In email Greg also made a couple of points. One I had alluded to earlier, that Roy Black has pretty much admitted that Rush bought drugs from Cline. An odd legal defense - admitting guilt.
He also writes, with respect to this paragraph on Limbaugh's back surgery:
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At a hearing Monday, Black said his client suffered from a degenerative disc disease with "pain so great at one point doctors thought he had bone
cancer," but Limbaugh chose to take painkillers rather than have surgery. Surgery to reach the affected part of Limbaugh's spine could have threatened his voice and his career as a commentator, Black said.
In response, Greg writes:
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Limbaugh's initial claim that he became hooked on painkillers after back surgery has always been shrouded in a little mystery, as he's never explained when and where he had that surgery, and there don't seem to be any articles about it from the time period when he suggest he had it ('94 - '96). At some point in the development of this story, the notion of an additional surgery raised - the one that would have had to go through his neck and possibly jeapordize his voice/career. But the initial surgery never gets mentioned, and if this AP summary of Black's is accurate, he doesn't acknowledge it either. Instead, he seems to be suggesting that Limbaugh's addiction started not after taking pills in the wake of back surgery, but
from avoiding surgery altogether...
Given all the confusion, it'd be nice if one of the reporters covering the story actually provided some substantive info on the alleged initial back
surgery....
For more back surgery background see here.