Rush Limbaugh takes on TNR's "Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker" and (in the process) says my name.

I was already listening to that section of the podcast of today's show when Meade — prompted by this rhhardin comment ("Althouse got a mention and quote on Rush at 14:15 eastern" — let me know Rush said my name today. So I just missed the weird experience of listening to a show and suddenly hearing my name. Instead I had the somewhat more unsettling experience of listening waiting for my name to come up, and I think my immediate response was something like "uh oh." Because much as I like what I write to get lifted up by one form of media or another, whenever something is grabbed and used, it's used for someone else's purposes.

So Rush was talking about how Scott Walker is a great model for what the GOP needs to do to win, which is to stand on conservative principle and ignore the advice to move to the middle. And:

New Republic cover story: "Scott Walker Is So Hot Right Now," and then you get to the bottom line of the cover: "Too bad he owes his success to a toxic strain of racial politics."...

So, ladies and gentlemen, Ann Althouse, who lives in Wisconsin, waited and waited until the New Republic put that story out. Not just the picture of the cover but the actual text of the story up on their website.

Well, no. I waited and waited for the text to appear on line, but as soon as I was able to see the cover — when it popped into my iPad — I could also read the text on my iPad, as a subscriber. I couldn't link to the text. I was quite clear about all that in my first post, "Look at the new New Republic cover, smearing Scott Walker for his 'toxic strain of racial politics.'" In that first post, I say I read the article and I summarized it for you.

Although Rush links to the TNR piece at his website, he doesn't link to me. And he doesn't identify me as a blogger or a law professor. I'm just a person who lives in Wisconsin. That's annoying in part because I want the traffic, but also because there's my name and he's confusing what I said. (And by the way, Rush frequently talks about Apple products and tech-y topics, and this was, for me, also a story about iPad and Chris Hughes's flat-footedness on digital media.)

Rush continues:

She has called it a smear, "a racial smear."  There are phrases in this story like, "When Is it Considered Acceptable, in Polite Company, to Refer to the Excessive 'Whiteness' of a Public Figure? -- Why did the editors of The New Republic -- that venerable journal -- think it was acceptable to title an article ' The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker'?" That is the title.  You don't see that on the cover.

Now, that's bungled. The phrase "When Is it Considered Acceptable, in Polite Company, to Refer to the Excessive 'Whiteness' of a Public Figure?" is the title of the third blog post I put up, and "Why did the editors of The New Republic -- that venerable journal -- think it was acceptable to title an article 'The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker'?" is the first sentence of that post. Again, my post is not linked, but several phrases of mine are presented as if they are in The New Republic. Rush seems to realize that, but he doesn't go back and clarify. It's just confusing, because the point is that TNR wrote something scurrilous and the quoted lines — my lines — aren't scurrilous but — if I may say so — careful and probing, highlighting a serious problem in TNR's journalism.

Rush focuses on the article title and says "the only thing in it that even relates to race is the fact that he is in favor of voter ID.  That's it." And that's part of what I said in my first post, here:

[T]he closest thing to anything racial coming directly from Scott Walker is his support over the years for voter ID laws. 

I also said:

Much of the article is about the demographics of Milwaukee and the suburban counties around it, including the history — going back into the early 20th century — of how black people migrated to the city and did not — as white people did — relocate into the suburbs....

The article also focuses on 2 talk radio hosts — Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes — who have big audiences in Milwaukee. TNR has little direct racial material on them, but it forefronts the one truly ugly thing it has: Belling mocking a specific black person, Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore. Mostly, TNR accuses Belling and Sykes of indulging in dog-whistle politics about crime and dependence on welfare.

Rush didn't touch that material about talk radio, which bulked out the TNR article. And not only is Mark Belling a frequent guest host on the Rush Limbaugh show, but Rush himself has laid into "Gwendolynne" Moore many times.

Rush continued:

This is not just a smear. That it is, but it is a huge hit piece.  The title:  "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker."  He only got elected and survived two recalls in the blue state of Wisconsin. 

Here, Rush repeats a mistake for which I corrected him 6 days ago. Walker faced one recall, not 2. I have no delusions that Rush reads my blog. I think someone prepares material to feed to him to riff on and he's bold and freewheeling enough to read things and talk about them as he goes. Fine. That works for him. But he does make mistakes in the process. I can see that his show has vigor because of the spontaneity, and it's something like the way I proceed with a text when I blog. But writing is different from speaking, and I reread what I've written and can correct things or pause to think or do a little research. The show just rolls on, and the experience for the listener is what really matters, not precision over any details.

Rush drives forward to his destination:

It's time to destroy [Scott Walker] again.  See, the left will always tell us who they fear.  They will always tell us what they're most worried about by who they try to destroy.  But I think this is kind of fascinating....

It's racial politics, reverse racism, whatever you want to call it. It's hideous.

I agree. I agree with the big point: Scott Walker is powerful and threatening to Democrats because he stands firm on conservative principles, that's why he is targeted for destruction, and racial politics is the way they do it.

And that's how talk radio works. A lot of the material is sketchy and a bit off, but you're caught up in the cascade, and in the end, you get the point, and you probably agree with it, even if you've just had the unsettling experience of hearing your own name tossed out and your own words used and abused.