Posted on 03/04/2009 12:46:52 PM PST by neverdem
All these highbrow conservative attacks on Limbaugh keep missing the point.
1) There is a certain sort of genius there that can do 15 hours of talk per week, ad hoc, and hold an audience of 20 million plus for over 20 years. There are about one or two others out of some 300 million who can do it. It may not be the same as digesting Reinhold Niebuhr or rereading the Federalist papers, but it is an uncanny talent and for over twenty years it has energized conservatives and reflected a certain populism that was lacking in its Wall Street/silk-stocking past. One could give Air America 1 trillion dollars in subsidy and it still could not match Limbaugh's audience.
2) Unlike many of his critics, Limbaugh is consistent, and that's why he maintains his audience. He is not going to wake up in the morning with vero possumus infatuation. Long before Barack Obama came along, he was warning his listeners about another populist maverick (from the Right) Ross Perot, and why they should not jump ship for him. For millions of conservatives the problem is not Limbaugh's occasional over-the-top riffs that are part of the talk-show genre, but NY-DC trimmers and triangulators who get caught up in fads and waves of popularity and adjust accordingly — as if they do not have the innate common sense to see that borrowing another trillion and more dollars to cure the problems brought on by borrowing annually a half-trillion dollars is, well, insanity.
3) When commentators bring up Limbaugh's private life in contrast to Obama's picture-perfect image, they only emphasize the superficial. I don't think Limbaugh would sit for 20 years listening to a white-supremacist preacher G-D-ing America. I don't think, like a Moyers, he would care all that much to learn who on his staff is gay. As is not the case with a Bill Maher or Michael Moore, those around Limbaugh like him, because they sense he is, for lack of a better word, a regular guy. That's why he can go on about his mansion and plane since his audience senses it is more caricature than snootiness. And if you did not actually hear conservative elites tsk-tsking Limbaugh's weight, marriages, and past addiction, then you would have to invent them doing so. We saw all that with Palin and the demonization of her multiple pregnancies, blue-collar husband, twangy speech, and Idaho B.A. Yet the reason why a Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush was elected twice — and not George Bush primus — was precisely because they could resonate with the middle classes in both a cultural and social sense, an ability that transcends money but has everything to do with attitude. What scares many is not the sometimes slobby but authentic image of a blunt-talking Rush Limbaugh, but the polo-shirted pre-packaged personas of an Obama, John Edwards, or John Kerry.
I'm sorry. VDH just ruined his otherwise good blog, IMHO.
I listen to Rush because he says what I think, almost always.
“I’m sorry. VDH just ruined his otherwise good blog, IMHO.”
C’mon...doesn’t this offset a little bit?
“One could give Air America 1 trillion dollars in subsidy and it still could not match Limbaugh’s audience.”
You are wrong!!
That’s what I’m saying. VDH needs to do a lot more than that to tarnish his contribution to our cause.
VDH is on our side.
I’m about the same age as Rush and although I went to college I have about the same disdain for educrats and school work that he did. I can easily see my self seated in the back of a class room with Rush making snide remarks about the teacher and egghead students who think they know it all. And so what if we fired an occasional spitball at the black board. Life isn’t all serious so why take yourself so seriously?
http://www.oneangryman.com/ken/2008/11/16/michael-steel-republican-national-committee-chairman/#comment-8556 Mr. Steele I am the average Joe Moe and would like to tell you that you might want to take heed of Rush's words. Look at the popularity he is receiving.....why?.....because most conservative republicans feel the same way. We want someone who has a lot of fight in them and has the guts to SAY IT AND DO IT. We are tired of our representatives not having the fortitude to take charge of the problems, or the situation. We are tired of our representatives not listening to what we want and what we elected you guys to do. Examples: jobs, taxes, stock market, border patrol, illegal immigration, You loss the last election because you put a whimmpy ass person up for us to vote for. A person that had no fight left in him. A person that did not really challenge Obama on any issue of importance. And further more, all of you need to set out to impeach, or prove Obama is illegal to sit as President of this country. We are all still wondering why none of you have done this already or why McCain did not bring up this issue.
I know I'm not the first to say this....but you really should start paying attention to what is being said by your voters, or you will loose again next year and in 2012.
Who appointed the “highbrow” “conservatives” over us as opinion makers and “intelligentsia”?
As for digesting Reinhold Niebuhr, did anyone other than sycophant David Brooks even refer to this “alleged” 20 minute conversation with then candidate BHO? I think Brooks is a flat out liar, what say you? As Bill O’Reilly would say.
Listening to Rush’s show today, I heard Rush allude to a bunch of so-called conservatives who are criticizing me - where would I find this list? - Rush wouldn’t say who they were and I can’t blame him because the MSM would make it a he said, she said carousel and elevate the critic above anonymity.
the man is, quite simply, a genius...
They don't have that common sense. There-in lies the problem.
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
— Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address; March 4, 1801
Obama is incredibly thin skinned. I think Operation Chaos got under his skin. And now he wants to bury Rush. But how to do it? Hmmmm? Fairness Doctrine, regulation of the airwaves, minority ownership mandates, etc is one way and it’s coming. Another is to use the media to try to take him apart, that’s already underway. Bonus: once you paint Limbaugh as an unpatriotic bomb thrower, it makes the fairness doctrine stuff easier.
Implying Rush is a slob is a gratuitous insult, IMHO. It doesn't mean I hate VDH because he used a rare, poor choice of words. I almost always enjoy his essays. Otherwise, I would have posted this in the editorial sidebar of News/Activism.
VDH was just using a term of endearment, from his point of view, I’m sure no offense was intended.
No it's not. Look at the context -- it's more about Rush not being so concerned to always present himself in the manner of the "polo-shirted pre-packaged personas of an Obama, John Edwards, or John Kerry."
He's painting him as more of a regular guy. I'm sure you're "slobby" sometimes, too.
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