P.J. O'Rourke: I Agree with Me – When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?

The Atlantic Monthly ^ | July/August 2004 | P.J. O'Rourke

[conway]

P.J. is arguativelly the most sophiscated humorist I have ever read. When he wrote "You couldn't hit the opposite curb on a street in down town Moscow with a two wood", I almost died.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Start with O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores. That, and Rush's first book, turned my mush-headed mind around. P.J. proves early on in the book that God is a Republican, while Santa Claus is a Dem.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Medved is one of the best debaters, beacuse he does it ALL the time. Many other shows rarely if ever take on the liberal side, and when they do, it's often a poor showing (Hannity comes to mind).

[Intolerant in NJ]

Bump

[Choose Ye This Day]

FYI: Laura Ingraham PING!

The Reagan Legacy: More Than Optimism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1149478/posts

Please let me know if you'd like to be on the Laura Ingraham PING list.

[Ganymede]

I was a young skull of mush. You can credit Rush for changing my political outlook fresh out of college.

Ditto. It's been a little over ten years since I first listened to Rush. As a college freshman, I was "outraged" by his "insensitivity" . . . but then I continued to listen to him and realized . . . "hey, he's right." I credit Rush with changing my mind about a lot of things in college. . . although it would take me a few more years to convert wholly to a conservative ideology.

[Fledermaus]

Hey PJ, your drugs were pot, heroin, cocaine and they were for FUN!

Rush was addicted to pain killers to avoid horrible pain. Big difference you moron.

I agree, not his best writing.

[Once-Ler]

I was a young skull of mush. You can credit Rush for changing my political outlook fresh out of college.

Ditto. I feel I have moved past Rush, but at the time he was a fresh voice in the liberal media wasteland. Success breeds imitation. Today I listen to Rush, Mike Savage, and NPR. I also watch Fox news, CNBC, and MSNBC. I also Freep and surf the Web. It is because these news/opinion forums are available. Back in 1988 only Rush, CNN and NPR was available to me. Before Rush it was Nightline NPR and CNN. Things have certainly improved and while I don't learn as much from Rush as I used to, I still enjoy listening to him as an ideological refresher course and a great source of information.

[Colinsky]

When I first listened to Rush I was angry. "How could someone say crap like that and get away with it!?" was my initial reaction. I set out to prove him wrong - he had to be wrong - because if he was right that would mean that I'd been lied to for years and that I'd been a fool - a useful idiot.

I hated Rush because he was a Nazi gasbag, according to the media. A fat sack of suet screeching hate at minorities and the poor. So I never listened to him.

But then the Dodgers radio broadcast switched stations in my central California town, and in the evenings I'd turn on the radio for the game, and then in the morning I'd turn on the radio because I've been a radio guy since I built my first crystal radio in 1956 (requires no batteries!).

So I would be sitting at my desk working in the morning with the radio blatting away in the background as usual, and only gradually did I realize that it was the Rush Limbaugh show--it was completely unrecognizable according to the media description I'd been given. The thing that caught my attention was the song parody of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" during the first Gulf War, "Bomb Iraq."

That was funny, and I started paying more attention. Rush didn't change my opinions; I paid more and more attention because he was talking about things that agreed with my opinions. The thing that changed for me was my view of the mainstream media--they purported on me a completely false report about the play-by-play events of a typical three hours of Rush.

My view of the media as an accurate, dispassionate reporter of events has changed enormously since I began listening to Limbaugh. So a conservative talk show changed my mind, except on a different topic than liberal vs. conservative.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I listen to it because it's a comfort to me that there are people out there who think the way I do. I can barely stand to listen to our local liberal hosts. It makes me want to grab hair and pound heads on sidewalks.

[DLfromthedesert]

I didn't realize PJ had put his stamp of approval on gay "marriage". But then, he's basically a libertarian, and they differ from conservatives on social issues.

[pawdoggie]

P.J. is a bright and funny guy, but he's missed a couple of key points here: 1)P.J. O'Rourke does political commentary for a living. He has time and access to sources most of us can't get near. Of course he doesn't need Rush Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, et al. 2)Rush goes on the occasional rant, but he performs a key service for those who don't have the time or resources of a P.J. O'Rourke, he digests and comments upon the news of the day, the critical stuff, the petty stuff, the "in an odd way" funny stuff. 3)As others have already pointed out: yes there are people, apolitical people, "first time listeners", young people and even liberals who listen to Rush and his bastard stepchildren. There were a lot of new converts just after 9-11.

[Once-Ler]

I haven't read this author before. Is he always this stupid?

Just like you, me, and most of America, PJ started out as an emotional feeling heartfelt liberal. Then we grew up and and started using our brains. PJ is often funny but this piece really sucks.

Congratulations on your transformation from feeler to thinker.

[Once-Ler]

If Jesus Christ returns to Earth and runs for President, he better run as a Republican because I'll vote against him if he runs as a Dem.

Wow, that is just blasphemous...and really funny. 7th commandment or not, I'm going to steal it.

[Once-Ler]

oops - 8th commandment. I'll be suckin' a turd in Hell for getting that one wrong. Looks like we're both damned.

[krb]

I should say, not one of P.J.'s better pieces.

Nah...PJ is brilliant and he's right. The shows we like that reinforce beliefs that we already have are not well-suited to winning converts.

[krb]

What's her status? I'd totally marry her...

[Fledermaus]

That data also proves the top 1-5% of wage earners pay the bulk of all income taxes.

And, as rates have gone down, their percentage of that bulk goes up. When those rates were raised by Clinton, their share went down. Why?

It's all about taxable income. The biggest change wasn't lowering the rates but the elimination of all the deductions and loopholes. When the top rate was close to 78%, those deductions were so liberal it was almost like deducting the air you breath.

Sales taxes paid, income taxes paid, ALL interest paid no matter what (there's a stupid policy - incentives to increase debt just to write off the interest on income taxes), etc. In the mid-1970's it was very common for the very wealthy to pay NO income taxes. Why? Because they didn't realize income. They were allowed all kinds of tax shelters and losses they could write off.

One example, since I'm in the business, is hotels. Real Estate companies like mad would build fancy hotels just to lose money and lower their taxable income overall. This was rampant in the 60's and 70's. The S&L "crisis" only happened when Congress, and unfortunately Reagan, changed that drastically in 1986 instead of phasing it in. Thus real estate taxable income was pushed up, even at lower rates, to the point of devaluing property. But the majority was only the property that was overvalued anyway so speculators were the biggest ones hurt. But, unfortunately again, they tended to be big contributors and got Congress to bail them out (John McCain was one of those helping them).

But the overall changes were for the better. Lower rates in exchange for a simpler code. Thus, the taxable base grew since more and more people would rather EARN more at lower rates than hide and shift the money into money losing prospects. It made the economy leaner and meaner and profit oriented and thus more efficient.

Another problem with high tax rates and easy deduction and loopholes is that the average person can't take advantage and thus the rich are even more benefited. Remember, the rich don't require income. They have wealth. Thus they can easily turn their income to zero or, in those years, even negative income and spread those losses out for seven years into the future.

By making it more attractive to earn income that was taxed at a lower rate, it opened up incentives to invest, grow, build, etc.

The same thing happened when the GOP took Congress in 1995. The surpluses only came about because they cut the rates on capital gains and those increases (more people willing to sell capital and realize a gain to be taxed at a lower rate) is what filled the coffers...not the higher income tax rates passed by the Democrats. They show the actual percentage of income taxes to the government were going down by the "rich".

But liberals, Democrats, and even a lot of so-called "conservatives" don't understand that. The idiots on the left look to the past and say, "and if we taxed that income at 39.6% instead of 35%, we'd have more money". Of course, more money to just spend away on government programs that don't work. But, they won't have that money. Why? Because with that higher rate the taxable income base will shrink. So they are living in a utopia that doesn't exist.

It's like Wal-Mart saying, "wow, we could have made billions more if we hadn't cut the price of that toaster from $15 to $12". But they wouldn't have sold that many toasters at $15 as they did at $12.

Look at California and what happened to them. They raised the top rates on "the rich" so high, they left. Thus the taxable income base shrunk and the ones left paying were also the ones demanding and using more government services. Thus, income is down, costs are up and exactly what you expect would happened - happened! Bankruptcy.

It's so simple you wonder why people don't "get it".

[Slings and Arrows]

I Agree with Me

When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?

by P. J. O'Rourke

.....


Last year, on a long car trip, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout. I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him. I listen to NPR: "World to end—poor and minorities hardest hit." I like to argue with the radio. Of course, if I had kept listening to Limbaugh, whose OxyContin addiction was about to be revealed, I could have argued with him about drugs. I don't think drugs are bad. I used to be a hippie. I think drugs are fun. Now I'm a conservative. I think fun is bad. I would agree all the more with Limbaugh if, after he returned from rehab, he'd shouted (as most Americans ought to), "I'm sorry I had fun! I promise not to have any more!"

Anyway, I couldn't get NPR on the car radio, so I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout about Wesley Clark, who had just entered the Democratic presidential-primary race. Was Clark a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton?! Was Clark a DNC-sponsored Howard Dean spoiler?! "He's somebody's sock puppet!" Limbaugh bellowed. I agreed; but a thought began to form. Limbaugh wasn't shouting at Clark, who I doubt tunes in to AM talk radio the way I tune in to NPR. And "Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop!" was not a call calculated to lure Democratic voters to the Bush camp. Rush Limbaugh was shouting at me.

Me. I am a little to the right of ... Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.

I suppose I should be arguing with my fellow right-wingers about that, and drugs, and many other things. But I won't be. Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives. The formats of their radio and television programs allow for little measured debate, and to the extent that evidence is marshaled to support conservative ideas, the tone is less trial of Socrates than Johnnie Cochran summation to the O.J. jury. Except the jury—with a clever marketing strategy—has been rigged. I wonder, when was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?

This is an argument I have with my father-in-law, an avid fan of such programs. Although again, I don't actually argue, because I usually agree with my father-in-law. Also, he's a retired FBI agent, and at seventy-eight is still a licensed private investigator with a concealed-weapon permit. But I say to him, "What do you get out of these shows? You already agree with everything they say."

"They bring up some good points," he says.

"That you're going to use on whom? Do some of your retired-FBI-agent golf buddies feel shocked by the absence of WMDs in Iraq and want to give Saddam Hussein a mulligan and let him take his tee shot over?"

And he looks at me with an FBI-agent look, and I shut up. But the number and popularity of conservative talk shows have grown apace since the Reagan Administration. The effect, as best I can measure it, is nil. In 1988 George Bush won the presidency with 53.4 percent of the popular vote. In 2000 Bush's arguably more conservative son won the presidency with a Supreme Court ruling.

A generation ago there wasn't much conservatism on the airwaves. For the most part it was lonely Bill Buckley moderating Firing Line. But from 1964 to 1980 we went from Barry Goldwater's defeat with 38.5 percent of the popular vote to Ronald Reagan's victory with 50.8 percent of the popular vote. Perhaps there was something efficacious in Buckley's—if he'll pardon the word—moderation.

I tried watching The O'Reilly Factor. I tried watching Hannity shout about Colmes. I tried listening to conservative talk radio. But my frustration at concurrence would build, mounting from exasperation with like-mindedness to a fury of accord, and I'd hit the OFF button.

I resorted to books. You can slam a book shut in irritation and then go back to the irritant without having to plumb the mysteries of TiVo.

My selection method was unscientific. Ann Coulter, on the cover of Treason, has the look of a soon-to-be-ex wife who has just finished shouting. And Bill O'Reilly is wearing a loud shirt on the cover of Who's Looking Out for You?

Coulter begins her book thus:
Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don't. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy.
Now, there's a certain truth in what she says. But it's what's called a "poetic truth." And it's the kind of poetic truth best conveyed late in the evening after six or eight drinks while pounding the bar. I wasn't in a bar. I was in my office. It was the middle of the day. And I was getting a headache.

Who's Looking Out for You? is not as loud as Treason. But there's something of the halftime harangue at the team just in the use of the second-person pronoun.

The answer to O'Reilly's title question could be condensed in the following manner: "Nobody, that's who. The fat cats aren't. The bigwigs aren't. The politicos aren't. Nobody's looking out for you except me, and I can't be everywhere. You've got to look out for yourself. How do you do that? You look out for your friends and family. That's how. And they look out for you. And that's the truth, Bud."

We've all backed away from this fellow while vigorously nodding our heads in agreement. Often the fellow we were backing away from was our own dad.

O'Reilly casts his net wide in search of a nodding, agreeing audience. He embraces people driving poky economy cars ("not imposing gas mileage standards hurts every single American except those making and driving SUVs") and people with romantic memories of the liberalism of yore ("the gold standard for public service was the tenure of Robert Kennedy as attorney general"). He positions himself as a populist worried about illegal aliens' getting across the border and taking our jobs. (I'm worried about illegal aliens' not getting across the border and leaving us with jobs, such as mowing the lawn and painting the house.) And O'Reilly reaches out to the young by prefacing each chapter with lyrics from pop music groups that are, as far as I know, very up-to-date, such as Spandau Ballet. But the person that O'Reilly's shouting at is still, basically, me: "If President Hillary becomes a reality, the United States will be a polarized, thief-ridden nanny state ..."

Does the left have this problem? Do some liberals feel as if they're guarding the net while their teammates make a furious rush at their own goal? NPR seems more whiny than hectoring, except at fundraising time. There's supposed to be a lot of liberal advocacy on TV. I looked for things that debased freedom, promoted license, ridiculed responsibility, and denigrated man and God—but that was all of TV. How do you tell the liberal parts from the car ads? Once more I resorted to books.

To answer my question I didn't even have to open Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. But having done so, I found these chapter headings: "Ann Coulter: Nutcase," "You Know Who I Don't Like? Ann Coulter," and "Bill O'Reilly: Lying Splotchy Bully."

Michael Moore's previous book was Stupid White Men, titled in a spirit of gentle persuasion unmatched since Martin Luther, that original Antinomian, wrote Against the Murderous and Thieving Hordes of Peasants. Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, contains ten chapters of fulminations convincing the convinced. However, Moore does include one chapter on how to argue with a conservative. As if. Approached by someone like Michael Moore, a conservative would drop a quarter in Moore's Starbucks cup and hurriedly walk away. Also, Moore makes this suggestion: "Tell him how dependable conservatives are. When you need something fixed, you call your redneck brother-in-law, don't you?"

Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone. I'm reduced to arguing with the radio. The distaste for political argument certainly hasn't made politics friendlier—or quieter, given the amount of shouting being done by people who think one thing at people who think the same thing.

But I believe I know why this shouting is popular. Today's Americans are working harder than ever, trying to balance increasing personal, family, and career demands. We just don't have time to make ourselves obnoxious. We need professional help.

[NutCrackerBoy]

I think it is a perceptive and funny piece. Ann Coulter showed in Slander that liberals do not at all want to debate conservatives. That is correct, but there is evidence that conservatives do not really want to debate liberals either.