Limbaugh: We've reached "Stalinism"

From the AP: "A suburban Albuquerque teacher who told a black student that Santa Claus is white has been placed on paid administrative leave."

From Rush Limbaugh today, addressing the AP story: "Well, it is getting absurd. This is worse than political correctness. This is Stalinism."

The above, exquisitely abbreviated case study in talk-radio hysteria reminds me of a David Foster Wallace essay, "Host," to be found in his collection of non-fiction stories, Consider the Lobster. "Host" analyzes what you've probably already guessed it analyses--the work of a conservative talk-radio host, which principally entails fevered hours of raging emotionalism, deliberate ignorance and a stunning array of savage prejudices unleashed.

As I recall Foster's essay, one of its points is that all that gibberish isn't as easy to perform as it sounds. One begins each shift by staring at a digital clock, which is loaded up, say, with 180 minutes to be filled by ... something. One either makes that something good and entertaining, or one is soon gone. So it's an enormously high-pressure job, and though most right-winging talk-radio hosts may sound like utter imbeciles, in reality they're pouring loads of refined virtuosity into the airwaves. Despicable virtuosity, for sure, but virtuosity nonetheless.

But does that still hold true for Limbaugh? It seems to me he's become not only comically but amateurishly sloppy in his diatribes, and that virtually anyone with an immense ego but only half a wit could rave Limbaughesquely for three hours (most of which is cluttered with boneheaded ditto-callers, commercials and news) about every development being just another sign of Obama's America as Stalinism. 

Foster's essay does end on another point, though, which unquestionably applies to Rush Limbaugh, more than most: "[O]ne can almost feel it: what a bleak and merciless world [the] host lives in."

 

Comments

[Peter G]

I have recommended Wallace's essay, indeed the whole collection, to anyone who admires the elegant use of the English language. What captured my attention though was his historical perspective on talk radio. It was, at one time, dominated by liberal and progressive voices. But that wasn't selling anymore. I think a lot of people have this backwards when they imagine conservative opinions are created by conservative radio when all it really does is serve an existing market.
And there is nothing any Fairness Doctrine can do about that.

[Peter G]

As a courtesy: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/