Brent Bozell To GOP: Set A Torch To That Big Tent

Posted by on July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm. NO Comments :

Brent Bozell, the president of the uber-conservative Media Research Center, has issued a bit of advice for the Republican Party that ought to make Democrats everywhere ecstatic.

“Incoming memo to the GOP: Set a torch to that big tent of yours. People are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals.”

The impetus for this counsel is new polling from Gallup that says that Americans in recent years have become more conservative. Bozell’s knee-jerk reaction typifies the shallow and partisan analysis for which he is known.

The Gallup poll cited by Bozell does indeed show that 39% of Americans consider themselves more conservative than they did a few years ago. What Bozell fails to reveal is that a significant majority of those who say they have become more conservative were conservative to begin with.

Plus, it is mostly Republicans whose views have shifted more to the right. So what we are seeing is primarily a hardening of ideology by those who were already on the right side of the scale.

In addition, a prior Gallup poll showed that Republicans already reside in the smallest of tents, with 73% describing themselves as conservative and only 4% as liberal and 24% moderate. Democrats, on the other hand, breakdown to 38% liberal, 40% moderate and 22% conservative, a much more balanced community.

The obvious conclusion from the data in this poll is that there isn’t any advantage for officeholders or candidates to swing to the right. Even if the American people are sliding slightly rightward, that doesn’t mean that they will vote Republican. Just take a look at the results of last November’s election when Democrats took the White House and added seats in both chambers of congress. And contrary to Bozell’s contention that “people are flocking from liberals’ failing policy and ideals,” Gallup explicitly debunks that claim in their polling on specific issues.

Consequently, Bozell’s advice to the GOP to circle the wagons and become more exclusionary than ever can only help Democrats, who are presently viewed as more tolerant of diverse opinions. The public still blames Bush for the economy and Iraq; still prefers Obama’s approach to healthcare and immigration; and still has a 63% approval rating for the President.

So light up your torches, Republicans. Fan those embers of your party’s support. Feed the flaming rhetoric of your right flank. You are only going to burn down your own house.

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The Sarah Palin Show Set To Premiere On Fox News?

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm. 13 Comments :

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just announced that she will not seek reelection. Even more surprising, she also says that she will be resigning from the office that she has held for less than one term.

Were this merely a politician choosing not to run again, there could be several explanations including, most likely, an intention to run for higher office. But the resignation throws that theory right out the window. Either she has some serious scandal about to erupt, or she got an offer from Rupert Murdoch.

The timing is suspect as well. It seems like an odd choice to make a significant statement like this on the day before the fourth of July. Especially when competing with other sensational stories like Michael Jackson and Gov. Sanford. Why couldn’t this have waited a week? Fridays are generally considered to be news graveyards – where stories go to die. Why make an announcement that has any positive content at a time usually reserved for bad news? Could it have anything to do with the fact that many of the opinion-casters are on vacation this week? Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not around to comment. Coincidence?

Remember, she was a sportscaster before going into politics. She studied journalism in college (but must have forgotten much of it because she couldn’t tell Katie Couric a single newspaper that she read). And her appeal in last year’s campaign was mostly connected to her alleged personality – it certainly wasn’t her experience or intelligence. Since folks like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have proven that those qualities are irrelevant to a career as a Fox pundit, Palin may believe that now is the time to cash in. Her resignation speech even included a reference to the $500,000 dollars in debt that she has accumulated defending herself against criminal and ethics complaints. So it’s fair to say that she could use the money a broadcasting job would provide.

A Palin show on Fox News has always been a good fit for both her and Fox. Neither have an interest in, or reputation for, honesty or accuracy. And both have profited from exploiting controversy and sex. Plus, she wouldn’t be the first potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate with a show on Fox, would she, Mike Huckabee?

What more could Fox ask for than a former beauty queen who cheerfully calls the President a Socialist who pals around with terrorists? And what more could Palin ask for than a network gig that allows her to spew nonsense and practice her fancy pageant walkin’?

[Update 7/4/09] Foxnews.com got around to reporting the Palin news with a story mainly cribbed from the AP. In addressing Palin’s future they wrote…

…she will have a variety of potential platforms, from writing books to hitting the public speaking circuit to working directly with the Republican Party to get candidates elected.

In the process, she’ll also have the ability to make a lot of money — far more than the $125,000 or so a year she has earned as governor. She already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring.

They left a couple things out of that report. First, they failed to mention the possibility of a role on Fox News. Second, they didn’t think it worthy to note that HarperCollins is owned by Murdoch’s News Corp.


The Tea Party Tea Baggers Really Have Balls

Posted by on July 3, 2009 at 12:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Last April’s Tax Day Tea Party was by all objective accounts a massive failure. Estimates of national attendance hovered at something below 300,000. To put that in perspective, twice as many people went to see “The Hangover” last Saturday.

The dismal showing of Tea Baggers was achieved after having received millions of dollars worth of free publicity and promotion from Fox News. The network executed a wall-to-wall campaign promoting these events and their own participation in them. They shamelessly recruited viewers to take up the cause and sent their biggest stars out as enticements. And still they underperformed the expectations of their own organizers who predicted crowds in the millions.

So capitalizing off of that disaster, the Tea Partiers are back with a new sense of excitement and hope. Unfortunately, other than the most rabid disciples, the excitement is shared by very few. Even Fox News is offering tepid support. They have made a few mentions, and hosted a few interviews, but it is nothing comparable to the far-flung campaign they orchestrated last spring. Without the support of Fox’s mass media megaphone, it is unlikely that this ersatz movement will make much of a splash.

A story in the Washington Independent provides some interesting (and hilarious) details about the July 4, version of the Tea Parties. Organizers seem to have accepted the reality that prospects for the revolution they dreamed of have receded. One of the national organizers for the Tea Party Patriots is expressing her joy that a followup to Atlanta’s Tea Party in April (which she said drew 20,000 people) brought out only 70 TPers. This way, she feverishly rationalized, she could talk to every participant. Perhaps all sponsors of public protests should implore people to stay away so that this benefit could be enjoyed more often.

The organizer of the Dallas Tea Party is taking a different approach. He seems to want people to attend, even if that means he won’t be able to speak to all of them individually. To that end he is pulling out all the stops:

“We’re using the fireworks and the Monkees and the rest of that to attract people who never though they’d be at a Tea Party.”

Actually, it is just one Monkee, Mickey Dolenz. That should guarantee at least the 70 people that the Atlanta Tea Party pulled in. More interesting is the admission that he intends to dupe potential attendees with fireworks and celebrities on the Fourth of July holiday to get them to show up for a Tea Party that they likely would not have otherwise attended. How much you wanna bet that Tea Party organizers across the country will try to take credit for every municipal fireworks display, every holiday concert, and even every tailgate party and backyard barbecue, in an attempt to validate their movement?

The funniest part of all of this is the campaign by radio talker Phil Valentine to “Give the Senate Some Balls.” Inspired by those who thought sending members of congress tea bags was a good idea, Valentine is encouraging his listeners to send balls to senators. No, I swear, he really is. So after being mocked relentlessly for having chosen to engage in tea bagging, Valentine is compounding that unfortunate imagery with the vision of people sending their balls to the senate.

I am now officially speechless.


Don’t Believe The Hype About Fox News Ratings

Posted by on July 1, 2009 at 3:49 pm. 12 Comments :

As the numbers come in for the second quarter, cable news networks are all putting on their best spin to wrangle positive stories that promote how much better they are than their competition. It’s an age-old ritual that pits marketing flacks against one another as they jostle for position and advertising bucks. And nobody does this more relentlessly than Fox News.

Everywhere you look you can see the effect of Fox’s PR blitz. They proudly boast that they have increased viewership in the 25-54 demographic 50% over Q2 of 2008 (Monday-Sunday, primetime). Simultaneously, they taunt MSNBC and CNN for falling off 2.6% and 19.2% respectively. The core of their message is that, along with continuing their leading position in cable news, they are also outpacing their rivals in growth. That’s an argument that requires a little further exploration.

Fox News has typically been the slowest growing cable news network. Up until about a year ago, they were the only network that regularly posted declines, which they did for a couple of years running. So what happened in the last year that appears to have interrupted that trend?

Recall that during the second quarter of 2008, the Democratic Party was still embroiled in a fiercely contested primary for president. The Republican primary had been effectively over since February. So interest in campaign news tilted away from the GOP network (aka Fox). What’s more, Democrats had forsworn appearing in debates sponsored by Fox News. The result was that MSNBC and CNN benefited noticeably by their coverage of the most compelling news events of the season, while Fox had to be satisfied with interviewing themselves and squawking from the bleachers. Consequently, Fox’s ratings for Q2 of 2008 were 2.3% lower than the same period in 2007. By comparison, MSNBC was up 46.9% and CNN was higher by 21.7%.

By outperforming Fox so spectacularly, from a growth perspective, in 2008, it makes for difficult comparisons in 2009. So a far more interesting analysis would be to remove the unique circumstances of the 2008 presidential campaign year, and compare performance from 2007 to 2009. In that race, Fox still did pretty well gaining 47.2% over the two year span. However, MSNBC was close behind with a 42.7% gain. CNN, while not keeping stride with the others, was still not as far behind as represented in the single year comparison. They were basically flat (-1.7%).

None of this diminishes the fact that Fox is still the runaway leader according to Nielsen, an increasingly unreliable source that even Bill O’Reilly considers to be less than honest. And although he pretends to be opposed to big-government interference and regulation, he hypocritically declares that…

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

Fox’s ratings success is more likely due to the cult-like brand loyalty of the rightist, delusional demographic. But it is still disheartening because their ratings dominance rewards them financially for lying and advocating terrorism. However, on a positive note, MSNBC was the number one cable news network among 18-34 year-olds. This continues a trend that suggests that the next generation of news consumers will be rejecting Fox News and its ilk.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to tolerate Fox’s bragging while putting it into perspective. They still have fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants. Their highest rated show (O’Reilly) still has about a third of the viewers of broadcast TV’s lowest rated news program (CBS Nightly News). And there is real consolation in knowing that, while they win on the Idiot Box, they are losing at the ballot box.


3-2-1 Beck: Another Bin Laden Attack Is America’s Only Hope

Posted by on July 1, 2009 at 9:01 am. 15 Comments :

It’s come to this…Glenn Beck and his guest Michael Scheuer have finally admitted their deepest yearnings. The ticking clock at the beginning of Beck’s show takes on a whole new meaning. It is a suggestion for a remedy for our diseased nation that is so far gone now that there is only one solution: Another 9/11.

BECK: Yes, sir. OK. So you have seen this. Do you really, honestly believe that we have come to a place to where those very senior people in the highest offices of the land, Congress and the White House, really will not do the right thing in the end, that they won’t see the error of their ways?

SCHEUER: No, sir, they will not. Not — the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it’s going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. Only — it’s an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

BECK: Which is why I was thinking this weekend if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

I’m sure Bin Laden appreciates Beck’s advice. But isn’t it a bit shocking that Beck’s counsel to Bin Laden is to refrain from attacking the U.S. because it would benefit the country by motivating Americans to demand protection against such an attack? So he is saying that, while it is contrary to Bin Laden’s interests to attack us, it is in accord with America’s (and Beck’s) interests. He actually believes that the slaughter of untold thousands of innocent Americans is not only beneficial, but is “the only chance we have.”

Beck is now adding his voice to those of The Republican Advance Team For Terrorism. This is a group led by Dick Cheney who has been busily promoting the notion that America is “less safe” under the Obama administration so it would be a good time to attack. With Beck’s participation, it is now not only a good time to attack, it is also good policy.

And this guy is still on the air because…..???

[Update] The professional journalists of television news, whose contributions to the public store of knowledge are so indispensable, failed to cover this story. A former CIA terrorism specialist and a prominent cable news host agree that the U.S. needs to be attacked, and not one TV newsroom finds this newsworthy. The only place a television viewer would have seen this story is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I don’t ever want to hear anyone complain again about The Daily Show being regarded as superior to the conventional media.


Al Franken Wins Senate – Fox Nation Throws Tantrum

Posted by on June 30, 2009 at 3:35 pm. 5 Comments :

The Minnesota Supreme Court finally handed down its ruling today that Al Franken was the winner in last November’s senate election. The court’s decision was unanimous with all five justices ruling in Franken’s favor:

“…we affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under [state law] to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota.”

Norm Coleman has conceded and all that’s left now is for Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to sign the certificate and send Franken on his way to Washington. Pawlenty has been hinting that he is prepared to sign the certificate, but with Republican governors you never know until it’s done. Pawlenty might decide to go for a hike in the Appalachians.

So leave it to Fox to bring this news down to the level of a whining toddler who can’t understand why he isn’t getting his way:

The Fox Nation reacted to this breaking news by quickly posting a photo of Franken’s Stuart Smalley character from his days on Saturday Night Live – ten years ago. Fox Nation’s childish behavior is nothing new. They simply can’t bring themselves to refer to Franken by his real name (a shortcoming they share with Bill O’Reilly). Every article I was able to find on Fox Nation about Franken used Smalley in the headline.

  • 1) Obama team strikes ‘Stuart Smalley’ diplomacy.
  • 2) GOP vows WWIII over Stuart Smalley.
  • 3) Stuart Smalley closer to US senate.
  • 4) Stuart Smalley Widens Lead.
  • 5) Did Stuart Smalley Steal the Election?
  • And now: No Joke! Stuart Smalley Headed to Senate!

[Update] More Smalley references since Franken was seated:

  • 7) Minister Confronts Stuart Smalley for Christian-Bashing.
  • 8) Did ACORN Elect Stuart Smalley?.
  • 9) Stuart Smalley’s Radio Buddies Turn on Him!.
  • 10) Shirtless Stuart Smalley Video Surfaces.
  • 11) Sen. Smalley Delivers Opening Statement at Sotomayor Hearing.
  • 12) Sen. Smalley Unleashes First Bill.

I suppose that, in order for Fox Nation (and Fox News) to be successful, they have to cater to the diminished mental capacity of their audience. And after reading some of the comments posted on their site, I’d say they still have some ways down to go. Remember, this is a community that reveres ignorance, as illustrated by their adoration of Sarah Palin, and college dropout Glenn Beck. They proudly display their overt disdain for people with demonstrated intelligence, like President Obama and … well, Al Franken, who graduated cum laude from Harvard with a bachelor of arts degree in political science (and you thought he was just a comedian).

I wonder if the fair folks at Fox would have trumpeted Ronald Reagan’s election like this:

It is really too bad that Fox is so committed to acting like a spoiled crybaby. They were amongst the first to complain if someone didn’t show the proper respect to former President Bush. In fact, any demonstration of dissent was regarded as treasonous. But now they are the first to call for treason. Last week Glenn Beck expressly advocated for secession (again) and lamented that there were too few opportunities to threaten the federal government:

“The Constitution, somehow or another, has become a suicide pact, where you can’t get out of it. Once you join the Union, you can’t get out, which leaves no place for threat to the federal government. You know, once you’re in, you’re always in. That’s you know – that’s ‘Hotel California.’ No thanks.”

The real fun is going to come later when the Fox News primetime circus hits the air. It has been reported that the doctor attending to Michael Jackson has moved in with Bill O’Reilly and vans from local pharmacies have been in and out of the estate all afternoon. O’Reilly may try to feign indifference in that way he does, wherein he insists that he’s always been fair to so-and-so. But just as a reminder, here is what he’s had to say about Franken in the past:

  • “You don’t get any lower than that man, Franken.”
  • “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in American politics – is this man maybe becoming a senator.”
  • “It’s personal with me. He’s lied about me. He’s slandered me.
  • “The fact that he was even competitive […] depresses me about America.”

If you can’t get any lower than Franken, where does O’Reilly place Hitler or Bin Laden? If Franken becoming a senator is the worst thing he’s ever seen, how much higher on his list is Watergate or the Kennedy assassinations? And if he’s really depressed about America, perhaps he should find a pleasant rest home with a nice garden where he can knit and scream at the mosquitoes.

So the list of character flaws evident in the Fox mentality just keeps growing. They won’t be honest; they won’t be respectful; they won’t be faithful; they won’t be patriotic; they won’t be either fair or balanced.

Is it really too much to ask that they just grow up?

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Fox Pimps Fake Rasmussen Poll Index

Posted by on June 30, 2009 at 10:39 am. 2 Comments :
Be sure to see Rasmussen’s previous fake index wherein he invents new classes of “Mainstream Americans” and “Political Elitists.”

Last week I wrote about the latest index invented by the notoriously deceptive Rasmussen polling firm. Rasmussen’s Presidential Approval Index actually distorts the President’s approval by leaving out huge chunks of the poll’s respondents. He does this by counting only those who express a “strong” opinion. As I said last week…

The problem with this method is that it ignores all of those who approve or disapprove, albeit not strongly. In his own survey, the Presidential Approval Index is a negative 1 (-1), which he then releases to the media as demonstrating that the Obama honeymoon is over. However, his results including all respondents show that Obama is regarded favorably by a healthy majority of 54%, compared to 45% who disapprove (+7).

At the end of that article I concluded that “Rasmussen has emerged as the number one most likely pollster to be interviewed on Fox News.” That has been true for some time, but now Fox is tightening their embrace of the partisan pollster by misrepresenting the already skewed results. Here is their story from The Fox Nation announcing that “Obama Job Approval Index Dips Negative for First Time” :

In addition to the statistical flaws in the poll itself, Fox has incorrectly reported that the index dipped into negative territory for the first time. In fact, the first time was a week ago when I originally reported the phony index. This is the third time that the index has been negative. Even so, the index wavers in a narrow range that barely brushes its own margin of error.

You really have to wonder how Fox manages to screw up stories even when they originate from their own partners in propaganda. The lesson is to never underestimate Fox’s ability to slant a story in favor of their rightist prejudice.


Murdoch Newspapers Fall For Fake Email

Posted by on June 27, 2009 at 2:26 pm. NO Comments :

I have little to add to this example of another attempt by Rupert Murdoch’s factory of falsehoods to fabricate stories designed to either advance his interests or harm those of his adversaries.

In this case Murdoch’s newspapers in Australia hyped a suspicious email that cast Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a corrupt politician. This was intended to benefit the conservative opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull. [Note: In Australia, Turnbull’s Liberal Party is farther to the right than Rudd’s Labor Party]

The same day [Murdoch-owned] News Limited published its story in the two thirds of newspapers it owns in Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for an Australian Federal Police investigation to examine the authenticity of the email.

By Monday the AFP had established the email was a forgery. Turnbull came under pressure throughout this week for relying on a fake email, and promoting it. The whole matter was a hoax and even members of Turnbull’s own party criticised his naivety.

Nowhere was there any criticism of the Murdoch newspapers for not authenticating the email before engaging in a mass publication of its content. It seems News was taken in, hook, line and sinker, and did far more to promote what turned out to be a fake email than Turnbull.

This journalistic atrocity comes on the heels of a fake scandal publicized by Murdoch’s papers a couple of months ago. In that affair, a nude photo allegedly of a candidate for senate was published. The candidate, Pauline Hanson, offered ample evidence that the photo could not have been of her, but the papers would not retract the story.

Typical. Anyone who thinks that this isn’t going on here in the U.S. is terminally naive.


Bill O’Reilly Supports Abolishing Freedom Of The Press

Posted by on June 27, 2009 at 11:01 am. 3 Comments :

Once again, Bill O’Reilly has proven that what he said two years ago regarding his lack of journalistic standards is still true:

In his most recent editorial, O’Reilly has exposed both his ignorance and his appreciation for officially-sanctioned speech. It should come as no surprise that the top “personality” on the Fox Propaganda Network would harbor such notions given their reputation as the media mouthpiece for the Republican Party.

The column began by thoroughly misrepresenting the philosophy of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. While any free-thinking observer of the press would keep a watchful eye on the media and retain their right to criticize it, O’Reilly flatly states that Jefferson “didn’t much like the press.” However, the truth is that Jefferson regarded the press as an essential component of a free society. He said:

“…were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

With that disinformational kickoff, O’Reilly set about to discredit a poll by the New York Times that found that a majority of Americans would prefer healthcare reform that covers everyone, even if it means paying more in taxes. Never mind that most polls reveal the same preference, O’Reilly’s only real purpose was to dispute the validity of a poll with which he disagreed.

The gist of O’Reilly’s complaint was that the Times oversampled Obama voters, producing a skewed result. The problem with his typically shallow analysis is that 50% of Republicans in the poll expressed the same preference as Democrats. What’s more, as a pollster testing the mood of the nation, the goal is not to balance respondents by political affiliation. The goal is to have a representative sample of the public at large. By that standard, the sampling of the Times poll was accurate.

Nevertheless, O’Reilly can’t contain his disdain for anyone who disagrees with him. His outrage is so intense that it led him to say this:

“The most frustrating part about this is that nothing can be done. The Times has an ombudsman, but he’s a joke, and no outside agency has any power over the paper. It can pretty much do what it wants, and does.”

Stop the presses! You mean to say that a newspaper can do whatever it wants? How the heck did that happen? Why isn’t there an outside agency that has power over these papers? No wonder O’Reilly is tee’d off. He would be much happier if journalists all had to have their work approved by editorial boards that could certify the conservative purity of the message before being disseminated to the people. You know, like the way Fox News does it.

This is a man whose daily delusions can’t be summed up simply by describing them as paranoid. A new word must be coined to encompass the naked madness he embodies (Paranoxious?). His perception of enemies lurking in every shadow is enough to warrant institutionalization. Yet, instead, this is a man who has his own TV show and millions of viewers to whom he can peddle dangerous ideas like “outside agencies” that have power over the press.

This isn’t the first time that O’Reilly has expressed a desire to control the press. He frequently rails against it and ferociously attacks it. It is nearly impossible to go a day without hearing him besmirch the media as a bastion of hate that poses a very real risk to society:

“Knowing that partisan hostility is boiling over in America, the Secret Service is tense because the candidates are exposed when they campaign in public. Hatred is definitely in the air and the media is partially to blame.“

You have to give O’Reilly credit for his superhuman capacity for denial, in that he doesn’t recognize himself in that statement. He even refutes it entirely in his recent defense of his provocative comments regarding the murdered doctor, George Tiller. In that case it is not, to him, the least bit inflammatory to refer to someone as a “baby killer” who “has blood on his hands”.

This is also a man who has a severe fear and hatred of the media – that’s right – the media that he works so hard to demolish despite his prominent role in it. Take, for example, this brazen threat to journalists everywhere:

“[T]here is a huge problem in this country and I’m going to attack that problem. I’m going to attack it. These people aren’t getting away with this. I’m going to go right where they live. Every corrupt media person in this country is on notice, right now. I’m coming after you…I’m going to hunt you down […] if I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed…I would.“

That’s what we’re up against. That’s the sort of mindless hostility that is being spread throughout the mediasphere. And it isn’t just O’Reilly. It is Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, etc. It would be tempting to ask what can be done about these freaks. But that would just be adopting their response that promotes censorship and suppression. The real question is how do we educate the people who watch and listen to this garbage? How do we replace those sensationalistic rantings with honest and deliberative discourse? And how do we do it before it erupts into (more) violence?

That’s a difficult assignment, as snarling shoutfests seem to make for more popular viewing than rational dialogue. But it’s an assignment that we need to complete for the sake of our country, if not for our mental health.


Rush Limbaugh Blames Obama For Sanford’s Sins

Posted by on June 25, 2009 at 11:43 pm. 4 Comments :

Just when you think you’ve heard everything…when you think that the rightist blowhards couldn’t possibly make bigger fools of themselves…from out of nowhere someone steps forward to accept the challenge. Today that someone was Rush Limbaugh.

On his radio show today, Limbaugh engaged in his routine whining and ranting until he was inspired to address the pathetic affairs of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Then Limbaugh embarks on a fantastical journey that imagines Sanford a victim who was merely trying to escape the Hell that Obama has made of America:

First: “[Sanford] knows that somebody knows what’s going on. He knows his wife knows. So he ups and leaves for five days. He doesn’t leave anybody in charge of the state in case there’s an emergency. This is almost like: ‘I don’t give a damn. The country is going to hell in a handbasket and I just want out of here.’ He had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to South Carolina. He didn’t want any part of it. He lost the battle.”

~~~

Later: “My first thought was he said: ‘To hell with this. The Democrats are destroying the country. We can’t do anything to stop it. I gave everything I had to stop it here in South Carolina. My wife’s left me, the hell with it. I’m going to enjoy life what little time I’ve got left.’ Folks, there are a lot of people that are looking at life, they’re saying screw it.”

Limbaugh’s “theory” is that Sanford just couldn’t take it anymore. He cracked. The pressure of having the federal government give his state and his constituents billions of dollars for jobs and economic renewal was too much for him handle.

So what did he do? He went back in time a whole year and commenced an adulterous affair with a woman in Argentina. Limbaugh seems to think the affair began a few days ago when Sanford went missing. He also thinks that Sanford’s wife just found out and left him. The truth is, she has known for five months, and I’m not sure it is accurate to assert that she left him. After all, he was the one that cheated on her and ran for the border.

Nevertheless, Limbaugh believes that Sanford was so overwhelmed by Obama’s governance that he would abandon his family and his responsibilities as governor. For he no longer gave a damn about anything but his own sexual gratification. What’s more, Limbaugh is actually sympathetic to that irresponsible behavior. He even thinks that many more Americans are on the verge of doing the same thing. They are just a bailout away from saying “screw it” and running off to find love in an exotic tropical hideaway.

And it’s all because the Democrats are destroying the country. Limbaugh, the symbol of the conservative movement, defends Sanford for quitting and hightailing it to Buenos Aires. Limbaugh, the thrice-divorced voice of family values, justifies infidelity and fornication. Limbaugh, the icon of Republican faith in personal responsibility lays the blame for Sanford’s indiscretions on political policies in Washington, D.C.

It’s nice to know that there are still some consistent arbiters of morality self-righteously imposing their warped and hypocritical convictions on the rest of us.