special slave to the Daily Planet*

Calling all ditto-heads. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has accepted an invitation to be the commencement speaker Santa Monica College’s class of 2005 May 31 graduation ceremony. Limbaugh will receive a large, but unspecified honorarium for the engagement that he will donate to a cause of his choosing, according to SMC spokesperson Bruce Jones.

Senior administration and faculty members at the college are discounting claims of insensitivity and poor priority setting made by local community-based groups that represent women, minorities and the homeless.

“Limbaugh has made a fortune at the expense of the less fortunate,” said Galvin Forthright, director of Santa Monica’s Home Ownership for All. “Inviting him to step foot in this city is a sacrilege and completely negates the message that Santa Monica has broadcast to the nation — that Santa Monica is the place to come when you’ve run out of other options.”

Other groups were critical of Limbaugh’s sarcasm and the “degrading slang” he uses in his on-the-air skits and monologs.

“We resent Limbaugh’s insensitive diatribes against the feminists and environmentalists,” said Moe Fweggie, director of the Santa Monica Coalition for Environmental and Social Justice. “They often start with a musical bumper of a popular song with lyrics that have been rewritten to make light of the struggles we face today.”

Another anti-Limbaugh organization, the Vegetarians for Peace, plan to disrupt Limbaugh’s commencement address by showing up early and taking a dominating presence in the front rows dressed in costumes depicting fruits and vegetables.

“I think a row of chanting, angry carrots, up in the front and in his face will keep him from being able to spew any of this toxic waste,” said Saul Menellow, the group’s vice-president.

Despite that sources said the move was credited to City Councilman Bobby Coniver, SMC’s Young Republican Club acknowledged the idea to invite Limbaugh to give the commencement address originated with them and required a great deal of lobbying to get approval from the school’s administration.

“We have every right to have a speaker that reflects our values,” said Donna Maven, rotating president of the 10-member Republican organization. “When you live in a place like Santa Monica, all you hear is the liberal perspective — and that’s not what getting a balanced education is about. It’s important to at least listen to different points of view — something that seems to forgotten too much not only on this campus, but the entire Santa Monica community.”

However, city bureaucrats maintain that everything is fine.

“I don’t have any information about that, but I can tell you that everything is just peachy in the city by the sea,” said City Hall public information officer Trudy Ramblinon.

When asked whether the attendance would be large enough to justify the large honorarium that would be paid to Limbaugh, Maven said she has already received offers of financial support from the Orange County Republican Student’s Club as well as their assurance that all seats in the SMC auditorium would be filled.

Maven said she also received offers of support form the Leatherman’s Beef Jerky Distributor’s Association, which markets its products at gun shows throughout the Southwestern United States.

Maven said the SMC administration and campus security would work with her to insure that pro-Rush supporters would not be seated next to any anti-Rush demonstrators.

“I’ve been a history major here for the last ten years,” Maven said, “and we’ve never tried to create this kind of havoc during the numerous times that there’s been a left-leaning speaker at our commencement ceremonies. But now that we’re finally going to have our say, we’re going to make his message gets out loud and clear.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/040105.pdf?ref=smdp.com)