"One thing I do that you won't find anywhere else in the media: I combine satire with serious commentary. I'm going to go back and forth within a moment's notice."
Yes, I love this about Rush. And it's something I think I do in writing on this blog (unbeknownst to Rush, apparently... at least if I am to be considered "in the media"). It's a matter of expecting your listeners/readers to be pretty smart and alert... to get it. It also means you're dropping quotes all the time that people who don't get you — and probably don't want to get you — can use to make you sound stupid/crazy/evil. I love the way Rush revels in that sort of thing.
(Via Real Clear Politics.)
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227 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 227 of 227And what Rush said about "hoping Obama fails" was right on 100%.
Everyone knows what he meant by that, that he didn't want Obama to get his policies and agenda enacted... which is entirely reasonable. Liberals didn't suddenly decide to cheer lead for Reagan's policies, or Bush I, or Bush II's policies when they were elected. That's just silly.
But it was an opportunity to pretend that Rush meant something that he didn't mean and try to make some political hay. It was spin and politics.
Says nothing at all about Rush.
Beth: I'm not a Rush fan. What, then, must I hear, or see, or not hear, or not see?
Beth, I repeat: I'm not a Rush fan. What does that mean, in terms of how I must perceive/adjudge his words and also how I must adjudge/perceive him?
About never hearing a racist anything...
I think we'd be better off if instead of trying to find racism, if we tried to find alternative explanations and accepted them unless there was good reason not to.
(Gabe is my daughter... had herself logged into my Google account.)
I think we'd be better off if instead of trying to find racism, if we tried to find alternative explanations and accepted them unless there was good reason not to.
Why try to find anything?
reader, I don't have any "musts" for you, other than advice to get the decoder ring. If you ever hear anything he says differently than the ditto decoder ring reveals it, you're just not getting it.
Beth: Huh.
***
Thanks for the jewelry advice!
What do you want me to say, reader? I think Rush fans hear what they want to, through a ditto filter. But you are free to disagree. Plenty of people do.
Limbaugh assumed the media had to be inflating their attention to McNabb. Why? Because McNabb is black.
For an encore, you might consider an appropriately showy and dramatic revealing of the winning Powerball numbers for next week.
I think Rush fans hear what they want to, through a ditto filter.
Because the millions of people who listen to Rush every week are a monolithic herd. Yep, that's gotta be it.
Feel free to discount my opinion, though -- you can just put me with Geraldine Ferraro in the racist corner, because I believe the only reason that Barack Obama was elected is the color of his skin.
Beth said...Or maybe he was. Who knows? Rush was just floating a possibility. One he'd never float about white quarterbacks or coaches, or the media coverage of them, unless of course to allege they were being unfairly judged by higher standards.
It has been a while back but I seem to remember Rush saying something about Bill Bradley not being good enough to play professional basketball if he were not white.
But Rick, it's just chance, you know, or whatever, that dictates why so many coaches and quarterbacks are white. Isn't it?
Perhaps its because the demographic of the NFL is 75% African-American the QB has to fill the token Caucasion slot.
bagoh20 said..."It's virtually impossible to disagree with modern liberals about politics or history without being called a racist."
Jeremy said..."Based on what?"
Based on experience. Having been involved with these internet discussions since the Clinton Administration, it is a pretty good rule of thumb that whenever lefties run out of real arguments, the accusations of racism inevitably follow regardless of justification or relevance.
Another observation is that lefties cannot be counted on to argue in good faith. There is often a kind of desperation to their determination to defend their talking points that causes them to frequently adopt a rather elastic definition of truth.
Are you trying to make the argument everybody who didn't realize McNabb would become a great quarterback is a racist? Did you know Favre would become a great QB when he was languishing on the third string in Atlanta?
Eric,
Your being disengenious. At the time Rush said this, McNabb's team had been to I believe 4 straight NFC Championship games. And if you know anything about football, the QB is the default leader of any team. Rush felt that despite McNabb's absolutely proven record of success that somehow he was some "Affirmative Action" case that was being promoted because of his race. It was stupid, lacked evidence and injected race needlessly in an argument where race wasn't a factor. I've debated friends on whether David Garrard (black) is better than Jake Delhomme (white) with friends, and we are somehow able to point to criteria like wins, accuracy, throwing arm and other factors without worrying about whether race is undervauluing either of them. But race hustlers like Rush can't seem to accomplish a debate with a black person involved without making it about their race.
Rush is racist but having a President who sat through 20 years of Goddam the US of KKA sermons from his spiritual mentor is perfectly acceptable to liberals.
Actually I laughed my ass of when Ferraro got called out as a racist for her comment. A couple of my co-workers who were Hillary backers were absolutely aghast that such an allegation could be made. It only reinforces my belief that liberals simply accept as dogma that conservatives are inherently racist whereas liberals can't be regardless of what they say.
Invisible Man said at 10/12/09 1:47pm :
“And most Black Americans resent the ease with which Rush and others on the Right seem to want to dismiss racism and bigotry, because they think its unfair to be called a racist. Guess what's also unfair, being treated with racism and bigotry.”
It is unfair to be falsely accused of racism and such unfair accusations have devalued the racism charge greatly. As a result, people do routinely dismiss the charge and real racists are given cover.
Great care should be taken before making such a charge to avoid smearing the name of the innocent as well as to avoid further devaluing of the claim.
Purported "James Earl Ray" Rush quote proven to be yet another out-and-out lie:
http://maaadddog.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/quotation-attributed-to-rush-limbaugh-is-a-damnable-lie/
The American political left: baldfaced and inherently dishonest hacks, or simply slack-jawed yokels? You make the call.
Invisible Man,
There's nothing disingenuous in pointing out somebody is getting more attention than he deserves. If you know anything about football, you'll realize At the time McNabb's stats were decent, but no more than that.
Race is a prism that distorts everyone's vision. The distortions of liberals are no more descriptive of reality than the distortions of conservatives. Only Euclid looked on beauty bare, and we should make an effort to tolerate the normal limits of intolerance....It seems to me that for some reason there are more successful Italian-American baseball managers than any other ethnic group. That impression may very well be mistaken, but I don't think anyone would accuse me of puffing Italians if I made it. Likewise, those who disagreed with me would not be accused of harboring anti-Italian bias. Can the same tolerance be granted differing opinions on Donovan McNabb? Perhaps the ideal should not be perfect acuity but the willingness to accept the imperfect views of others......Invisible Man: I would argue that quarterback is a much more influential position than team owner. No kid wants to grow up to be a team owner. If black people feel than Michael Vick's sins should be forgiven, it wouuld behoove them to give a little slack to Limbaugh's unfair comments.
Beth said
"But Rick, it's just chance, you know, or whatever, that dictates why so many coaches and quarterbacks are white. Isn't it?"
I don't know Beth. Why so few Jewish defensive tackles? Chance? For that matter, why so few white wide receivers, running backs and cornerbacks? And Chinese noseguards? Fugetaboutit!
But I think you missed my point. You threw down a challenge to demonstrate that owners pander to black coaches. I provided evidence that they have financial incentives to do just that, or at least to pander to prospective coaches.
I don't think Lovey Smith would be head coach of the Bears were he not black; does that make me racist?
It only reinforces my belief that liberals simply accept as dogma that conservatives are inherently racist whereas liberals can't be regardless of what they say.
Some do, unfortunately, and inaccurately.
Beth - you are a racist, because you see everything through the prism of race. In fact you made the statement that the majority of coaches and QBs are white because of racism.
Really? Does a statement like this really have to be defended as not racist? Really?
I would think not. But at 3:09 PM bagoH20 does just that.
"I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."
First of all, one of the great "merits" of slavery is that the whites never bothered to develop the same work ethic and sense of competition that helped drive the industrialization of the north. You might scratch your bum and say, "Well gee. If it hadn't ended that might not have been the case." In which case, you're defending a system that less and less countries were willing to tolerate. Something had to give and that's actually one of the reasons that impelled the north to go to war against their despotic countrymen to the South: an unwillingness to compete with a dehumanized labor pool.
Slavery might have "built the South", but only to a point where could no longer progress.
Second, Rush's brilliant insight doesn't really seem to apply to the intellectual labor that drives the economies of today. It's a bit harder to keep someone enslaved when you're employing him specifically to do do, not the heavy lifting that you won't do, but the heavy thinking that you can't do. When your employee is smart there is less shit that he will put up with. And he has better means to figure out how to put an end to your unjust game.
And third, if Rush's brainfart wasn't wrong on the merits - as I just showed it to be - is there really a need to defend remarks attesting to some sense of inherent criminality of blacks or the labor class? (I'm not sure which he means. But Rush being Rush, I don't feel a need to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant anything other than blacks as a race).
Just remember this and things may become clearer to you: Conservative DOES NOT equate to Republican. Rush is a Conservative and NOT NECESSARILY a Republican.
Well I don't like Rush so I guess I'm not a conservative. duped by the left and excluded by the right, what is one to do!
Montana Urban Legend: Limbaugh claims that he never made the comments you ascribe to him. I understand from you past statements about your wish to shatter the skulls of Sarah Palin's children that you harbor a great deal of animosity towards conservatives. Still, don't you think that making up quotes and then making character judgements based upon those fabricated quotes is an unfair practice.
Awww... William. It's misguided people like you who make it evident just how much conservatives need the tough love that I offer them.
Of course, I won't address your libel about shattering skulls. Nor will I pretend to "ascribe" to Limbaugh the quote that your fellow conservative, bagoH2O, already ascribed to him for me. I was merely addressing the content of the quote that he defended (and ascribed to Limbaugh). Must boggle your mind, but it's true.
Nevertheless, I would hardly take Limbug's claims at face value, even those regarding what he claims not to have said. He is a liar and a distorter who gets paid big bucks to make people who agree with his warped understanding of reality to feel comforted that they have a friend in the form of a big voice on the big airwaves. And wayward conservatives need to be told when he's wrong and why.
BTW, I don't hate conservatives or conservatism (if it wasn't evident). I do, however, hate people who want to consign conservatism to irrelevance by mistaking it with narcissism, populism, contrarianism, rebellion, ideological purity, or other potentially destructive positions and attitudes that exist simply for their own sake. This will do nothing for conservatism other than further marginalize it and push it to the realm of pointlessness.
I have lived sufficient years to know that I have been wrong about a lot of things. Perhaps I was wrong when I was young, and now I am right; or perhaps it's vice versa. In any event, there can be no mistake that I have been mistaken. What troubles me most about my fallability is that the fervency of my beliefs were never correlated with their objective truth. I think that's true of most people. The virgin birth and dialectical materialism are believed with more vehemence than the Pythagorean theorem....I admire your strong beliefs about Rush Limbaugh. It takes real character to dislike someone so distant with such strong conviction.....I think Limbaugh may have been unfair in his judgement of Donovan McNabb. I do not think that disqualifies Limbaugh from ownership of a NFL team nor participation in public debate. Ray Lewis walked away from the bodies of two murdered black men. He is qualified to play in the NFL. There's something terribly wrong about that.
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