Reading the Tea Leaves of Today's Biggest Broadcast Idiot

One of the great unknowns in politics is whether Big, Fat, Conservative Broadcast Idiots hold any remarkable sway over their audiences, or, like the great apes at the zoo, they're merely there for people to gawk at and listen to for amusement, and as a way to kill an hour or so.

With any luck that question will be answered this election year, as the biggest, fattest, most conservative broadcast idiot of them all ventures into the even more mysterious jungle of openly and stridently opposing his party's candidate for the Big House.

I write, of course, of Rush Limbaugh, he of 13.5-million weekly listeners who, it would seem, wouldn't know serious political philosophy from botany. If you've ever been gripped by sufficient masochism to tune in, you know what I mean. There they are, the fawning, sycophantic dupes of dittodom, queued up on the switchboard, hankering to get at Rush so they can regurgitate his wretched unenlightenment from the Dark Ages.

His shows appear to present classic, psychosociological studies in the frightening vein of, say, philosopher Eric Hoffer's The True Believer, but perhaps it's only the appearance that's real.

Rush may in fact represent less of an actual, loosely organized mass movement than merely a massive intellectual bowel movement. On-air, three-hours long, dumped on 600 stations, five times a week. We know not how Rush relieves himself on weekends, or where vicarious relief is found by his devoted listeners.

At any rate, the latter is my guess, although I confess it may be a poorly educated one. Yet everyone seems to be poorly educated in this hazy arena, so my guess is also as good as anyone's.

When it's all over, I'm venturing, this most reactionary of broadcast idiots will be found to have held only a negligible sway over his presumed legions of lapdogs -- and he may even soon go the way of his equally offensive and finally beyond-the-pale broadcasting forebear, Father Coughlin of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Largely muzzled and forgotten.

For Rush has been fuming and sputtering to apparent little effect. Not long after he frantically rang the alarm -- "I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys get [sic] the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party, it’s going to change it forever, be the end of it" -- his principal bete noire promptly went on to essentially secure said nomination.

And according to exit polling in Maryland, John McCain "won a plurality" of "frequent listeners of conservative talk radio," while the other of the "two guys" intent on destroying the Republican Party, Mike Huckabee, marched to victory in Virginia. If Limbaugh's influence was felt at all in those primaries, it was a mighty light touch.

McCain, however, may wish that Limbaugh's voice grows even louder. Because returning again to the era of Father Coughlin, Rush represents what Franklin Roosevelt denounced as "government by organized money" -- "the old enemies of peace, business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism [and] war profiteering" who were aligned in rabid opposition to the New Deal. But rather than accommodating them, rather than seeking peace with them, rather than staging powwows of compromise, Roosevelt announced: "I welcome their hatred." He then cleaned their clocks in the '36 election.

If McCain is shrewd -- and I think he is -- he will return the same fire against the on-air reactionaries and extremists of today, and thereby gain the allegiance of moderates and independents who otherwise would quake at the thought of a presidential candidate in bed with the malignant likes of a Rush Limbaugh.

In short, as Rush himself has suggested, his alienation from McCain may be the best thing that could have happened to McCain. The extreme right is shrinking, and Rush's intimation would seem to verify that he even he knows that. It's out of whack with the times, an aging and dying ideological dinosaur whose cranky intrusion into this race could cause any candidate more injury than benefit.

Finally, one last prediction; or, rather, less a prediction than the mention of another 1930s possibility. Should McCain win, with Rush having stayed on the hostile outside looking in, Mr. Limbaugh could well go the way of H.L. Mencken.

Mencken was unsurpassed in popularity as a political commentator right up until he turned his inky venom on the prevailing ideological pragmatism of the 1930s -- the far more popular New Deal. He failed -- refused -- to go with the electoral flow, and soon found himself marginalized and ultimately, nearly forgotten.

Should the Republican Party indeed moderate its ideas and behavior, Limbaugh could find himself as insignificant a voice as Mencken's became.

Such a development would almost be worth the Ascension of John McCain. Almost.

Comments

[P.J.W.]

Even Walter Winchell had lost his popularity and relevance long before he died.

[Freedem]

".....his party's candidate for the Big House....."???

The Gang Of Pirates have sooooo many candidates for the Big House, a single prosecutor could not read all their names in a lifetime. Then again the GOP is a gang.......of pirates no less and proud of it the way they sling the initials about.

OH! you mean the Big House like on the ole Plantation.....

The big Question is who is going to end up being McAble?

[Robert Crawford]

Beware, O Undecided Voter!

Is our national treasure house of right-wing shills organized and disciplined enough to pull off the Ol' Switcharoo? Could Limbaugh, Coulter, ad nauseum, be willing to sacrifice a little passing credibility in order to make John McCain more palatable to middle-of-the-road voters by seeming to oppose him themselves? Could these good folks have the general election in mind, perfectly aware that Republicans have no one else to vote for in the primaries?

Yup, yup, and yup. Considering that John McCain--he of the frozen little grin and the hundred-year war--could score as little as a quarter of the general election vote when people get a really good look at him, perhaps the powers that be sent our radio hosts out on a flanking maneuver, hoping to convince a few fence-riders that McCain is a maverick after all. There are too many instances of this crowd all showing up on the same day with the same talking points to imagine they couldn't pull this one off.

Credibility isn't an issue. The viewer/listener these folks seek out has an attention span of about a day, and a towering Credulity Index. If he remembers at all that Rush opposed McCain back when, a little song-and-dance of Limbaughian equivocation will put him right again. Remember Oxycontin, and virulently anti-drug radio host Rush Limbaugh? Remember illicit Viagra in someone's luggage on a trip with THREE OTHER MEN to the Caribbean, and Mr. Sanctity of Marriage Rush Limbaugh? This guy's credibility has been destroyed, over and over again, in the eyes of any discriminating and informed consumer--so it isn't discriminating and informed consumers he worries about. It's people who could watch him crawl across the floor to lick Hillary's shoes because she threatened to kick his ass one day, then tune in to hear him the next day, cocky as ever, and never think a thing of it. (He HAD to do it, after all...) BUT...if Rush can make discriminating and informed consumers imagine that he DESPISES Mr. McCain because they hear the echoes of what sounds like an internecine Republican war, perhaps that will give the Ol' War Hero himself a needed boost.

And actually, for those few of their listeners who might remember or hold their Radio Enablers accountable, opposing McCain will enchance their credibility in the long run. When someone says, "Oh, Limbaugh's just a shill for the Republican Party," devoted listeners can say that in fact, at one time, before McCain corrected course and the two kissed and made up, Limbaugh had actually OPPOSED our Supreme Leader's ascension to office! So there! See? He DOES do his own thinking!

But maybe I'm just a cynic. Maybe I'm so accustomed to anything this Party does as being nothing more than smoke and mirrors, hiding a maneuver for political advantage, that I can't believe their self-destruction even as I watch it.

Please you can't speak for "those folks"because you don't know what they think. Move over and shut up and I will tell you. Rush has been a good conservative but he is a little mental this year. Conservatives are not going to listen to someone that says support Obama or Clinton. Yuck. Conservative talk show hosts only echo what we already think. We listen and hop that liberals are listening too and will be converted. But would I let Rush tell me how to vote? No. No. No.

[Lunatica]

So OZ behind the green curtain turns out to be a little and pathetic man when the curtain is pulled back. Rush has led his dittoheads down the Yellow Brick Road garden path.

[Richard White]

When Cheney was a congressman he branded Mandela a terrorist and wanted the S. African government to keep him in jail. (27 years in jail)
Instead mandela became the first Black President of S. Africa.
Cheney is a war lover. He never saw anybody die in combat! He never served in the military! He is just another Chickenhawk!

[Beth]

...had better things to do in the 60-70's and ended up in the Nixon administration. THAT should have been a warning right there! He and a few others were Nixon admin supporters...he and Rummy, for sure!

I used to listen to Rush to stay awake on long road trips, but since I retired, I no longer need to travel while he's on air. I found that he raised my blood pressure just enough to ward off the sleepies!

I have been waiting for years for him to slip up saying something absolutely intolerable, but it never seems to happen. Have we become so mind-dead that nothing will stop him? Our sense of outrage is dead! So it seems!

I'm reading a book about evil...the Lucifer Effect...very interesting and I'd say that Rush is an operative in the effort to make the intolerable commonplace! His way of talking about issues reduces them to simplistic, ignorant invective designed to divide us into distinct camps who are encouraged to hate each other.

Have you noticed how the word 'liberal' is now almost as negative a label as 'socialist' was in the 50's (or communist)? This is NOT coincidence and 'Tush' has had his part in this seismic shift!

[Beth]

Cheney had better things to do in the 60-70's and ended up in the Nixon administration. THAT should have been a warning right there! He and a few others were Nixon admin supporters...he and Rummy, for sure!

I used to listen to Rush to stay awake on long road trips, but since I retired, I no longer need to travel while he's on air. I found that he raised my blood pressure just enough to ward off the sleepies!

I have been waiting for years for him to slip up saying something absolutely intolerable, but it never seems to happen. Have we become so mind-dead that nothing will stop him? Our sense of outrage is dead! So it seems!

I'm reading a book about evil...the Lucifer Effect...very interesting and I'd say that Rush is an operative in the effort to make the intolerable commonplace! His way of talking about issues reduces them to simplistic, ignorant invective designed to divide us into distinct camps who are encouraged to hate each other.

Have you noticed how the word 'liberal' is now almost as negative a label as 'socialist' was in the 50's (or communist)? This is NOT coincidence and 'Tush' has had his part in this seismic shift!

[Realist]

Out here in LA, the Dittos get to listen to rebroadcasts of Rush's rantings. That must be done to prevent reality from seeping in to their leaky crania. The 13.5 million listeners you cite above are Rush's base. Everyone else has moved on, or his ratings wouldn't be in the tank in so many markets.

On to McCain. POW John isn't going to take Rush on, because he isn't intellectually quick enough to do so. What he will do, however, is ignore The Blob. It is the only tactic that will work on an obsessive attention junkie!

Your prediction about Rush and the GOP going separate ways depends in part on if the RNC can once again engineer an electoral theft. If so, Rush remains. If not, he's as dead as the dodo he is.

[trank]

these bush republicans are capable of immense denial and hypocrisy, thanks in part to rush. one of his functions is to enable that denial by presenting his audience with a list of excuses and rationalizations to choose from before they can come to their senses and actually blame bush for something. hannity is already setting the stage to jump on the mccain doubletalk express but rush might take a bit longer. the bushies may use limbaugh support to extract some promises from mccain like--- that he won't prosecute them, will veto a Fairness Doctrine, etc.

rush has always been the point man for the talk radio monopoly that will, with or without his support for mccain, continue coordinated swiftboating of whoever the dems choose.

it would be a mistake to discount talk radio this election (as usual) because of this love spat.

until we get a new Fairness Doctrine it will continue to determine to a large extent, while progressives continue to ignore it, what is and what isn't acceptable on the rest of the media and fill the airwaves with the uncontested repetition of well managed talking points, distortions, and intimidation of media and politicians who would dare criticize bush's policies and his cronies.

we are in this mess today largely because of that uncontested repetition to 50-70 MIL all over the country. while some of the dittoheads may stray when faced with the fact the idiots they've been listening to have been wrong about everything, as long as the monopoly is in place the GOP will continue to frame with a nail gun while progressives use rocks and wonder where the invisible body blows are coming from.

[Big M]

Are you actually suggesting that McCain is some kind of moderate?

Look. Every single primary run so far has been completely rigged. The Village Idiot could see this. Am I really supposed to believe that one of the most strident warmongers in the country is going to win all of these primaries, mostly with votes from the "70%" of voters that allegedly are fed up with war? They're really going to vote for a guy that says he's all right with us being in the Middle East for 100 to 1 million years?

I may as well believe that the son of an SS officer, with no political experience and no agenda, who refused to debate anybody without a script, got 50% of the votes in a 2003 recall election in a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans two to one.

Yeah, and I'm also waiting for the Easter Bunny to lay some chocolate eggs for me. And all of those clouds up there in the sky? They're actually made of delicious cotton candy. It's true!

[Kimberly]

I'm with Robert Crawford. Too many of the especially vitriolic rightwing shills came out at virtually the same moment in lockstep of the anti-McCain rhetoric. Something doesn't add up here, and it is my bet that it all done to serve the greater wingnut cause.

[Cugel]

Limbaugh has already publicly suggested that he's the best thing that ever happened to McCain, by attacking him, thus certifying McCain to independents.

But McCain is NOT going to attack the base of his own party. He can't expect to win without the organized efforts of evangelicals and the right wing shock troops who turned out to canvass for Bush in 2000 & 2004. He doesn't just need their votes, they are the organizational base of his party and if they sit on their hands and don't work to turn out the vote he loses. Period.

[Pat W]

The comment about Limbaugh's weight may be a clue to what he's saying. With much excess weight comes aggravation of that back pain. He could be on drugs, legal or illegal, again for that pain. It could well be affecting how and what he says.

[Cugel]

I'm with Robert Crawford. Too many of the especially vitriolic rightwing shills came out at virtually the same moment in lockstep of the anti-McCain rhetoric. Something doesn't add up here, and it is my bet that it all done to serve the greater wingnut cause.

It's not a huge mystery. The wing-nut elites don't like McCain because he hasn't been serving them the way Bush did. It's like the Democratic elites having a hissy-fit about Dean in 2004.

Was Dean really some radical leftist who was going to nationalize the oil companies or something? NO! He was largely a mainstream moderate Democrat.

So why all the hysteria? Because he was bringing in "outsiders" to the party. McCain has snubbed too many wing-nuts in the past for them to trust him now.

They think, probably rightly, that he would chart his own course in office and work with conservative Democrats, thus isolating and ignoring wing-nuttia in much the same way that Clinton ignored and isolated and worked against the liberal base of his own party.

That's of small consolation to Democrats because there are all to many "Bush-Dog" Democrats who would love nothing better than to line up in service of McCain. So, if he wins, he has a powerful center-right governing coalition that will continue the destruction of America.

[Joe S.]

Rush used to have this wonderful message of individual freedom and personal responsibility, but then he started doing drugs and became a shill for the neoconservatives. I suppose he had to sell out, otherwise Jeb Bush wouldn't have intervened to keep the Palm Beach prosecutor from throwing Rush into jail. But still it stinks, and it's so sad to see what he's degenerated into and no, it's not even entertaining.

[Karl R]

He is like a God to me. His wisdom underated by many, goes divine very quickly - if you listen hard and have a friendly dragon burning in your pipe.

[tquigly]

Insane McCain, Obama, Clinton - they're all crazed.
For those who got back into the political process because Ron Paul offered a sane alternative, my apologies. The Establishment and the MSM refused to give you a voice.
Clinton & Obama are both Israeli-firsters, both competing to see who can win the Zionist support the biggest.
There is no 'change' in this 3-some. Only Ron Paul offers a rational choice. Anything else is death to the U.S.

[Dr Feelgood]

Once Rush discovers that Cindy McCain can score him some Oxycontin, he will change his tune.

[Edwin White]

Robert Crawford is so correct

[TriddyDiddy]

Of course, if McCain loses against a democrat, which is not only possible but perhaps likely, then Rush will claim victory.

[deke33]

To further show the stupidity of Rush Limbaugh, he attempted to deride the work of noted scientist Carl Sagan a few years ago about a scientific issue. I believe it dealt with global warming. Now one wonders what idiot would listen to a nonscientist like Rush rather than one of the world's foremost experts. The reason why Rush is so fat is he is so full of himself and s..t that one can't tell the difference because there is no difference.

[Mooser]

We listen and hop...

Thanks, Mr. February 16, that's what I thought.

[Will]

Forget Limbaugh! Only an EVIL EMPIRE of SINNERS--sixty million GOPers--vote for and support THE CONTINUATION OF (let alone fail to impeach) a criminal cabal for

1.Failing to protect the American people on 9/11/01 through appropriate military alertness after being briefed in writing of the terrorist dangers of airline hijacking by bin Laden on or about August 6, 2001.

2.Suborning and facilitating escape of all members of the bin Laden family in the United States before being interrogated or briefed by the FBI in the immediate wake of 9/11/01 terrorist attack.

3. Deceiving and intentionally terrifying the American people and the Congress with cherry-picked or otherwise false or falsified evidence of (a) weapons of mass destruction, (b) the imminent danger of nuclear, chemical and biological war, and (c) an Iraqi nexus with Al Qaida in order to engage in an aggressive, preemptive war with Iraq that it had planned BEFORE 9/11/01.

4. Violating UN Charter by engaging in illegal, aggressive, and preemptive war with Iraq without a Security Council resolution.

5. Lying to the American people in order to engage in a second aggressive, preemptive war with Iran that it was developing nuclear weapons when the Executive knew or should have known that all 21 of America’s intelligence agencies had revealed in 2003 that it had ceased such development.

6. Feloniously disclosing and/or suborning the disclosure of the identity of a CIA operative and endangering the lives of her field contacts in order to politically destroy her husband who exposed and revealed the factual truth behind the Executive’s aberrant military justifications.

7. Obstructing justice by instructing the White House Press Secretary to lie to the public denying that no one in the White House criminally disclosed and/or suborned the disclosure of the identity of CIA operative.
Violating the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights through (1) profiling, (2) arbitrary no-fly proscription lists, (3) torture, (4) rendition, (5) domestic voter fraud, (6) arbitrary and indefinite detention, (7) effectively denying and punishing 1st Amendment freedom of assembly (8) politicizing and packing federal public civil service and law enforcement employment, and (9) the permanent radioactive contamination and military destruction of Iraq.

8. Violating the Geneva Convention and the Code of Military Justice by directly authorizing and inducing rendition, torture, and indefinite detention.

9. Authorizing directly the illegal torture of prisoners and then destroying the evidence of the crime both in contempt of court and to obstruct justice.

10. Violating attorney-client privileges of 9/11 prisoners as a matter of policy.

11. Violating the presidential oath of office to faithfully execute duly enacted laws through the issuance of signing statements that pointedly disavow jurisdiction and emasculate enforcement.

12. Intentionally failing to enforce federal bidding and contracting oversight laws and suborning the waste, mismanagement and fraudulent payment of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to defense, military and government contractors both at home and in Iraq and Afghanistan for the covertly intended purpose of bankrupting the federal treasury, the American economy, and its government.

13. Willfully failing to warn, to protect, and then finally to reasonably, adequately, or substantively aid or favorably legislate for Hurricane Katrina victims during and years after the destruction of New Orleans in 2005 in order to facilitate the foreclosure and confiscation of the victims’ private property for the benefit of corporate political donors.

14. Obstructing justice by first objecting and then failing to provide documents to the 9/11 Commission necessary in the determination of cause, liability, and culpability for murder of almost 3,000 American civilians.

15. Obstructing justice by refusing to allow duly subpoenaed aides from testifying before Congress.

16. Violating 4th Amendment and FISA by engaging in warrentless wiretaps.

17. Violating 4th Amendment by ordering telecom companies to invade and accumulate personal records of millions of Americans and then supporting their immunity from federal prosecution and civil redress.

18. First deceiving Congress to hastily enact and second signing the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts that abrogates the 800-year old Magna Carta right of habeas corpus for anyone arbitrarily designated an “illegal enemy combatant.”

19. Knowingly engaging, legally immunizing and suborning Blackwater USA and Worldwide as contract mercenaries both before and after probable cause for the murder of numerous Iraqi civilians by the firm’s employees was found to exist.

20. Ordering the war crime destruction in 2004 of the entire Iraqi city of Fallujah and much of its civilian population of 250,000 under the code name of “Phantom Fury” in revenge for the killing of 6 Blackwater employees wrongly placed in a hostile zone by their employer. Then targeting Al Jazeera in an attempt to obstruct justice by covering up this crime against humanity.

21. Intentionally failing to endorse the Kyoto Protocol which has exacerbated global warning to the “tipping point” that will seal the future deaths of millions including Americans.

The only thing those 60 million SUBORNERS OF MURDER and DESTRUCTION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT deserve is PUNISHMENT!

[Lyrical]

Re: Mooser's comment- that's a great list. Now, as for punishment...that's still the way THEY think. I recommend (re)watching the movie Gandhi by Richard Attenborough. Gandhi was not interested in sainthood. He was committed to workability.
and boy oh boy, with that vision and committment fraying every where, he must be turning over in whatever he's in...