Posted on 02/27/2009 1:17:18 PM PST by Checkers
When Rush began, Reagan was president. How long do you people think Rush was able to delay what we are experiencing today?
Some things in his writings seemed to me to be just quite right for the National Review.
For one thing there is absolutely NO party discipline here, especially with Republicans. They splatter their votes all over the ideological map. A large fraction of them vote with democrats more often than the do other republican. They have a party platform but it is a bad joke.
It’s not a party so much as a brand name and the brand is pretty smudged up right now.
Thanks for your reply — it helps me understand things.
Perhaps the lack of party discipline comes from the weakness of the party — and, in turn it helps weaken the party.
Outsourcing of the message doesn’t seem to be a great way to strengthen the GOP.
Yes republicans have TRIED to outsource their message to Limbaugh, let him sell the unpopular positions while they hide behind empty rhetoric. Rush told them nuts to you:
From the November 8 [2006]broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: Now, I mentioned to you at the conclusion of the previous hour that people have been asking me how I feel all night long. And I got, “Boy, Rush, I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow. Boy, I wouldn’t want to have to do your show. Boy, I’m so glad I’m not you.” Well, folks, I love being me. I can’t be anybody else, so I’m stuck with it. But the way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, “Well, why have you been doing it?” Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat [sic] Party does and liberalism.
I suppose I should post the rest of the quote:
And I believe my side is worthy of victory, and I believe it’s much easier to reform things that are going wrong on my side from a position of strength. Now, I’m liberated from having to constantly come in here every day and try to buck up a bunch of people who don’t deserve it, to try to carry the water and make excuses for people who don’t deserve it. I just — I did not want to sit here and participate, willingly, in the victory of the libs, in the victory of the Democrat [sic] Party by sabotaging my own. But now with what has happened yesterday and today, it is an entirely liberating thing. If those in our party who are going to carry the day in the future — both in Congress and the administration — are going to choose a different path than what most of us believe, then that’s liberating. I don’t say this with any animosity about anybody, and I don’t mean to make this too personal.
I’m not trying to tell you that this is about me. I’m just answering questions that I’ve had from people about how I feel. But there have been a bunch of things going on in Congress, some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at, and it has been difficult coming in here, trying to make the case for it when the people who are supposedly in favor of it can’t even make the case themselves — and to have to come in here and try to do their jobs. I’m a radio guy. I understand what this program has become in America and I understand the leadership position it has. I was doing what I thought best, but at this point, people who don’t deserve to have their water carried, or have themselves explained as they would like to say things but somehow don’t be — aren’t able to, I’m not under that kind of pressure.
Short answer, they do but it doesn't matter.
The problem is, the Mainstream media here, which means the handful of large corporations that control the means of propaganda, are entirely dominated by the left. Statements by Democratic politicians and their advisers are not questioned by the media. Statements by Republican politicians and their advisers are either called into question by the media or rebutted by Democratic spokesmen, or as more often the case these days simply ignored. The fact that Rush Limbaugh is perceived by just about everyone as THE spokesman for the Republican Party shows how absolute the left's control of our media is.
Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators on radio provide two essential services for American conservatives. The first is talking points. Our sound bite society requires that ideas be communicated succinctly. Most of us have trouble articulating our opinions on the issues of the day effectively. Our liberal friends get their talking points from the mainstream media, who get theirs from the democrats and other leftist sources. If you are in a conversation around the water cooler with a liberal co-worker it can be really cool to have a good talking point handy to rebut one of their silly notions.
The second valuable service Rush Limbaugh et al provide is affirmation. I live in San Francisco and can go for literally days without hearing a conservative opinion voiced. It can be great sometimes just to know that there are other people out there who share my opinions.
No, Rush HAS read from Derbyshire in the past. Not very often, but he’s done it.
Rush gets badmouthed for “I hope he fails” but taken in context he is dead on!
The absolute worst possible outcome of current events would be for the economy to return just enough for Obama to claim it worked. The nation could stabilize at a failure hyped as better than it would have been if not for the socialist intervention — just what FDR did to get reelected twice!
We could then stabilize at a permanent socialist paradise of 10% politicians and limousine liberal movie stars, 10% productive taxpayers and 80% Acorn organized tax dependent drones.
What would we rather have, 4 years of the misery of a failed Obamanation or generations the misery of a successful one?
Typical liberal hack writer he intentional got it wrong to make Rush look bad. What Rush said was that if Obama heads down the road toward socialism (and he is)he hopes he fails! If he goes down the road toward Capitalism he will back him. It’s just another play on words by yet another liberal hack, writing no doubt for a liberal rag that’s going belly up.
Derbyshire needs to develop a more economic prose.
I get the point that "conservatism should be left to the professionals" (especially when I think of Hannity and Savage), but the problem is that at the end of the proverbial day someone's got to listen to the arguments before the voting public will buy into them, and that takes a communicator with a common touch, like a Reagan or a Limbaugh. Ron and Rush both loved National Review, and paid great homage to WFB (which makes Mr. Derbyshire's attack on El Rushbo all the more incomprehensible), but as someone who remembers the Buckley brothers' somewhat less than successful forays into elective politics, I would say that without interlocutors like Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham, et al conservatism would be about as popular as the Latin language. And, sad though it may seem, most of the voting public are on the "low-brow" side of the tasteometer, and conservative-friendly politicians still have to get elected so that the principles of the philosophes can be translated into public policy.
“His 14 million listeners”
IIRC, it’s more like 30MM+ and growing.
I think Hannity gave Bush a pass. He never just went off on Bush. Same way with McCain, that’s why McCain will still go on his show.
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