What Letterman (and His Ilk) Get That Couric (and Her Ilk) Do Not
By Brian Lambert
One of the classic admonitions of political warfare says that when the
other guy is doing a perfectly fine job of mounting the scaffold and
hanging himself, you don't go mess up a good thing by warning him about
the trapdoor.
Still . . . this Rush Limbaugh as "Leader of the Republican Party" thing, with Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, offering a groveling apology to Limbaugh barely two days after asserting that he and not Limbaugh, a radio entertainer, was the "de facto leader" . . . is beyond anything someone like me could ever hope for. (The only thing better was being live on KTLK a couple years ago when Limbaugh was brought in on his dope bust.)
The Rahm Emanuel strategy (his MO and prints are all over this one) of squeezing hapless Republicans into the position of either accepting Limbaugh, an unabashed cynic, as their "leader" or face an avalanche of "dittoheads" melting down their phone lines and e-mail is diabolically brilliant. Of course, it wouldn't work if the Republican party weren't still a captive of its most hidebound and reactionary elements, the crowd with a near religious attraction to Limbaugh that has had its hands around the neck of actual conservatives for the last twenty-five years and is now preparing to yank back the lever that drops the party through the trapdoor.
I mean, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference is always a freak show of military-dodging frat boys and plagiarizing authors. But this year's event--where Limbaugh made a rare public appearance--couldn't have supplied more opposition sound bites if its organizers had sat down with Democratic strategists and asked, "Really, what can we do for you kids?" It was shameless lunacy of vaudevillian zeal. Only if Michele Bachmann and Ann Coulter had dressed up as Nubian concubines and rubbed myrrh into Limbaugh's bare feet would CPAC have lifted the spirits of liberals more than it did.
Jon Stewart nearly wet himself with all the clips the 4 percent Republican "base" served up.
Frankly, after twenty years and hundreds of columns/blog posts about the bizarre hold talk radio entertainers have over their astonishingly credulous audiences and the fear they strike into the hearts of the mainstream press, I'm at a loss to flog it all over again. But the worm in this long-running act has turned. In a media universe where 5 percent of the total audience keeps you rich as Croesus, Limbaugh and other big-name radio performers have a rock-solid base from which to ride out the "deep recession". But good lord, look what makes up that base!
At least two things have changed dramatically: 1: Newer, fresher, funnier alternate-alternate media on TV (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert) and all over the Internet has succeeded in drawing a dark red margin around these characters that no one in media dared in their uncontested glory years during the Clinton administration. And 2: The "conservative ethos" that Limbaugh continues to defend, as though it were handed to him from God himself, has exploded in everyone's' face.
Historians will be calculating the moral and financial toll of The Limbaugh Doctrine, as committed to policy by Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Grover Norquist, Tom DeLay, and their soul mates on Wall Sreet. and in the energy patch for decades to come. (With three hours of uninterrupted monologizing a day, Limbaugh has, of course, distanced himself from the incompetence, fraud, and carnage. Poor practitioners, he says, or something to that effect.) But "Main Street" seems to understand that we're going to be digging ourselves out from "the Bush era" (and all those who supported it) for years to come.
So then Katie Couric does a guest stint on David Letterman last night. (I was watching for U2.) And Letterman . . . David Letterman, late night TV host . . . comments out of the blue, apropos of nothing really, that Limbaugh "what a bonehead, . . . looked like a Russian gangster" as he fired up the dweebs and droolers at CPAC. Couric, of course, was half mortified.
The question is: Who is smarter, Letterman or Couric? Who understands their role best?
The cheap argument is that Couric is an unbiased journalist protecting her objectivity. Therefore, she can't say anything that might be construed as "biased," which, of course, could be anything if Limbaugh decides to go after you and stirs up his pitchfork audience.
What Couric (and her ilk) avoid saying is that Limbaugh's act has always been nakedly cynical. For people in the accuracy business, they've never had the stomach to point out that he is flat-out wrong about . . . well, damned near everything. But now, as the "Limbaugh base" has been reduced to shrieking for Joe the Plumber in a ballroom of rabid acolytes, it is a bit like Joe McCarthy, post-Army hearings. The rest of the country--supposedly Couric's primary audience--has been b**ch-slapped by reality and is struggling to find a way out from under the slag heap of mismanagement and corruption that has overwhelmed them.
Couric can demure out of fear of offending Limbaugh (who she might bump into at an upscale Manhattan restaurant) and incurring the wrath of his minions, but all she does is reaffirm in the minds of a healthy majority of viewers that she, like Michael Steele and those truly pathetic Republican congressmen who plead for Limbaugh's forgiveness, cannot dare to speak candidly and truthfully.
This is a classic dilemma for journalism in the Internet age. How assiduously do you stick to "objectivity" when one party in a story not only has been proven wrong, emphatically, but it is constantly being deconstructed as frauds and fools by alternate "news" sources that are eating your lunch? In an appearance industry, "objective journalism" suffers from a truth deficit. That is a competitive liability.
Letterman lives and dies by ratings as much as Couric, but he has the guts/common sense/business acumen to reassert what is now a cultural meme. Namely, that the "principled, true conservatism" shtick of Rush Limbaugh has been revealed to be a sick joke. A profitable one for Limbaugh, to be sure, and nothing that needs to be regulated out of business but a cynical shtick and little more.
While Couric (and Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer, etc.) watch their credibility erode, Letterman (and Stewart and Colbert, etc.) correctly calculates that he has more to gain by saying what he knows to be true (and suffering the wrath should it come to that) than by tucking in and playing the trembling sheep.
I wouldn't be surprised of Katie sends Rush a note apologizing for her timid little joke about him and "flesh."
Still . . . this Rush Limbaugh as "Leader of the Republican Party" thing, with Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, offering a groveling apology to Limbaugh barely two days after asserting that he and not Limbaugh, a radio entertainer, was the "de facto leader" . . . is beyond anything someone like me could ever hope for. (The only thing better was being live on KTLK a couple years ago when Limbaugh was brought in on his dope bust.)
The Rahm Emanuel strategy (his MO and prints are all over this one) of squeezing hapless Republicans into the position of either accepting Limbaugh, an unabashed cynic, as their "leader" or face an avalanche of "dittoheads" melting down their phone lines and e-mail is diabolically brilliant. Of course, it wouldn't work if the Republican party weren't still a captive of its most hidebound and reactionary elements, the crowd with a near religious attraction to Limbaugh that has had its hands around the neck of actual conservatives for the last twenty-five years and is now preparing to yank back the lever that drops the party through the trapdoor.
I mean, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference is always a freak show of military-dodging frat boys and plagiarizing authors. But this year's event--where Limbaugh made a rare public appearance--couldn't have supplied more opposition sound bites if its organizers had sat down with Democratic strategists and asked, "Really, what can we do for you kids?" It was shameless lunacy of vaudevillian zeal. Only if Michele Bachmann and Ann Coulter had dressed up as Nubian concubines and rubbed myrrh into Limbaugh's bare feet would CPAC have lifted the spirits of liberals more than it did.
Jon Stewart nearly wet himself with all the clips the 4 percent Republican "base" served up.
Frankly, after twenty years and hundreds of columns/blog posts about the bizarre hold talk radio entertainers have over their astonishingly credulous audiences and the fear they strike into the hearts of the mainstream press, I'm at a loss to flog it all over again. But the worm in this long-running act has turned. In a media universe where 5 percent of the total audience keeps you rich as Croesus, Limbaugh and other big-name radio performers have a rock-solid base from which to ride out the "deep recession". But good lord, look what makes up that base!
At least two things have changed dramatically: 1: Newer, fresher, funnier alternate-alternate media on TV (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert) and all over the Internet has succeeded in drawing a dark red margin around these characters that no one in media dared in their uncontested glory years during the Clinton administration. And 2: The "conservative ethos" that Limbaugh continues to defend, as though it were handed to him from God himself, has exploded in everyone's' face.
Historians will be calculating the moral and financial toll of The Limbaugh Doctrine, as committed to policy by Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Grover Norquist, Tom DeLay, and their soul mates on Wall Sreet. and in the energy patch for decades to come. (With three hours of uninterrupted monologizing a day, Limbaugh has, of course, distanced himself from the incompetence, fraud, and carnage. Poor practitioners, he says, or something to that effect.) But "Main Street" seems to understand that we're going to be digging ourselves out from "the Bush era" (and all those who supported it) for years to come.
So then Katie Couric does a guest stint on David Letterman last night. (I was watching for U2.) And Letterman . . . David Letterman, late night TV host . . . comments out of the blue, apropos of nothing really, that Limbaugh "what a bonehead, . . . looked like a Russian gangster" as he fired up the dweebs and droolers at CPAC. Couric, of course, was half mortified.
The question is: Who is smarter, Letterman or Couric? Who understands their role best?
The cheap argument is that Couric is an unbiased journalist protecting her objectivity. Therefore, she can't say anything that might be construed as "biased," which, of course, could be anything if Limbaugh decides to go after you and stirs up his pitchfork audience.
What Couric (and her ilk) avoid saying is that Limbaugh's act has always been nakedly cynical. For people in the accuracy business, they've never had the stomach to point out that he is flat-out wrong about . . . well, damned near everything. But now, as the "Limbaugh base" has been reduced to shrieking for Joe the Plumber in a ballroom of rabid acolytes, it is a bit like Joe McCarthy, post-Army hearings. The rest of the country--supposedly Couric's primary audience--has been b**ch-slapped by reality and is struggling to find a way out from under the slag heap of mismanagement and corruption that has overwhelmed them.
Couric can demure out of fear of offending Limbaugh (who she might bump into at an upscale Manhattan restaurant) and incurring the wrath of his minions, but all she does is reaffirm in the minds of a healthy majority of viewers that she, like Michael Steele and those truly pathetic Republican congressmen who plead for Limbaugh's forgiveness, cannot dare to speak candidly and truthfully.
This is a classic dilemma for journalism in the Internet age. How assiduously do you stick to "objectivity" when one party in a story not only has been proven wrong, emphatically, but it is constantly being deconstructed as frauds and fools by alternate "news" sources that are eating your lunch? In an appearance industry, "objective journalism" suffers from a truth deficit. That is a competitive liability.
Letterman lives and dies by ratings as much as Couric, but he has the guts/common sense/business acumen to reassert what is now a cultural meme. Namely, that the "principled, true conservatism" shtick of Rush Limbaugh has been revealed to be a sick joke. A profitable one for Limbaugh, to be sure, and nothing that needs to be regulated out of business but a cynical shtick and little more.
While Couric (and Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer, etc.) watch their credibility erode, Letterman (and Stewart and Colbert, etc.) correctly calculates that he has more to gain by saying what he knows to be true (and suffering the wrath should it come to that) than by tucking in and playing the trembling sheep.
I wouldn't be surprised of Katie sends Rush a note apologizing for her timid little joke about him and "flesh."
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
I pity any conservative tapped as a pallbearer after that fat fuck chokes on a tub of chicken wings.
Posted by: A Son of Mississippi on March 3, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Off hand, I'd say too much lead solder in their plumbing.
LAMBERT: Or not enough hugs from Mom.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on March 3, 2009 at 11:38 PM
I don't get it. As a registered independent I find this strategy very petty and mean-spirited. It panders to the base of the party (like Son of Mississippi and Mr. Lambert). I don't care for Rush, but he isn't even an elected official. His side got crushed in the election so why even stoop to mentioning his name?
The "change" Obama promised lasted about a week. Now it's just more of the same political games at the expense of the country. I was really hoping for something different.
LAMBERT: All the Dems are doing is pointing out the true and obvious -- that all Republican officials must kow-tow to Limbaugh, a guy whose success is built on sustaining a "them v. us" divide -- and then standing back and letting them chew on each other. Obama, and even Rahm Emanuel, are interested in a constructive relationship with Republicans. But their "leader" is a guy with no skin in an electoral game, and whose fortune only increases by urging "failure" amid a global crisis.
Posted by: Cory on March 4, 2009 at 9:23 AM
Wow, for a Limbaugh watcher, you just don't get it. If you think Bush/Cheney followed the Limbaugh line, you weren't listening to his show. Rahm's strategy is going to backfire on him. They think they're smart because Limbaugh has 11% approval rating. What they overlook is that this is because most only know him from the characterization of the Letterman/Courics of the mainstream media. Limbaugh's CPAC speech was his first ever national TV broadcast. They are giving him the bully pulpit. I watched the whole CPAC bit last night and it was good. As for Steele, any Republican that says nothing while Hughley compares his party to Nazis should resign. Whether that's before or after kissing Limbaugh's ass I really don't care. Democrats forget at their peril that this is a center right country. The one hanging himself right now is Obama. His budget has even caused David Brooks to call "do-over" this week on his endorsement. If you think this is socialist country that will be happy with zero jobs growth for decades (the Swedes endured it stoically for 40 years until the Social Democrats finally got walloped in 2006) then you are the one in for a visit from Mr. Reality.
LAMBERT: Well Ed -- and I truly appreciate the courageousness of a real name -- I sense we have serious ideological disagreements. But one of Limbaugh's great talents -- the essence of his shtick -- his distancing himself from failure. The Bush-Cheney regime followed through on every point of Limbaugh's agenda, including off the charts (and off the books) deficit spending. Only when it was clearly an epic failure did Limbaugh start his niggling and maneuvering away, under the cover of the one guy protecting "conservative principles". Limbaugh is golden because as a radio entertainer he has no obligation to accountability, he controls his confrontations, such as they are. No elected official enjoys such a cocoon. Barack Obama is Limbaugh's dream come true (again). His re-make of government is, by necessity, a stark repudiation of nearly everything Limbaugh has espoused ... and conservative politicians -- like those kow-towing to Limbaugh ... have implemented with disastrous consequences. Limbaugh can re-re-re-spin this for years to come. But now he has to do it with everyone outside of CPAC understanding he's BS.
Posted by: Ed Bauer on March 4, 2009 at 10:09 AM
I thought that this new era of politics was about acting like adults. Would that include calling the opposition -
"dweebs and droolers"
"military-dodging frat boys and plagiarizing authors" (are we talking about the Democrat leaderes who voted and made vocal cases for the Iraq war and Joe Biden's plagiarizing)
Are you gathering your spit balls to shoot them through a straw? If your sentiments are common among those on the left it is really hard to take seriously this charge that the left are the adults in charge. Why not take the speeches and diagnose those for factual accuracy and debate, vs the general over used comments such as "Rush is cynical".
LAMBERT: If cynicism is defined as "based on or reflecting a belief that human conduct is motivated primarily by self-interest", Rush is an embodiment. As for the "military dodging" -- check out Max Blumenthal's interviews with CPAC-goers from past years. Coulter -- plagiarist. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Namzso on March 4, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I need to be up on the rules here.
If Couric the journalist goes on TV and spouts off her opinion of a radio talk show host, calls him names and says he is wrong about everything (without really calling out his facts) - this is good journalism and the public interest. (accepted) If FOX news commentators go on opinion/debate shows not as journalists and say biased statements, that is the meltdown of modern journalism? (Not accepted)
If MSNBC have partisan hacks (Olberman and Matthews) anchor what are suppose to be newsbroadcasts (debates, Presidential addresses) and discuss their biological turn ons to Obama or just flat out mutter their disgust for any opposition under their breath - this is in the public interest and is accepted.
So just so I am clear, negative discourse is accepted when it is against a Republican, it is unaccepted biased when it is made against a Democrat?
LAMBERT: Couric doesn't need to offer her "opinion" of Limbaugh's fundamental ethics. It's there for anyone to see. Report it. My point is that she ... and her colleagues ... are about as craven as Republican congressmen when it comes to daring to call Limbaugh on his act. Neither can afford to take the PR hit. The greater irony here -- and I'm disappointed you didn't jump on it -- is that while the modern Republican party is subservient to a radio entertainer, liberals such as myself are dependent on late night comics to ask the questions, deconstruct the spin and challenge the all-powerful because the professional press is too intimidated to perform so valuable a duty.
Posted by: Namzso on March 4, 2009 at 10:56 AM
Surely, Lambo is just waving the usual lib red herrings (oooh, Rush is awful,etc.), in attempting to avoid comment on The One's deplorable "results" thus far.
LAMBERT: According to yesterday's far fringe left wing Wall Street Journal poll, 84% understand that Obama is and will be cleaning up a monster mess for quite a while to come.
Posted by: bertram jr. on March 4, 2009 at 11:28 AM
One wonders what Couric and Gibson and Williams and Matthews and the rest think they are; the orgy of self-congratulation around the memorial for Tim Russert indicates they think of themselves as journalists though the British description of the job as "news reader" seems more accurate. It is embarrassing that the standards of research for the "fake news" on the Daily Show are much better than those of the networks. If some politician says "I never said x"; it's Stewart, or possibly Olberman, who will have up the clip of him saying x.
One of the problems was identified as early as A Nation of Sheep (1961); Lederer pointed out that when McCarthy waved his grocery list and claimed that he had the names of 200 communists in the State Department, the media duly reported it. Unfortunately, what people understood was that there were two hundred communists in the State Department rather than that's what McCarthy falsely claimed because nobody, until Murrow, actually challenged McCarthy to put up or shut up. So now, some Republican gas bag says, for instance, that the stimulus package has a proviso for protecting the marsh mouse or running a high speed rail line from L.A. to Las Vegas (actually this fiction has been improved upon with the claim that it will go from Disneyland to the legal whore houses; I'm waiting for some wingnut to claim that child molesters and white slavers will get special discount tickets), and the media dutifully repeats the claim without ever saying "show me where."
The other major problem is the access whoring and cocooning that Glenn Greenwald among others describes. Except for the odd appearance on Letterman or the Daily Show, the media bigfeet, like the politicians they cater to, never face challenge. The time George Will tried out his revisionist theory of the economic history of the 30's when he was on a panel with Krugman explains why; in about 45 seconds Krugman reduced Will to a steaming pile of intellectual cowflop.
My belief that there is such a thing as fact, and the when a politician makes a factual claim, the media ought to demand that he or she substantiate that claim and know what the right answer is. What are their staffs for, doing the sort of jobs Rush's housekeeper did?
LAMBERT: I know from direct experience that the "mainstream media" treated Limbaugh like an innocuous sideshow until the late '90s or so. After that -- after a half dozen run-ins with indignant "dittoheads" -- it got murkier. Once his influence had been felt the governing attitude was that he and his people were something you needed to avoid annoying. If like me you've long since given up expecting anything substantial from TV news, its probably for the same reason. Locally and nationally, heavily commercialized TV news has been playing a nearly impossible balancing act. Engaging and "neighborly" on one hand while wrapped in a self-marketed patina of tough-minded, truth-to-power journalism on the other. It doesn't work ... with a discerning crowd. I guess what's truly sad is that the news outlets we used to look to for a serious alternative to such superficial glossing -- newspapers -- have adapted pretty much the same concept.
Posted by: john sherman on March 4, 2009 at 6:10 PM
What amazes me Brian is all the lefties that are experts on Limbaugh's show. Sure, they (and you) listen to it him the time -- right?
Well not really, they run off to their favorite lefty website (say Media Matters), repeat their message, and then claim to be an expert on someone like Limbaugh.
Then my favorite part, they claim they are not "partisan" -- it's Rush that is.
There are just as many sheep on the left as the right. Seems like their is plenty of Kool-aid being passed around.
Enjoy the honeymoon. It only lasts so long.
LAMBERT: Am I saying I'm not partisan? And no, I don't listen to Limbaugh much at all. But in a modern world there are people who follow him assiduously and post actual recordings and video of him at work. His rhetorical dance away from the Bush disaster has been well covered.
Posted by: Dave on March 4, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Couric and the others can't call Limbaugh what he is because the obvious question would then be, he's been like that for decades, why are you only noticing it now?
To say that Limbaugh is a cynically divisive reactionary who makes his living making people hate each other would expose the newsies' past conduct as either incompetent or craven. So they have to keep pretending.
LAMBERT: Exactly. My personal view -- or as The Dude might say, "This is like my opinion, man" -- is that the first criteria of journalism is seeking and respecting the truth. When you avoid poking the erroneous, divisive elephant out of a misplaced sense of "objectivity" you're doing neither.
Posted by: Editer on March 5, 2009 at 12:05 AM
If Rush thought it would get him a bigger audience, he'd have an affair with Nancy Pelosi while discovering true Jeffersonian democracy in the next State of the Union.
Your point about his lack of responsibility for anything is central. Rush epitomizes what former D.C. mayor Marion Barry said of Jesse Jackson's presidential quest: "He doesn't know how to run anything but his mouth."
LAMBERT: Always risky quoting Marion Barry, but you (and he) are right.
Posted by: Norwegian Blue on March 5, 2009 at 6:09 AM
Hey Lambert, guess what? Your guy won! Why can't you and the others be happy or is it that Libs cannot be happy?? And why doesn't it bother you "progressives" that this WH and the Dem party is determined to stifle debate, discourse and anyone who disagrees? Think about it-the President of the United States going after an entertainer-because he doesn't like what he's saying?? They're attacking Limbaugh, Hannity, Jim Cramer and then NBC sent it's people to attack one of their own-Santelli! All this after they crushed "joe the plumber" during the election-A PRIVATE CITIZEN! Doesn't this at least make your uneasy?? Sounds a lot like Nixon to me! Keep it up and watch the GOP take over in 2yrs-BECAUSE YOUR SIDE DOESN'T GET IT.
LAMBERT: Easy on the caps key, dude. Stifle what debate? The delicious part is that "the Democrat party" is in the enviable position of sitting back and letting the scorpions zap each other. Is it an "attack" on Limbaugh to acknowledge the obvious, that he is the "intellectual leader" of the Republican party? The one that all others must seek favor from and fear? As for "crushing Joe the Plumber", I flat out missed that one. I am of course wondering if average guy Joe is using some of the royalties from his book to pay his tax liens and/or actually get a plumber's license. It's a hell of a crowd you've got there.
Posted by: htowner on March 5, 2009 at 7:41 AM
I would suggest that the evidence regarding the "inclusive, accepting" left's reaction to Palin says all a right-thinking person needs to know about the truth of "liberalism".
And re: Obama - it's pretty obvious that the emporer is quite clothesless.
LAMBERT: Poor Sarah. So unfairly maligned.
Posted by: bertram jr. on March 5, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Instead of complaining about liberal attacks on Limbaugh, maybe the dittoheads in your audience ought to listen to the conservative David Frum:
"Here's the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging.
"On the one side, the president of the United States soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. The president invokes the language of 'responsibility,' and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal. He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.
"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 matrimonial 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.
"6jRush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant."
I didn't say that, nor did any other liberal; David Frum did in his New Majority blog which describes itself as "building a conservatism that can win again."
Neither did I, or any other liberal, force Republican office holders and operatives to tea bag Limbaugh in Times Square at midnight on New Years Eve.
Incidentally, dittoheads amaze me by on the one hand thumping their chests about how courageously intellectually independent they are and how free from p.c. and the conventional wisdom of the MSM while they mindlessly parrot every word of Limbaugh as though it were holy writ. Independence should be made of sterner stuff.
LAMBERT: That Frum stuff is priceless. I'm starting to think of "base" Republicans as a new "lost generation". And it is too bad, because every leadership group is better for having a smart, imaginative opposition that is in command of their facts and pushing alternate ideas.
Posted by: john sherman on March 5, 2009 at 11:42 AM
I honestly don't think that Rush believes the stuff he says anymore. Back in the Reagan years he was earnest and stopped to listen every now and then.
Now its just his shtick, and his game plan is to stay relevant by staying in the news, just like Britney and Paris. There's no such thing as bad pub, and he knows it. He's playing the Republican Party base for fools.
LAMBERT: Well since you put the ball on the tee ... what else COULD he play them for?
Posted by: Pierce County Politician on March 5, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Brian I think we both agree that Rush in an entertainer scoring big off this dust-up. I am sure not a ditto head, but I'm extremely disturbed by the Obama "change" in handling the enemy.
Obama's crew also went after Jim Cramer. The problem there is Cramer is a Democrat and is right!
For some reason, Obama (and many lefties) think they get a free pass on everything thanks to Bush. That was all fine until they threw their progressive agenda out there while we were still teetering on a depression. Obama and the left show pure arrogance about this.
The debates on health care, taxes for the rich, deductions, cap and trade, etc are all fair game. Obama won and deserves the opportunity to work on those. But throwing them out there now is a huge mistake and is responsible for the economy spinning out of control even faster. Cramer hit this on the head, you can find his response on the net.
Rush has been making similar comments but is too darned partisan for anyone to take seriously.
Brian I know you are partisan and there is nothing wrong with that. You wear it on your sleeve and don't hide from it.
But the left is wrong to get cocky and try to shove their agenda down our throats in such a tough time. Let the economy rebound, then they can have their fun.
The Republicans may be toast for the moment, but the Democrats have shown me nothing in the last 6 weeks.
LAMBERT: I'm mstified why smart folks aren't following the very clear -- and long argued -- interconnection between long term economic stability (not just huffing up a new bubble) and energy reform, containing the cost of health care (to businesses of every size) and education improvements (smarter consumers/workforce)? This isn't ahything Obama is "springing" on anyone. He campaigned on it. The full scale meltdown we're experiencing requires immediate action on multiple fronts. This isn't about just goosing up the Dow. Too much has been neglected for too long.
Posted by: Dave on March 5, 2009 at 5:20 PM
I'm sorry but this post is a little cheap itself. Comedians have always been more "popular" than news anchors, with the single possible exception of Walter Cronkite - and he too played it objectively (99% of the time).
It should be obvious that the idea that news anchors need to be "popular" (ratings, your post here and more) has eroded the very idea of news. Your basic point that Limbaugh needs to be lampooned for what he is and what he represents, stands. However, this cry for non-objectivity only seems to happen one way. When they go after a liberal face, they're "being subservient to their owner masters."
LAMBERT: No, I don't think so. Besides the fact there is no figure on the left with Limbaugh's, uh, heft, the credibility of "comedians" like Letterman, Stewart and Colbert is increasing because of their willingness to speak truthfully of power, while the credibility of "newsmen" like Couric is waning, for a number of reasons, among them that they are unwilling to risk stating the obvious -- namely that a radio host has one of the two major political parties in the country trembling in fear of his rebuke.
Posted by: Temple Stark on March 6, 2009 at 4:23 PM