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Rush Limbaugh | Voice of the GOP?

Reverend Rick

Frubal Whore
Premium Member
I had a thought: conservatives started to jump Bill Maher only after Limbaugh's episode, and Maher donated a million dollars to Obama, asking why does the left seem to think that it was ok for Maher to attack Palin and such. But, he said those things over a year ago, so, where was the outrage then? That seems somewhat, odd, to me. I wonder if it didn't have anything to do with Maher donating that money to Obama.
So should we line these folks up and shoot them with politically correct bullets? I said Rush needs to write a check, it is the least he could do for all the attention he got. He most likely has more listeners because of it. The man apologised, he said he was wrong, What do you want to do, take him off the air? He will just go on Sirius and make even more money.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I note that it isn't so much as what offense is committed, but rather whose team the offender plays for.
A con like Rush says some bad words, & the media jump up to cry foul. Lefties like Bill Maher, Michael Feldman,
Bill Clinton, etc say similarly bad words, & they're excused because of convenient exculpating differences.
I take the simpleton's view.....stupid & cruel speech is always wrong. (I try to avoid it, & often succeed.)

Btw, Sandra Fluke was more of a 'public figure' than was Joe The Plumber when he received improper scrutiny.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Thats just it Rev, no one is defending what Rush said, including Rush.
I find it a good sign that he may commit a nasty faux pas, be called on the carpet,
sincerely apologize, & then life goes on. Free speech is a messy thing, but I like it.
 

dyanaprajna2011

Dharmapala
So should we line these folks up and shoot them with politically correct bullets? I said Rush needs to write a check, it is the least he could do for all the attention he got. He most likely has more listeners because of it. The man apologised, he said he was wrong, What do you want to do, take him off the air? He will just go on Sirius and make even more money.

This is my point:

Bill Maher: comedian
Rush Limbaugh: political commentator

Bill Maher: does what he does to get laughs
Rush Limbaugh: does what he does to further a political cause

Bill Maher: political ideal that has generally stood for women's rights, hence, the irony in what he said
Rush Limbaugh: political ideal that has generally not stood for women's rights, hence the prejudice in what he said

So, do I think Rush Limbaugh was in the wrong whereas Bill Maher wasn't? Yes. Just like, while I generally disdain usage of the "N" word, I found no offense or disdain when George Carlin said it. This isn't such a black and white thing, the biggest difference is what each person does and why. Bill Maher is a known liberal, so making a crack at a few women, like Palin or Bachman, is humor in irony. It wouldn't have worked so well had he done the same thing to Michelle Obama, which I also wouldn't have had a problem with.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
This is my point:

Bill Maher: comedian
Rush Limbaugh: political commentator

Bill Maher: does what he does to get laughs
Rush Limbaugh: does what he does to further a political cause

Bill Maher: political ideal that has generally stood for women's rights, hence, the irony in what he said
Rush Limbaugh: political ideal that has generally not stood for women's rights, hence the prejudice in what he said
I don't think Maher & Limbaugh are as different as that. Actually, I'd say they have pretty similar roles, ie, political commentary
& entertainment.....except that Rush had funnier bits on his show (as I recall the "updates" from over a decade ago).
Offensive speech is still offensive speech.
 

dyanaprajna2011

Dharmapala
I don't think Maher & Limbaugh are as different as that. Actually, I'd say they have pretty similar roles, ie, political commentary
& entertainment.....except that Rush had funnier bits on his show (as I recall the "updates" from over a decade ago).
Offensive speech is still offensive speech.

I won't disagree with you that offensive speech is offensive speech, but then, where do you draw the line? Is it arbitrary? And especially for comedians, this is an important issue. I think the reason why I tend to go easier on Maher, is not because both he and I are liberals, but because he performs the kind of stand up that I quite enjoy. People like George Carlin, Lewis Black, Russell Peters, Carlos Mencia, comics who have no problem pointing out the flaws in others and having fun at their expense. So it's a bit harder for me to view Maher as much as a political commentator as he is a comedian.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I won't disagree with you that offensive speech is offensive speech, but then, where do you draw the line? Is it arbitrary?
The line is hard to define, but Limbaugh is no less the entertainer than Maher, & the latter is no less the political commentator than the former.
I do expect higher standards from those whose positions require balance, eg, newscasters, leaders. Rush doesn't strike me as leading anything.

And especially for comedians, this is an important issue. I think the reason why I tend to go easier on Maher, is not because both he and I are liberals, but because he performs the kind of stand up that I quite enjoy. People like George Carlin, Lewis Black, Russell Peters, Carlos Mencia, comics who have no problem pointing out the flaws in others and having fun at their expense. So it's a bit harder for me to view Maher as much as a political commentator as he is a comedian.
Bill Maher is a comedian? Ya know, I've heard that before, but the only sign of humor I see is that he smirks a lot when he talks.
 

Reverend Rick

Frubal Whore
Premium Member
I won't disagree with you that offensive speech is offensive speech, but then, where do you draw the line? Is it arbitrary? And especially for comedians, this is an important issue. I think the reason why I tend to go easier on Maher, is not because both he and I are liberals, but because he performs the kind of stand up that I quite enjoy. People like George Carlin, Lewis Black, Russell Peters, Carlos Mencia, comics who have no problem pointing out the flaws in others and having fun at their expense. So it's a bit harder for me to view Maher as much as a political commentator as he is a comedian.
I don't think the issue is who is more out of line, all these folks take issues as far as they can and promote their opinions to one degree or another. The thing you seem to miss here is Rush is not trying to change the world, he is selling his extreme opinions to the highest bidder. Rush is a shock jock like Howard Stern. Howard Stern sells sexual subjects while Rush sells political subjects.
 

dyanaprajna2011

Dharmapala
I don't think the issue is who is more out of line, all these folks take issues as far as they can and promote their opinions to one degree or another. The thing you seem to miss here is Rush is not trying to change the world, he is selling his extreme opinions to the highest bidder. Rush is a shock jock like Howard Stern. Howard Stern sells sexual subjects while Rush sells political subjects.

I can see this being the case.
 

dyanaprajna2011

Dharmapala
The line is hard to define, but Limbaugh is no less the entertainer than Maher, & the latter is no less the political commentator than the former.
I do expect higher standards from those whose positions require balance, eg, newscasters, leaders. Rush doesn't strike me as leading anything.

This makes sense.

Bill Maher is a comedian? Ya know, I've heard that before, but the only sign of humor I see is that he smirks a lot when he talks.

Some people love him, some people hate him. Ah, what'r ya gonna do? :p
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
I don't think the issue is who is more out of line, all these folks take issues as far as they can and promote their opinions to one degree or another. The thing you seem to miss here is Rush is not trying to change the world, he is selling his extreme opinions to the highest bidder. Rush is a shock jock like Howard Stern. Howard Stern sells sexual subjects while Rush sells political subjects.
The biggest absurdity of modern conservatism is that ALL of it's public personalities -- politicians, publications, radio show hosts, TV (Fox) news, and even high traffic count bloggers, are welfare bums, dependent on the crumbs thrown from the table by wealthy oligarchs. Limbaugh is no different! He doesn't earn his money in any honest sense of the word; he gets payed by his network which has always had to offer generously discounted air time to advertisers who will put spots on his show. The only question today is whether the rich rightwingers who have funded the dissemination of their message to the public are losing interest in talk radio completely, since no one is listening to a.m. radio anymore, and looking to focus their propaganda energies more for the TV/internet audience. Howard Stern is another money-losing propagandist that someone with big bucks was willing to pay for to bring to satellite radio....nice to see how well their investment is paying off:D

Enough of that....there are lots of cogs in the wheel of the Right Wing Noise Machine, and Rush was just the biggest....and the fattest. The modern history of right wing propaganda started with the creation of the conservative "think tanks" which honed their message and succeeded in presenting it to the average person as a reasonable argument for economic freedom. So we start with the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute (an interesting side issue here is lately Cato's directors are sqawking that their main funders - the Koch Brothers, are changing the Board to consolidate control...also another topic though). Anyway, the think tanks had their publications, starting with William F. Buckley's National Review, which could not exist without the generous subsidies of their well heeled donors. Buckley even admitted so much at a black tie fundraiser for National Review a few years ago before he kicked the bucket:
Speaking about support, Mr. Buckley recalled that about a week ago, at an affair celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Review, he had divulged that the National Review had lost about $25 million over 50 years, or about $500,000 a year - "about the cost of one third of one torpedo." He said people who backed the enterprise volunteered money over the years: "Our dear donors and friends had a sort of genius for exactly estimating how much money we needed to survive," because, Mr. Buckley said, they never gave one dollar more than was necessary.

He further recalled that when "God and Man at Yale" was published by Regnery, a foundation donated $1,000 to help promote the book. There followed an essay on the subject in the New Leader asking why the free enterprise entity of Henry Regnery required subsidies.

An 'Encounter' With Conservative Publishing - The New York Sun

It's a shame that this little blurb about a fancy schmansy cocktail party with the aristocrats of New York went by virtually unnoticed, because what Buckley revealed in his likely alcohol-induced confession, was that none of his life's works followed any sort of accepted free enterprise model. Buckley was in reality, no different than the liberal university professors he had so much scorn for...except that the tenured professor had more freedom to express their ideas than Buckley....who had to always be looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't offend a wealthy beneficiary. Those donors he mentioned were just the special contributions to top up the tank, the whole operation at a publication like National Review is a corporate welfare program. Right wing newspapers, most notably the Washington Times, has cost its Mooney funders almost a billion dollars
But O'Reilly was still way behind Limbaugh's market share, which has gone as high as 650 stations and anywhere from fifteen to twenty million listeners, depending on whose statistics you prefer. Few progressives are ever given shows,... The left-wing Texas populist Jim Hightower appeared to be building a strong regional audience back in the mid-1990s, but he was highly critical of Disney and its owner, Michael Eisner. Not long after Disney bought the station, Hightower's show was abruptly canceled. KGO in San Francisco, perhaps alone in the country, boasts two liberal hosts, Bernie Ward and Ray Taliafero, whose shows appear at 10 PM. to 1 A.M. and 1 A.M. to 5 A.M.- not exactly primetime. The Washington Post's Paul Farhi notes, "The drought has gotten so bad that the talk industry is starting to manufacture its own outrage."

The amazing career of Rush Limbaugh owes a great deal to that moment in history. It is testament to just how well success succeeds in the U.S. media, regardless of accuracy, fairness, or even common sense. Limbaugh's legendary lies and mythological meanderings have been rewarded not only with legions of listeners, but also with incredible riches-a contract said to be worth $250 million over seven years.

Punditocracy Three: Radio and Internet excerpted from the book What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman


Drudge Reportp165
... the Drudge Report, the Internet gossip site maintained by Matt Drudge, an uneducated and professionally untrained former sales clerk at a CBS Entertainment gift shop. In the mid-1990s, Drudge started a Web site on which he posted Hollywood gossip that he said he gleaned at the gift shop. In other interviews, he has intimated that he snooped through executive offices. It didn't take long for the right wing to find Drudge and use his site as a dumping ground for "news" driven by a political agenda. Much of the "news" was false, such as his 1996 report of an imminent indictment of First Lady Hillary Clinton. Drudge has said his postings are 80 percent accurate. An investigation of his claim by the magazine Brill's Content found that ten of thirty-one Drudge "stories" were true. "Screw journalism," Drudge has said. "The whole thing's a fraud anyway."'


Amid the gossip, Drudge's site provided convenient links to newspapers, magazines, and syndicated columns and highlighted articles from the regular press of interest to news junkies on both coasts.

As traffic to his site swelled, Drudge gained the following: a contract with AOL, giving him a much wider audience; a weekly interview show on the FOX News Channel (since canceled); invitations to speak at the National Press Club; appearances on CNN, MSNBC, and even Meet the Press; a radio talk show first on the ABC Network and then on a division of Clear Channel Worldwide-Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the Limbaugh show; and a book deal.


By 1999, Drudge was getting more than 240 million hits to his site annually. He received 1.4 billion hits in 2002. Today, Drudge gets approximately 6.5 million visitors each day and is ranked number 242 in overall Web traffic by Alexa.com. It is the sixth most popular "news" site, following CNN, BBC News, and the New York Times, but ahead of the Washington Post, USA Today, and ABC News. In September 2003, Drudge told the Miami Herald that he makes $1.2 million per year from his combined Web and radio ventures. Though Drudge has taken right-wing money to defend himself against libel charges, the site is advertiser-supported. Ads are sold through Intermarkets, a Virginia-based agency that works package deals and cross-promotes Human Events online, NewsMax.com, The American Spectator, and other alternative "news" sites.' The Scaife-supported NewsMax and Rupert Murdoch's FOX Sports are among Drudge's frequent advertisers.

The Drudge Report is by far the premier transmission vehicle for right-wing media. He is able to filter and then link to "news" from outlets such as the Washington Times, the New York Post, The Weekly Standard, British tabloids, right-wing columnists, book authors, and far more obscure right-wing Web sites and to project this "news" and its authors onto talk radio and across all cable channels-thereby providing the organized Right with a priceless national and even international platform for its propaganda.

The Republican Noise Machine right-wing media and how it corrupts democracy by David Brock

So much for Rush and Drudge, and all of their imagined talents. Taking a step back, to look at the big picture, these are all small players in a propaganda assault designed by some wealthy and powerful men over half a century ago to brainwash the public and return America to its New Deal legacy and return to the era of the Robber Barons. They are just cogs in a wheel of propaganda, and Rush is the biggest, fattest cog right now, and I would bet there's greater than a 50/50 chance that his benefactors are about to toss him over the side for someone who doesn't have a cloud of suspicion caused by drug abuse and sex tourism jaunts fueled by copious supplies of viagra.
 

work in progress

Well-Known Member
Here's a reason why I ended up yesterday feeling the uncontrollable urge to go long and try to encapsulate the mostly below-the-surface right wing propaganda machine:
Dana Loesch....never heard of her before she turns up on CNN a few months ago, and introduced as some sort of voice of the tea party movement, trying to be outrageous enough to get noticed and get promoted as the new Ann Coulter.....to replace the aging, fading present day Ann Coulter that rightwing bankrollers have lost interest in....see how they treat older women in their crowd once they lose their sex appeal!

But, now she's got a radio show apparently....I wouldn't have heard about it if it wasn't for having Mediamatters on my rss feed:
CNN's Dana Loesch And The Bullying Campaign Against Sandra Fluke

Mostly, the article is an analysis beginning with Sandra Fluke's testimony, so that it can be compared with Dana Loesch's disgusting regurgitation of the Limbaugh theory of birth control. No point in going into detail on the audio highlights, as it is just a repeat of character assassination of a woman who committed the offense of trying to speak before an all-male committee. But it is another example of how a movement that directs their focus on the fears, resentments and unfulfilled desires of older white males, uses tokens from the outsider groups to bolster and solidify their prejudices. But it's not like these people - beginning with Buckley, Limbaugh, Coulter, Armstrong Williams, Drudge, Breitbart and the newly promoted Dana Loesch had to be recruited. They start out carrying water for the cause and trying to get noticed among the thousands of bloggers and young Republicans. When they first get notoriety, they get small rewards, and if they perform well, they get bumped up in the lineup. The significance is that the guy at the top of the mountain (Limbaugh) is always in danger of being pushed off....losing advertisers, losing affiliates (who get his show for free by allocating ad time blocks for the network sponsor), and then the network may buy out his contract if there is another rising right wing star coming up to take his place:
Limbaugh's New Rival: Mike Huckabee

Huckabee promises 'more conversation' on new radio show

Who knows! Huck is a smoothy behind a microphone...even when advocating the most obnoxious ideas....he's going after Limbaugh's time slot with a slightly more genteel, refined approach: "more conversation, less confrontation," betting that the conservative base wants to hear their message packaged in a friendlier, more upbeat style....time will tell if he's right. And Rush will be forgotten by all who put him up on that pedestal.



As for Dana Loesch: I don't think it's likely that conservative, patriarchal men will promote any woman to the top spot, even if she says all the right things. Her job will mostly be to continue to throw red meat to the agitated conservative audience. No surprise that one of her assigned roles seems to be to pick up where Ann Coulter left off as the conservative female attacking feminism and all things connected with reproductive issues. It's not much different than the black conservatives attacking affirmative action programs and condemning their people for crime, broken families and drug abuse -- their job is primarily to put a black face, or a latino face, or a woman's face on the most aggressive statements about their class, so an older white guy can come off as more reasonable.
 

s2a

Heretic and part-time (skinny) Santa impersonator
s2a, where is you contempt for the attacks on Conservative women? The left even attacked their children. David Letterman come to mind. While I see outrage for racist and sexist comments made on the right, the left seems to get a free pass as long as they focus on Conservative women. I on the other hand don't like any attacks period by either side. It is wrong and an apology should not be enough.

If you would care to specify any pointed attacks lend by public (presumably "liberal") figures cast upon otherwise private citizen..."Conservative women", I'd be pleased to attempt some sort of contemptuous outrage for you :) Who are the victims you allege are the recipients of this moral turpitude? What are the nature of these "attacks", and from whence do they come?

"Conservative Women" is a fairly 10,000 mile wide brush stroke...

I condone no personalized attacks of any kind against any undeserving individual that has invited no scrutiny of opinion in like manner. Period.

But honestly, I don't even know what a "Conservative woman" is even supposed to exemplify, or represent in your mind's eye. Is a woman that works in a automobile manufacturing plant as a union laborer that espouses a pro-life perspective towards abortion, while supporting equal pay for equal skill and labor, yet anti-death penalty...and believes that contraceptives should be covered by insurance plans through her employer...and thinks that gun ownership should never be regulated by local government, but believes strongly that schools, roads, bridges,sewers, fire fighting and police protection are and should be the responsibility of all citizens in the collection of taxes by that very same government as essential, but wishes to see an element of compassion and fairness for her non-native immigrant parents, while seeking some help in the costs of college tuition for her growing kids, and the rising costs of heath care of her indigent relatives that have no coverage...yet is concerned about the national debt that all will inherit and must cope with in the future...

...is what kind of woman exactly?

Is that woman a "conservative", a "liberal", a "moderate", or what?

What defines with any specificity and surety what a "Conservative woman" decidedly represents?

Is is possible that satire and mockery of ANY extreme position by ANY person that espouses a firmly held point of view that ignores any/all other rational contingencies concomitant with any complex issue therefore deserves to be exposed (and even derided) for the vapid and heedless view it potentially purports to represent as a "value"( be it "conservative" or "liberal")? Sometimes, and it's a dirty job (though not always unrewarding), to point a big fat finger at "stupid", and call it what it is. It's not rude, it's a responsibility. "Opinions" can often be valid, but "philosophical perspectives" can most frequently be deconstructed as founded in visceral hate, local "culture", and, and indoctrinate religious/"family values" (ie., "I was raised this way").

I'll confess a certain ingrained bias. When people speak with absolute certainty upon any topic that's predicated primarily upon a personalized bias, prejudice, or singular self-interest as a matter of their vociferously espoused and proclaimed "values"; and the proffered rationale as support is founded upon within their own ignorance, fear, or outright stupidity... both invite and deserve whatever informed (or crass) criticisms they engender, from whatever corner of the ideological spectrum that cares to reply in kind.

Bottom line? Rush was, is, and will likely continue to be a little more than a big, fat, biased, prejudiced, and willfully ignorant hypocritical bigot that says painfully stupid things to an audience of like-minded sycophantic peers. So be it. There are literally millions more Americans just like him. or even worse...

And there are others with microphones and egos that presume to have or seek as large an audience that he dares to speak for/represent himself. So be it.

Stupid is as stupid does, and stupid only wins any argument as long as the rest of us remain silent. Only bigger and louder stupid sometimes defeats smaller and squeaky stupid. Rote rhetoric and generalities are just a tad more elevated than bald-faced stupid... so lets get down and dirty being one step level up from that sad measure, and instead put forward claims and assertions of specificity and substance, shall we?

I think people here can rise up enough to lend better example:)
 
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