Limbaugh Lauded For “Exceptionally Impressive Fist Pumping Skills” As Miss America Judge

There’s a significant report in Politico this morning, titled “CIA moonlights in a corporate world,” which describes a “never-before-revealed policy” in which CIA operatives are being given “a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side — a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation’s top-level intelligence talent.”

Troubling, for sure. A must-read. All those things.

Yet, the Politico report that actually made me balk this morning, the one that made me think to myself, “Are you serious? That’s so disturbing” was this one, titled “Limbaugh Lets Loose,” apparently a couple days old, but shocking nonetheless.

Apparently, years of bombastic hate talk won’t only make you a wildly popular speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, it also makes you qualified to be a judge for the Miss America Pageant, which, in case you missed it, took place last Thursday.

Evidently, the pageant includes a competition within the competition, in which the pageant judges vie for the title “Best Judge.”

According to Politico, this included a “dance-off” in which “Limbaugh stood up and boogied to Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ alongside fellow judge Vivica A. Fox.”

He was, apparently, very good.

“Rush Limbaugh has exceptionally impressive fist pumping skills,” tweeted Miss America Live.

First of all, What the hell?

Second of all … No, seriously, what the hell??

There really is little to say about this, but it’s a pretty sad indication of the irrelevance of the Miss America pageant when whatever press it gets after the fact — it ended on Saturday, apparently — is dominated by the unlikely gyrating of a grotesque bigot.

Sample headline from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Miss America 2010 Winner: Rush Limbaugh dancing to Lady Gaga

Limbaugh's much-lauded fist-pumping skills

Wow! I haven’t seen moves like that since Tom DeLay’s ass-shaking on Dancing with the Stars!

… Anyway. So. What was that about the CIA again?

The policy gives agents a chance to earn more while still staying on the government payroll.

Well, that’s nice.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Grammy slideshow to watch.