I don't know that much about Matt Kibbe, except that he is an ardent Tea Party activist. I dislike the Tea Party and oppose the austerity measures its policies recommend.
I do know, however, quite a bit about Rush Limbaugh and it's no secret that I don't like him and think he's a racist and enema bag. So, when I hear that Limbaugh and Matt Kibbe are telling their fellow conservatives that their only mistake in 2012 presidential campaign was backing Mitt Romney and that the close popular vote is evidence that the GOP should become more conservative rather than more inclusive, I recall a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
So, to all you progressive strategists who get paid to give your thoughts about the GOP's failure, "Shhhhh!" If the GOP goes the way of the dinosaurs, so be it. I can only hope that another, more reasonable party will arise to replace the Republican Party.
I have not fact-checked the information in the first video, but it does match with what I remember hearing when I was a child when adults in my community talked about John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 as well as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. People perceived southern conservatives of that period to be violently angry and that white segregationists' speech reflected that rage.
It is the same climate in which the 1963 church bombing occurred, the murder of Medgar Evers occurred, and later the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, although his convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, deserves the same label that the press has given Jared Lee Loughner, mentally unstable. Both are considered to be disturbed and obsessed with a certain ideology or philosophy; Sirhan's was driven in part by anti-Zionism and Lougher's seems to be fascinated by nihilism.
The video below is of Mike Papantonio talking to Ed Shultz and is posted also at Ring of Fire. The two talk about the history of hate speech within the right wing movement. While I think Papantonio's logic is sound and his facts appear to be credible, I do not think everyone on the right condones or uses hate speech. I do, however, think that too many on the right who do not condone or use hate speech remain silent when their counterparts do which is why I gladly posted the video of two conservatives chiding another conservative for using racist speech.
I think this kind of talk show, Ring of Fire, is a left counterpunch to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn-Beck's type of talk shows, and they can fill a whole and serve a worthwhile purpose. However, I will have to spend some time doing fact checks before I yay or nay the style, substance, and format of Ring of Fire.
A friend of mine shared this video and others with me, and I think I'll pass them on to my rhetoric professor. In our next class she will be discussing how the term "rhetoric" has been used in the days since the Arizona Shootings. Since once definition of rhetoric is speech used to persuade, I look forward to hearing my classmates' and professor's thoughts about the recent debates on civil political rhetoric.
Until my friend passed along to me this and the video at the end of this post that has the same left wing pundits talking about Sarah Palin, I had not paid attention to Ring of Fire (Not much time to listen to pundits on either side lately); however, I do recall hearing that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was involved with a liberal radio show a while back. According to the show's Facebook page:
Ring of Fire is a weekly radio program hosted by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mike Papantonio, and Sam Seder. Kennedy Jr., Papantonio, and Seder hold court over the news of the week and offer the real behind-the-scene details on those stories.
In the first video Papantonio is making the case that President John F. Kennedy was shot in a climate of hate speech in which people called him a communist and a "n*gg*r lover" (Papantonio doesn't use that last term, but I recall the charge), and so Papantonio argues that this is the same kind rhetoric we've seen rise again on the right (He's alluding to Obama being called a socialist and terrorist, I think, and some right wing pundits' accuasations that health care reform is reparations for black people, etc.).
He says that billionaires such as H. L. Hunt and Fred Koch funded campaigns against JFK, which included flooding Dallas, Texas, with anti-Kennedy posters:
The poster says that the president is wanted for treason against the United States. Now, understand, hundreds of thousands of these posters were distributed all over Dallas, all over Texas. They said he was a communist, that he subverted the Constitution, that he supported racial communist riots in America because of his civil rights stand. They said he was anti-Christian and promoted anti-Christian rulings by the Warren Court, that he was a despicable liar. Now, if you think about the history of what was happening then, you had H.L. Hunt and Fred Koch, who helped finance and organize, people don't realize this, they don't understand that Fred Koch helped organize and finance the John Birch Society, the same crowd that he had out in the streets in Texas weeks before John F. Kennedy shows up in Dallas. They're flying Confederate flags, they're screaming that Kennedy should be shot because he loved African-Americans, only they were much more ignorant and hostile in the way they talked about African-Americans, you can imagine.
Unlike someone at NewsBusters suggests, however, Papantonio is not saying people in Dallas were behind Kennedy's assassination nor that Sarah Palin pushed Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others in Arizona on January 8.
Papantonio is saying that these kinds of acts of violence correlate with periods in which hate speech flourishes. (With so much violence in society today, he should probably do more to lay the groundwork for this point, which is difficult to do in oral arguments on radio where people often miss nuance and in a time when so many don't know history and so don't recognize references. However, there is evidence that periods of unchecked hate speech against specific ethnic or religious groups precede genocide.)
The writer at NewsBusters, a right wing website, also says that Papantonio is perpetuating the myth that Dallas schoolchildren applauded when it was announced Kennedy had been shot. If he is correct and if the references the writer cites are not simply more attempts by southerners to rewrite history, then Papantonio should correct his mistake if he wants to show that he is above the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs on the other side.
In this next video, Papantonio calls Palin "a political Frankenstein," meaning she's a creation of the political powers that brought her to the mainstream and now they can't control her. With his statement, please keep in mind that someone had to resign in March 2008 from Obama's campaign for calling Hillary Clinton "a monster;" so, Papantonio should probably be careful of going over the top with his own diction.
He also says that women find Palin "creepy," and he believes that the more people know about Palin, the less they like her, which is why, he thinks, her reality show was not renewed; the people who want her to run could see it was too much exposure, he supposes. I'm not sure that's the case, however.
But I do think that some of the people on the right who initially promoted Palin are sorry that they did so.
Please consider that the video segment below was recorded before Palin's "blood libel" speech, which has been severely criticized because in it she defends herself and seems more concerned about what people have been saying about her rhetorical strategies than she is about the shooting victims. She's been accused of playing the victim.
Shultz,by the way, says that without Palin's incendiary rhetoric, she's a nobody.
I'm trying to determine how I feel about this kind of passionate, sometimes virulent speech on the left (I am sometimes equally passionate). If we're going to call for civility, then what does that mean? Does that mean those on the left, if they have their facts straight, can't shout back at the right? What do we mean when we say we want a civil discussion of issues? And why does the craziness of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have so many more supporters and higehr ratings than something like "Ring of Fire"?
With the tragedy in Arizona and challenges to vitriolic rhetoric, Obama's opponents are pulling up the relatively few examples of him speaking forcefully and Palin's defenders are pulling out an old 2004 bullseye graphic from a nonprofit Democratic action group, but the American debate challenging politicians, the media, pundits, and bloggers to dial back the ugly tone of our political rhetoric should not become a "you did it too" discussion. There's too much at stake.
It's true that political speeches have long used militaristic rhetoric. I say this up front because in evaluating the current debate about violent rhetoric and the Arizona shootings, I've already seen people who think that in order to silence discussions about dialing back the nastiness, they simply need to point out the use of violent figures of speech on both sides.
I'll even present this olive branch and admit that some progressives have also used "targeting" language when writing about or speaking of conservatives. For example, the Democratic Leadership Council used a graphic in 2004 that had bullseye images on a map about gaining back control from Republicans. I learned of this graphic because a member at BlogHer.com, Adrienne Royer, took issue with the graphic six years later when she wrote in 2010 about Sarah Palin's "Take Back the 20" poster.
The DLC is a group with which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords herselfhas had some association, but we know that Giffords does not embrace the loose ownership of guns nor use incendiary rhetoric habitually. We can also learn that the Democratic Leadership Council (which is not the DNC as some misreport) is considered to be centrist, not extremist. For instance, they support the rights of Americans to own guns, but promote enforcement of ownership criteria and safety, the kind of laws that would have kept the mentally-ill Arizona shooter from having a gun in the first place. (As you will see later in this post, that's part of my point. We decide meaning and intent based on context and what we know of a person's beliefs, practices, and character. Conversations about toning down rhetoric must not become a tit-for-tat style debate.)
In addition, I am not one saying that one person's rhetoric or even one group's rhetoric pushed Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, federal judge John Roll, little Christina-Taylor Green, and others Saturday in Tucson, Arizona. Giffords is recovering, but Loughner allegedly killed six and wounded 14 people.
I don't blame a particular public figure or group because making such an argument without compelling evidence such as discovering Loughner built shrines to the Tea Party or Palin in his home is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, an argument that connects dots carelessly. We might feel in our bones that certain kinds of rhetoric directly influenced the shooter's rampage, but we can't know exactly how the shooter's disturbed mind worked to drive him to that grocery store because he's not talking and who can trust what he may say should he speak?
Nevertheless, as someone whose graduate focus is rhetoric, I must disagree with the use of another fallacy that's arisen as we try to make sense of tragedy, the tu quoque ad hominem argument that is being used to quash a much-needed discussion about hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric in America. As one scholar defines it, the tu quoque ad hominem logical fallacy is the "so's your mom" fallacy; others call it the "you too" appeal:
Like the appeal to authority and ad populum fallacies, the ad hominem ("against the person") and tu quoque ("you, too!") fallacies focus our attention on people rather than on arguments or evidence. In both of these arguments, the conclusion is usually "You shouldn't believe So-and-So's argument." The reason for not believing So-and-So is that So-and-So is either a bad person (ad hominem) or a hypocrite (tu quoque). In an ad hominem argument, the arguer attacks his or her opponent instead of the opponent's argument.
In the current situation, with Sarah Palin in particular falling under the microscope, any argument about speech must naturally look at people. It's people who speak and so they and their words are the evidence. However, as we look at people in the context of how their rhetoric creates a positive or negative political climate that persuades others to take action, we should focus on patterns, tendencies to use violent rhetoric and to speak irresponsibly (twisting facts to create hate, etc.) to inflame others. It's the pattern of speaking provocatively with little concern about facts or consequence that's at issue here.
After seeing CNN's interview with Libertarian radio talk show host Neal Boortz, who by the way was immediately cocky with Don Lemon (Boortz was flattered that CNN follows him on Twitter and made a point to say that he does not follow CNN), I decided I needed to write something again about the tit-for-tat argument style of some conservatives.
At the Wall Street Journal, I guess they've discovered that so many people are looking for dirty rhetoric from President Barack Obama that the WSJ has annotated a post about a 2008 Obama comment he delivered in Pennsylvania. In the speech, Obama said said, "If they bring a knife, we'll bring a gun."
I remember that. Even then the right was attempting to throw onto then presidential candidate Obama the criticism the left and moderates had thrown at Republicans, which is that they promote and create climates of fear. It's a common tactic with them to resort to this kind of arguing or rock throwing when they want to deflect attention from complaints against the kinds of harmful speech they tolerate or at least try to convince the general public that there's nothing wrong with shades of hate speech. (Clinton seized on it as an opportunity to criticize Obama as well, thinking he had put his foot in his mouth with white, small town voters and that would help her win.)
But when we look at Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh (Limbaugh, btw, has a page up at his website now called examples of Obama hate speech)--when we look at these kinds of public speakers, we observe a pattern, a history, and a practice of either an inflaming to entertain strategy or a willingness to yell fire at a paranoid electorate. So our concern is not about occasional slips into edgier rhetoric or using militaristic figures of speech sometimes when getting out the vote. It's about the rhetorical term ethos, the appeal of their persuasion through their character to the pathos--the beliefs and emotions--of their identified audience.
Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh in particular know that their audiences identify with people who hide behind the Second Amendment to defend keeping guns and a desire to use them and also a fear that they will become oppressed under a socialist takeover. The latter is a fear that these pundits/speakers have exploited.
President Barack Obama, however, has a reputation for compromise, for not being extremist, and for being cool-headed. He doesn't court the NRA crowd and speak of the joys of gun-ownership, killing moose or turning back the clock in America through an active militia. He has not been reasonably associated with people who today talk in terms of overthrowing the government by violent means.
In fact, it was in Pennsylvania that he got into trouble with his "clinging to guns and religion" statement about certain kinds of people who oppose him or feared him taking office. The U.K. Guardian back then called the statement "an uncharacteristic moment of loose language" for Obama. "Uncharacteristic."
He's not been the one dividing America with rhetoric about "pro-America areas of the country" versus, I suppose, "anti-America" sections, as Palin has done. He's not like Beck, who worked people up into thinking Van Jones is a die-hard communist to be McCarthyed out of his position with the White House. Nor has Obama ever suggested that any group of Americans had engaged in a plot to hurt America the way Rush Limbaugh said African-Americans have been in a plot.
In fact, the president had to be pushed to use stronger language during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last summer as some critics called him "too nice" and "not passionate enough." See the "whose ass to kick" video. Remember, Gen. Colin Powell even endorsed Obama for office because the man seems level-headed.
So, people know--I think that includes people on the right, too--they know when Obama's speaking figuratively and using a popular cliché to make his point. Too many on the right are being disingenuous when they seize on his words that are uncharacteristically fiery because unlike Sarah Palin, Obama does not have his people create websites like Take Back the 20 with gun sights over states and a list of opponents' names (a website she's removed from the Net since the Arizona massacre), and unlike Obama's opponents, he does not attract the kinds of supporters who proudly sport guns in public spaces. He and his family are the ones whose lives have been considered most endangered by the kinds of hateful rhetoric that started with his run for office. But the potential bullets claimed others.
This post is not intended to be a defense of Barack Obama. I am using the president's rhetoric and considering his ethos because some on the right are using his rhetoric as an example to defend themselves while not addressing the issue of ethos.
What I'm saying is that people are looking at people like Palin, who thinks she can win the Oval Office from Barack Obama in 2012, and the commonly-accepted talk of conservative pundits such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and even Bill O'Reilly, because these speakers have a reputation for wild speech. When we consider their histories of using inflammatory rhetoric to get attention, we by nature consider their ethos--their character--and that is part of why we cringe at the words coming out of their mouths. We think they use fighting words craftily with ill intent.
Added link, 11/14/11: At Pam's Coffee Conversations, Pamela Lyn has written the poignant post, "When Should I Believe You? - an ode to political discourse in America."
First, let's get this out the way. The word is "conscious" not "conscience," but I don't think the shooter knows the difference between the two words. I say this later in the post as well and tell why I think he means "conscious" not "conscience". He was going for "conscious dreamer" not "conscience dreamer" in my opinion.
I am including Congresswoman Giffords's comments from last spring in which she said she felt targeted because she was included on a list of Democrats in Sarah Palin's crosshairs. According to CNN, Sarah Palin has said she didn't mean for anyone to take the crosshairs imagery literally, and a March 25, 2010 post at a supporter's blog, Sarah Palin Web Brigade, declares that any accusations that the list with the crosshairs image is dangerous rhetoric is just "silly."
I think it's clear that some people don't understand what rhetoric encompasses. At BlogHer.com, for instance, on the post about today's shootings, some person has left nasty comments, but claims not to understand why anyone would say he or she has been uncivil. I continue to say that some people don't grasp fully the power of the messages they create or the words that come out of their mouths.
As for Jared Lee Loughner, given his writings and list of favorite books, I don't think he knew what he believed and there's no evidence yet that he even knew Sarah Palin had posted this list or even that it existed. So, while I think Sarah Palin's hit list was in bad taste and irresponsible, I can't say that it had any direct bearing on Loughner's actions. The young man may just be a natural born fruit loop who met Giffords once and was disillusioned when she showed him no special attention.
Along with the rest of the nation, I am greatly saddened by the shootings in Arizona. My heart goes out to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's family as she recovers, the loved ones of federal Chief Judge John Roll and the parents of the nine-year-old who died. To all the shooting victims of Jared Lee Loughner, I send prayers.
Also, even though I think he was speaking from a place of grief and anger, I agree with Clarence Dupnik, Sheriff of Pima County, who thinks we Americans indulge too much vitriolic political rhetoric and that creates a climate where unstable people may be tipped toward committing violent acts. Arizona has merely winked at its growing clime of hate speech. And yet, already Dupnik is being slammed for his statements, as I suspected he would be as soon as the words left his mouth.
Someone writing at the Tucson Citizen under the label "Arizona conservative intellectual" said:
It's outrageous that Democrat Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is exploiting this tragedy for political reasons. He said about Arizona, "We have become the capital, the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." In reality? Loughner's classmate described him as "he was left wing, quite liberal."
That's a case of a guilty dog howling loudest. Dupnik didn't single out a particular party or ideological wing when he made his statement, and yet that conservative assumes Dupnik is speaking only to the right wing. Is that really a case of that conservative subconsciously acknowledging that he knows people on his team like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin frequently make statements that imply a call to violence?
But I'll have to write about that another day. I already said on Facebook that I think the right wing will shout that Loughner is on the left's side and the left wing will shout that he is on the right's side. The fact is that he's just another nut who has been obsessed with a variety of ideologies, and that brings me to my next point, which is that Loughner projects his insecurities onto others.
They (his online writings) speak of being a “conscience dreamer”; becoming a treasurer of a new currency; controlling “English grammar structure”; mentioned brainwashing and suggested that he believed he had powers of mind control.
Loughner fancies others to be unintelligent and illiterate, even the Congresswoman, and himself to be a student of English grammar. So, he may suffer from some kind of mania that makes him think he is superior to others. In addition, his writings sound like the ramblings of someone with paranoid schizo-affective disorder. For instance, he thinks that the CIA has been watching his MySpace.com page.
But what I noticed most, after his twisted syntax, was his use of the word "conscience." I would bet money that he means the word "conscious" and doesn't understand the difference between the two words. Many people say "conscience," the "inner sense of right and wrong" when they mean "conscious," to "be fully aware." The people most likely to make this kind of error consistently, in my opinion, are those with reading comprehension challenges.
Furthermore, "conscious dreaming" is lucid dreaming. That would fit more with Loughner's ideas about mind control, the kind you would see associated with conscious or lucid dreaming in movies such as Inception. He is very concerned that the government will be able to control his mind, and as you can see in this video of his, he thinks he's mastered the power to control minds himself. (His obsessions about currency being backed up by gold and his belief that the Constitution is in jeopardy, however, do make me think of some of Beck's and Palin's rhetoric.) Given the strange range of his book selections combined with his logic issues in his writing, I think that he has problems with understanding language, which is why he is preoccupied with the literacy and intelligence levels of others. Sad.
But now on CNN, Don Lemon is reading the names of the victims who died; Arizona authorities are searching for an accomplice and that is all I can grasp at this time.
A friend posted this to Facebook, and I decided to add it to this post. It's the same interview with Giffords on MSNBC posted up top about inflammatory rhetoric and her offices being vandalized during the height of the health care reform debates. But just in case the YouTube video vanishes, I want to still have a working one here. It's that important.
I watched 12 Angry Men on Turner Classic Movies with my son night before last, the 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet. It's one of those films that reminds you that black and white with no car chases and provocative dialogue can be more riveting that today's special effects-driven blockbusters.
So much of it reminded me of the flow of some political Internet conversations that I said, "The more things change, the more they stay the same, except now some of the most offensive men have talk shows and with blogs and social media the discourse expands." Unfortunately, there's often no one playing Henry Fonda's character.
Henry Fonda, who also produced the film, plays the voice of reason, Juror #8. He is the lone dissenter who's insulted and called a "bleeding heart liberal," an insult he never addresses, but he doesn't back down. He's an architect who wants the men to talk over the case and not rush to judgment. At the end of the movie we find out his name is Davis.
In the clip above, Juror #10 (Ed Begley) reveals more of his prejudice against the ethnic group of the man on trial for stabbing his father. He makes racist statements you can read any day in comments on crime at the Times Picayune website. He voices the same opinions earlier more than once, but the climax of his views that offend others is captured in the embedded clip. The majority of the other jurors stand up and turn their backs to him as he continues his rant. It would be great if people did that in real life, but more often than not, they don't. They just look on uncomfortably or, in the case of some pundits, they watch and increase their ratings, giving them more money and power.
Lee J. Cobb plays Juror #3, a man that makes me think of Rush Limbaugh. He holds out on changing his mind and much of what drives his opinions, his firm belief that he is right, and the need to force his views on others relates to an emotional wound that he needs to address and his political views about "liberals." He's taken the specific and made it general.
The character spends much of the film asking others to repeat themselves, to explain again why certain arguments are not valid. He drove my son a little batty. You'd think Juror #3 was deaf, blind, and stupid as he asks again, even after logical explanations have been provided and court evidence has been debunked, "How do you know?" The difference between Limbaugh and Juror #3 is that Juror #3 can change his mind and recognize he's being unfair, and when Juror #10 goes on his racist rant, he turns his back with the others. Limbaugh would probably be the one delivering the racist rant.
If you could mash Juror #3 and Juror #10 together and never let them change their minds, you'd have Rush Limbaugh today. The man is mentally unstable, which is why I didn't even write about his saying that Oprah and President Barack Obama are only successful because they're black.
I heard about this yesterday on Twitter, that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh says that if universal health care passes in America, he'll move to Costa Rica.
The irony of his comment, as Gawker notes, is that Costa Rica has government-run health care, but as Gawker points out, it also has a cocaine industry.
The U.K. Guardian is running a poll asking, "Should Rush Limbaugh leave the country if the healthcare bill is passed?" The answer choices are:
Yes. Another good reason to pass healthcare.
No. What's Costa Rica ever done to the US?
Apparently even people across the pond are aware of Rush's bad reputation. However, the poll is at Comment is Free America.
When I took it, choice number one had 85.3% of the votes. Take the poll here.
At the actual U.K. Guardian website, Richard Adams writes "What has Costa Rica done to deserve this? It's the second most beautiful country on earth, after all." And then he quotes a commenter from CIF America who said:
This does not make sense at all: Costa Rica has the best socialized medical safety net of all central American countries, if not Latin American countries. Infinitely much better then the US system. In addition there is the government run "extra" medical insurance for people who want to be treated faster in private hospitals and clinic. (Read more)
Adams also says Costa Rica's president is a woman who wants to clean up the environment.
What's scary about all this is that so many Americans think Limbaugh actually knows what he's talking about on any topic at all. They ask his advice and follow it as well, something made clear during the presidential campaign. Under "Operation Chaos," he told his listeners in Ohio to go and switch their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic so they could swing the Democratic Primary in that state toward Hillary Clinton.
He didn't say that because he respects Hillary but because he thought all the confusion he might create would make it easier for a Republican to win the presidency. He likes to flex his muscle to move the conservative base around like puppets, and then claims he's not a leader of the RNC as he yanks its official leaders' chains. Michael Steele, the figurehead, fears him, and so does Sarah Palin. Any time a conservative leader offends Limbaugh and he takes notice, an apology follows.
I have said often that Rush Limbaugh has a mental disorder. People think his egomania is an act, but I think he is actually has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and an extra dose of genuine mania.
Had to update this post with the following Stephen Colbert clip.
Somewhere in this post you'll read that I think Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but I didn't know I thought that until the thought flowed from my head in a stream of consciousness response on Laina Dawes's BlogHer.com post about Obama taking heat for black unemployment. Laina's not one of those people seeing black unemployment in simplistic terms. She's a black Canadian who never bought the Magic Negro mystique, but I know some black people and white people did.
And in all this there are also some white people who believed in nothing. They're only playing games for hits and ratings.
The Tweedledee and Tweedledum old nursery rhyme goes:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle; For Tweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew down a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel; Which frightened both the heroes so, They quite forgot their quarrel.
Read more about this classic pair from children's nursery rhymes as well as Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and Alice in Wonderland at Wikipedia. Tweedledee and Tweedledum always agree even when they are agreeing to fight. Think on that for a while in terms of Beck and Limbaugh. When it comes to anything black, they stand together.
Actually, I don't know what Glenn Beck is saying about black people and unemployment, if anything. He's on my mind because he was one of Barbara Walters's "most fascinating" people of 2009. Sorry, Babs, but I don't find anything intriguing about a white man of mediocre talent rising to power by bashing a black man everyday and promoting conspiracy theories. It's kind of the American Way and not so unusual.
And no, Babs, your including Tyler Perry on your list and then selecting Michelle Obama as the "Most Fascinating Person of 2009" doesn't make up for Beck being on your list. You know I'm right.
Yes, the same Rush Limbaugh who told white people that under Obama white children would be beaten up by black children and so school buses should be segregated, I guess, is concerned that black people are having a hard time economically. Obama is not doing any favors for black people in particular, it seems, and this fact may let a few of Limbaugh's Ditto Heads see behind the curtain. Perhaps they'll realize Limbaugh is insane for themselves, and the facts of life don't support his cock-eyed theories that Obama's some kind of black revolutionary.
I single out these two, Beck and Limbaugh, because I think they mirror the white conservative mental state. However, I think my commentary below also pokes white progressives a bit and perhaps some black people too, the ones who thought Obama was going to do something policy wise specifically for black people. You know who you are. Realistic black people, however, didn't ever believe this.
Here's what I said at BlogHer:
I probably have more to say on this, but what I've been thinking is how intriguing it is to see the MSM, the same folks who pushed the crazy theory that we are now "post racial" because Obama's been elected are now writing pieces that they never would have written if a white man were in office. The black community has always had pneumonia when white America has a cold, and when the onus of that is laid largely at the door of a white power structure's policies, ones established over hundreds of years, they scream it's too complicated a problem and not really their fault at all. Somehow they've been able to separate in their minds long-term policies and institutional racism from expected results.
More proof that we've got a nation in denial and a whole lot of folks in need of critical thinking classes is the number of people who seem to have bought some fantasy that a black man in the White House makes the White House black. One black man does this? WOW!
What do we learn from this? We learn that they really want to believe in the Magic Negro who can wave a wand and make everything okay. And with that, I'm not speaking of the song promoted by Limbaugh but the original article that the song "borrowed."
I hope smart people are paying attention, especially those who keep saying they're not racists or have not been influenced by a racist society.
But should Obama do something about black unemployment? Yes, he should, as should have every other president before him.
And what did I say on Twitter last night? "Will Obama get back to office if he is not SuperN*gg*r? Remember SN must be 3X better than white guy at same job & a magic Negro."
That shows my age. I remember when my mother used to talk about Super N*gg*r syndrome back in the 60s.
Obama should be watched as carefully as we've watched anybody else, but some of us know that until a black man went into office we didn't watch Washington at all.
The same brown skin that contributed to his election is the same brown skin contributing to unreasonable critiques. He hasn't even been in office a year and almost since day one we've seen the wild horses attached to each of his limbs sent in opposite directions. Conservatives boiled over in a negative 19 days up to the same the level of vitriol about this president that took more than four years for progressives to build against GWB.
All I know is I said before he was in office, back in June of 2008, that he's only human, and he's a game player, as are all politicians. Anyone who ignored that fact of his being is a fool.
And what is it exactly that Obama should do for the black community that will not have people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh go on air and say, "See, we told you he was a racist." Oh, the noise of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Frankly, I've been by some black bloggers' posts who've asked in the past what will Obama do for black people in terms of policy and told them they were fooling themselves if they thought he was going to do anything on which we could put a "black" sticker. He's been very clear about that. Why do people expect otherwise? I can't think of any speech where he has promised anything to the black community.
The promise of Barack Obama for the black community has been that he would go in and be ordinary in spite of extraordinary expectations based on the melanin in his skin, that his time in office would prove a black man could be president and not blow up the country. To think he would be a superior president because he is black is actually a twisted kind of racism. To think he would be inferior because he is black is standard. (That's me reflecting on some of the craziness I've observed in different sectors.)
On New Orleans: Obama shouldn't take care of New Orleans for any other reason than it's a major port city without which the country will fail and it was screwed over by the Army Corps of Engineers, a Federal entity.
The failure of Bush to act properly regarding the city when it first flooded revealed the level of racial inequalities in this country to the sleeping, but the neglect of the city over many years and the continued framing of the crisis mostly in racial terms shows we are blinded by color to the point of mismanaging valuable assets.
And Laina, you are so on point with the perception that he is black so "don't hate." It's true he's half white, but since when has being half white made you not black in America? I know you've seen what supposedly "color blind" Limbaugh has said about Tiger Woods. When sh*t goes wrong, the one drop law always goes back on the books. ;-)
In conclusion of this post
You know, there are a couple of white female conservative trolls who say I write rants. Anyone who's read my stuff over the last few years at Whose Shoes are These Anyway knows I don't write rants often. Some people don't know the difference between powerful, passionate words and a rant and I'm not sure why some people think labeling commentary as a rant makes anything in that commentary less valid.
Anyway, on this post, I'll apologize to my feminist friends in advance because I'm now going to use a word I generally avoid. I must say to these conservative trolls, if they're reading, "That's right, bitchez. That was a rant!"
I'm not going to say too much more about his craziness, Rush Limbaugh's latest asinine drivel other than to point you to Field Negro's post on Rush Limbaugh's Tiger Woods commentary and to note that despite claiming he's not a racist, that he's color blind, Limbaugh loves talking about black people in contrast to white people and painting black folk with a broad brush. Also notice that in Rush's mind black people are more than an ethnic group, they are a political group.
It didn't take long did it? But now A-merry-ca is reminding Tiger's black ass that he is black again. (I was wondering when I was going to get a chance to post that *pic ArtMaggot sent me a few days ago. Well, as it turns out, I didn't have to wait long. Remember Dave Chappelle's joke about the "Race Draft"? I keep seeing it over and over in my head.) Leave it to Rush to say out loud what a bunch of folks from a certain segment of the population is thinking. Apparently Rush doesn't think Tiger is helping the black frame of mind.
".. Limbaugh said, “Black unemployment is terrible. The black frame of mind is terrible. They’re depressed. They’re down, Obama not doing anything for them. How’s that hoax and change working for ya? They’re all livid. They thought there was going to be an exact 180 degree economic reversal, and it’s done nothing but get bad for everybody, but they’re especially upset about it because they look at him as one of them, and now they feel abandoned, and I’m sure Tiger Woods’ choice of females not helping them out with their attitudes either.”' [Link]
Huh? First of all fatso, Tiger is Calabanasian or whatever the f#^* he likes to call himself, so please don't try to dump him off on us now. (Read more at Field Negro)
I swear I think Limbaugh must get up every morning and take a jackass pill, and I guess Field Negro cuts Limbaugh no slack on the weight loss. Normally, I'd take issue with calling someone "fatso," but it's hard to care about Limbaugh. Really, really, hard.
As for Tiger, well, I never stopped thinking he was black because I knew the one drop law would go back on the books as soon as he screwed up and he's got a helluva lot more than one drop of black blood. But yeah, Tiger doesn't want to be black by American standards.
So, why won't Limbaugh honor that since he claims he sees no color, that he doesn't see race? And this is your problem, Limbaugh, anyone who says he's colorblind and doesn't see race is another kind of blind, especially you.
I was over at BlogHer.com, and truly I felt the pain of Mata H. who reached out to a conservative pundit who blogs on the site and who is climbing the pundit ladder in the media. Mata attempted to appeal to this person with logic, respect, and compassion.
Dana, I don't mind that you are a conservative. This country has lots of room for differing opinions. I do mind that you post strong statements without doing research first. If you would like to see a list of racist coments by Rush Limbaugh (AND the accompanying long sound bites in Limbaugh's own voice) just click here. By the way, are you even reading this? (Mata H.'s comment)
Yes, the pundit, Dana Loesch aka Mamalogues, is making a case that there is no proof that Rush Limbaugh has ever said anything racist and that conservatives are facing a double standard in free speech. That's become a conservative/possibly Republican talking point in case you missed the memo.
I used to feel a need to respond to people like far-right conservatives and related minions, especially when they attempted to define racism for people who've been oppressed by race. Just as an abusive male will attempt to define spousal abuse as a black eye or broken ribs so something like forbidding his wife to have a checking account is not included, some conservatives attempt to define racist speech and rhetoric as narrowly as possible so they may be excused.
Furthermore, some in the far-right wing, such as Rush Limbaugh, desperately hide behind the right to free speech so they may use hate speech to harm others with impunity when it suits them. Their hope seems to be to redefine racist rhetoric to use of the word "nigger," insults like "wetbacks" and "chink," or an obvious threat like "We will lynch you at sundown." Point them to a Limbaugh assertion like black people have been in a 30-year-plot to train their children as militants, and they will tell you that there's nothing racist about that statement. It's just Limbaugh's opinion, they say, and "liberals" should stop pushing political correctness.
But how is such a statement that implies African-Americans are training their children to destroy or hate America any different than the early speech fires preceding what became Nazi Germany? This is not to say conservatives are Nazis. I'm using pre-Nazi Germany as an example to remind us how this rhetoric builds to something more savage.
German nationalism, as it arose in the time of Napoleon, set the stage for Hitler. Ordinary Germans became fascinated with the idea of political unity and national greatness, largely because they had neither.
A pastor named Fredrick Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) put together a youth movement in which young men carried out physical exercise for the Fatherland. He led them on long hikes in the countryside and staged rallies in which they screamed denunciations of German-speaking, pro-French aristocrats. In fact, he taught them to be suspicious of foreigners, Jews, and others who would supposedly corrupt the purity of the German Volk (folk). (Complete Idiot's Guide to Nazi Germany)
To paraphrase Santayana, people who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it, and so, this is why concerned people keep an eye out for racist rhetoric or hate speech directed at ethnic groups and religious groups, etc, BOLO for "screamed denunciations" like the kind that erupt on Limbaugh's show or from Glenn Beck's mouth or on an Anne Coulter type's page. We look for and decry the rhetoric that fertilized the earth for genocide. We don't make excuses for it.
I see avoiding accountability for hate speech by hiding behind free speech or the letter of law is similar to the tactic our mayor in New Orleans, Ray Nagin, used when he wanted to say public disclosure laws didn't apply to him as mayor. He hid behind the city charter. Yes, it's possible to go very wrong being right, but once you see that's the road a person travels you've learned a lot about that person's character.
So, while I used to respond directly to such people who use despicable measures to claim nothing said was racist and write genuine responses to them with cogent points, I've stopped doing that. Considering that one definition of insanity is to do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results, and preferring to be sane, I've decided to chill and not really engage such folk anymore with anything requiring more energy than a quote and a picture. That's a quick way to say, I read, I saw, I disagree, and I realize this conversation is hopeless.
Mata H., who writes religion and spirituality at BlogHer.com, is probably not as cynical as I am and so she has hope that she can change a mind or a heart. It's possible certain types of people will listen. It's happened before. However, I think once a person has charted a course to make a name for herself or himself in the media spotlight as a pundit and is using despicable divisive tactics that require ignoring evidence and fact in favor of dramatic effect and ratings or hits, you can safely cross that person off your reasonable discourse engagement list.
Also, I'm a firm believer that the misinformation people prefer sells better than well-reasoned sociological or political examinations. For instance, the conservative pundit's free speech and double standards post was posted Friday and at the time of this post already had 8,120 hits. That's more hits than another BlogHer CE, say Prof. Kim, who is a journalism professor who carefully fact checks her posts will get in a month of posts. True, that's anecdotal evidence but just look around you these days and you'll see that craziness frequently trumps sanity in this age of the blog and propaganda as news. And if not around you, look at history.
So, this is the message I had for dear Mata.
Mata, we've been down this road before on this very website with Dana back when she used to respond to people in the comment section. Please see the comment section of her post, "Dear World: Rush Limbaugh is NOT Head of the GOP or Conservatism."
I emphatically don't condone such speech. HOWEVER, I am not going to vilify a person until such proof exists that they even said it. There is no proof. Erin threw a bunch of quotes here that not a single person has been able to prove were said. There are no audio bites. There are no transcripts. People throw up Youtube videos to things that have nothing to do with the quotes that were given. (Loesch in comments on older post, 03/05/2009)
Back then readers threw lots of data at her about Limbaugh. Dana ignored the provable quotes and links to unedited sound bites. Instead she harped on the two that had not been proven as though no one had mentioned others that could be proven. It was clear from her responses several times on that post that she was frustrated by the number of people who not only did not accept what she was saying, but who had evidence that her information was faulty. Since then she has responded less and less to people on her posts at BlogHer, especially those who disagree with her. And if she would respond and admit that Limbaugh did indeed say some of the quotes listed at either Media Matters or Fair.org, I suspect she would cherry pick from those, select one, and say it's not a racist statement. If not that, then perhaps the argument would be that Media Matters and Fair.org are tools of the liberal media and so any information from the sources is shaky.
Nevertheless, she may pop up later with one of those blanket thank yous where she names everyone here who agrees with her, while ignoring anyone who doesn't. (Or maybe she'll acknowledge everyone this time. Making a comment on a person's history is sort of like interfering with the future. Their behavior may change simply because someone commented.) I suppose no response or only addressing those who agree with her is her new form of engagement here as she climbs the pundit ladder.
I say let her go her way with her own style as she crafts her pundit career. Life is too short. Besides, Dana says she is a Christian, and so, if she has not been influenced by the Bible's lessons on the power of the tongue and salted speech enough to make someone like a Limbaugh unpalatable to her, then nothing you or I say will influence her. She either likes Limbaugh's way of doing things or like Esau is very hungry.
Anyway, she's been ringing this free speech/double standard bell since before she became a CE back when she used to be a commenter. Then it was Don Imus in 2007 not Rush Limbaugh who she thought was being persecuted. I've gathered she thinks that there is no difference between insulting people by ethnic group versus insults in general. While I believe that insults are probably not the best way to go, I think some insults and misinformation do more damage than others. I feel Dana believes all insults, all types of misinformation, are equal, and therefore her definitions of racist speech and hate speech are very narrow. Perhaps nonexistent. Consequently she plays tit for tat in her evaluations, and it appears she isn't seeing something that people who disagree with her on this topic see.
Nevertheless, I agree with you, Mata, that this is not about Limbaugh or Dana being conservative. Conservatives come in many stripes. Some, however, get attention because they want to and so wave a lot of red near the fringe; thus, they become the topic rather than conservative ideology. It seems to work for some people, and I give them and their publicists gold stars for understanding one way to play the spotlight game but an "F" for tactics. Whatever the case, it's good for BlogHer that Dana is here.
New subject: Since we're on the topic of misinformation in political blogger posts, have you seen this article on the search for Obama's nonexistent thesis, reactions and retractions with self-congratulation? It will let you know that sometimes in rebuttal, applying evidence or the lack of evidence and logic gets you nowhere. If that doesn't do it, perhaps this study here will help you accept that sometimes attempts to engage are like banging our heads against brick walls.
By way of Field Negro's blog, I noticed ArtMaggot and kept wondering where is Field finding this art he features on the side of his blog? Snooped and found ArtMaggot's space at which he has posted this gem that you see on your left, "Old Master, New Master," commentary on the Rush Limbaugh/Michael Steele struggle for power.
Michael Steele's not faring well at all in this mess. As I said at Field's blog, Steele must not have heard the wisdom, "Blessed is the man who sits on the fence for he will be shot by both sides."
On last weekend's Saturday Night Live, comedian Kenan Thompson parodied RNC Chair Michael Steele speaking on a news show, SNL's "Weekend Update." As you'll see in the video below, Thompson as Steele receives an electric shock each time he says anything against the GOP, big business, or canker-mouthed talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
The last piece on keeping score was in response to a conservative woman who thinks Rush Limbaugh does the conservative movement a real service.
A little while ago I was reading "The Weekend Opinionator" at The New York Times, specifically "Tobin Harshaw's "The Party of Limbaugh? A Conservative Debate," when I saw the following quote from a blog post by David Frum. David Frum was "special assistant" for economic speechwriting to former President George W. Bush and is also an contributor at The National Review, a conservative publication that embraces Rush Limbaugh as a friend and financial underwriter. It appears Frum sees what I see--Limbaugh is an opportunist who wants to hold his position as an influential voice in Republican politics. The following Frum quote is from The New Majority website:
And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.
Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.
But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise – and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important. (David Frum @ New Majority)
Frum may be writing at the New Majority, but I suspect he's in the minority when it comes to conservatives seeing through Rush Limbaugh.
Harshaw at NYT ends his post on a cautionary note for the Obama administration:
Will Limbaugh reshape the G.O.P. in his image, or will his supporters in the party eventually move “up” and leave him behind? The more pressing matter is whether he can move beyond his base of listeners, which has reportedly doubled since the current controversy exploded. One thing’s for sure, though: if Limbaugh ever truly gains the Winchellesque power to move popular opinion, he’ll have the Obama White House to thank for giving him the chance.
You'll need to read his column at NYT if you don't get the Winchell reference.
Yes, the Obama administration is taking a bit of a risk in spotlighting Limbaugh, but I think President Barack Obama, his White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and the rest of the Hill Dems wouldn't take this chance if they genuinely believed the majority of Americans think like Rush Limbaugh. Also, I think they aren't giving Limbaugh any opportunity that wasn't already there.
I hope Obama's optimism about the American people wanting harmony is well placed. Sometimes I don't have that kind of faith at all.
A conservative contributing editor at BlogHer wrote about whether Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the GOP and ended up in a vigorous debate about Rush Limbaugh and hate speech. She shot herself in the foot by ignoring all the examples people have been presenting of Limbaugh's hate speech, including video, audio, and transcripts from Limbaugh's own site, to focus on two statements that can't be documented. The conversation has gotten down to the nits of whether people should use the word "Nazi." It's the new "n" word.
People should be careful to not go overboard with knee-jerk reactions to words without looking at context. In Rush's case, the context usually proves he is using hate speech and, well, we know, Rush doesn't care that he does.
Anyway, I wrote a response to someone who thought D. L. Hughley should not have made what they believe was a flippant reference to Nazi Germany when comparing the Republican national convention's image last summer. While I agree with much of the point the commenter made (Limbaugh's use and coining of "feminazi" is atrocious), I responded with the dangers of pushing offensive language underground.
Certain kinds of rhetoric are precursors to genocide and it's better to let a jackass be a jackass than to teach him how to hide that he's a jackass. BTW, if you think it goes overboard to associate Limbaugh's language with genocide or potential genocide, please visit this link and hear what he says about why "liberals" want action in Darfur and that Darfur doesn't matter to America.
Yes, one day we will stop giving time to Rush, but for the moment discussions about hate speech are important and his language provides clear examples for those who are honest. One person on the conservative's post told Limbaugh supporters to stop defending him with unbelievable statements that he doesn't use hate speech: if you like him you like him. I agree. The idiotic defense of his rhetoric speaks volumes.
So, if you're white and like Rush Limbaugh's language or you're a self-hating minority who likes the show, stop trying to be the church lady on one hand and a Rush slut on the other: Embrace your inner racist and ignorance so we can see the real you.
My comment from the other site:
I have way more I could say on this subject than I'm about to write, but given what I've seen from Limbaugh supporters, an exploration of this topic on this particular post would be fruitless and counterproductive.
I'm pretty sure there's no way to discuss the educated use of offensive words in this type of forum without leading some people to conclude using the words Nazi, n*gg*r, fascist, Uncle Tom, etc. flippantly is okay when that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm talking about the proper and educated use of language to make a point, examine a sociological issue, or sound an alarm. The problem really isn't that a certain word was used, it's how that word or phrase was used.
But I know humans forever look for excuses to practice stupidity which is why people who want to use the word Nazi flippantly would read something like what I write here to do so.
Nevertheless ...
You give D.L. too much credit, I think. I believe, while he's aware of the Republican Party's history, he was probably tapping into the gut reaction many African-Americans and some members of other minorities as well some whites, including people who've studied the precursors to Nazi Germany, had while watching the predominantly white sea of faces, the nationalistic chanting, and the speeches at the Republican convention.
People start to hooping and hollering when any analogy is made to Hitler's Germany. They do the same when anyone compares them to the KKK. All that is evidence that there's truth to the southern saying, "The guilty dog hollers loudest."
I'd be more impressed if they'd defend what they actually believe than shouting over and over again "Are you saying I'm a racist? Are you saying I'm a Nazi?" because if you believe you used your words correctly you can defend them.
Other people scream offense because they want us all to remember that six million people were murdered as though bloodshed is the only sign of atrocity and nobody we see now in our enlightened world can ever get as bad as Hitler. Sad thing is, they can. We could repeat an updated version of the Jewish Holocaust but with a different group of people. In fact, genocide hasn't disappeared at all and most people ignore the initial stories because once it gets to killing many thousands of people, folks can't fathom the level of abomination and would prefer not to believe it's occurring.
You stop genocide by talking about what theatens a few before it gets to what's done to the many. You keep it from getting that far by listening to what people are saying and speaking against hate speech, which is what you're doing.
If we live by "never forget" then the Holocaust is only part of the story of Hitler's world. If we don't want to repeat that horror, it's the precursors to it that we must discuss and many of those precursors were specific kinds of divisive rhetoric. The wise look for these patterns in our own society that indicate we're nearing the precipice of our destruction. Can we see them if we force the offensive words completely underground?
Some of us have been fooled into thinking stopping people from saying certain words is the same as stopping people from having hateful agendas. But its their words that warn us of their hateful agendas and we need to listen, discuss, and condemn. If the people using the words decide to stop because they've had a change of heart, then great. If they don't then what have we lost by pointing them out?
It's the foam coming from a rabid dog's mouth that warns us to stay the hell away from it, call for help and step up animal vaccinations. Want to get rid of the foam at the mouth, cure rabies.
So, until there's a cure for racism, anti-semitism, misogyny, etc., I prefer being able to spot those who embrace bigotry and their sympathizers by how they choose to use certain words.
None of what I said is an excuse to use offensive language like a school-yard bully.
Today's episode is brought to you buy Machiavellian Media Pimps, MMP: Shall We Play a Game?
On yesterday's episode of Political Machismo Theater, your narrator revealed through backstory that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his band of merry Dems played Rush Limbaugh and RNC Chair Michael Steele like a guitar. Yes, the stage crew, along with the Player in Chief Obama, baited the conservative blowhard and Republicans early and they took the bait.
Limbaugh, lover of worms, keeps going back for more, making the Grand Old Party look old indeed but mostly retarded. For Rush, it's all about his ratings.
Today our story takes a melodramatic turn with whispers that Limbaugh, beloved by core Republicans, may be what our narrator has long suspected--a troubled soul suffering from narcissistic personality disorder with high-functioning mania. USA Today and other major news sources report that Limbaugh wants to debate the President of the United States of America.
From the talkshow host's own website:
RUSH: ... But I have an idea. If these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness, why doesn't President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies. Now, his people in this Politico story, it's on the record. They're claiming they wanted me all along. They wanted me to be the focus of attention. So let's have the debate! I am offering President Obama to come on this program -- without staffers, without a teleprompter, without note cards -- to debate me on the issues. (Limbaugh's website)
I rarely readPolitico, the site where Limaugh says it was revealed that he's been a target, and so, I didn't read its grand "exposé" published yesterday. But who needed Politico to tell them that the Limbaugh as head of RNC media blitz was a set-up, and really, Rush, who cares? You took the bait because you're a predictable egomaniac, as discussed on this blog yesterday.
Still, I may have to put Politico on the list of regular reading since they have access to the smoking guns, something I knew, but I still neglected them. It's hard to keep up with the political junkie sites. My post about the Rush/Steele set-up was written on my gut instinct that knows slick strategy when I see it, what Politico is calling the "Rush Job."
Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.
Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.
"The administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. (Rush Job)
See what I mean by narcissistic personality disorder. Media whore. Media whore. Media whore! Boy, I wish I had blogged my Rush/Steele set-up theory Tuesday morning when I'd intended, but I didn't have time that day.
At his site, Limbaugh's growling that the Democratic Party and their operatives are mean and nasty and don't want to face their opposition. He should know of mean and nasty--Rush, the verbal sociopath. And now a commercial break: Are you a talk show host? Got a dirty mouth? Clean it up!
Back to our Story
Meanwhile, a GOP sage, Ed Rollins, discusses at CNN that this debate over who's in charge of the GOP, Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh, is silly. "The battle to be the "de facto leader" of this party is akin to the question of who wants to steer the Titanic after it hit the iceberg," writes Rollins. Furthermore, Rollins gives statistics showing how badly the GOP needs to hauled from the icy waters and its leadership given CPR.
He says that Rush doesn't want to run the party because LImbaugh's making mega-millions as an influential conservative voice. He also has a few words about Michael Steele and what he was elected to do. Boring! Watching Limbaugh prove he wants to be king of the world is the hotter ticket.
