Posted on 07/30/2008 8:52:08 AM PDT by Reagan Man
I distinctly remember when my phone at my Washington hotel room rang at 1 AM during the spring of 1996. A distraught President Clinton was calling. “We’re getting killed on radio,” he blurted into the phone as soon as I picked it up.
“What do you mean?” I answered blearily trying to get a grip on what he was talking about.
“Hillary’s mothe r just drove here from Pennsylvania and all during the trip she heard them saying the most awful things about me on radio,” the president explained.
“On whose show?” I probed.
“Rush Limbaugh,” Clinton replied.
“He’s been on your case for years,” I answered.
“Yeah, but its getting serious,” he insisted.
The next morning, I got in touch with Terry McAuliffe at the Democratic National Committee to discuss setting up a war room to feed talking points to liberal talk show hosts to counter the pernicious influence of Rush!
Now that the wind blows at my back – no longer in my face – Rush sure comes in handy when its time to put the liberals in their place. There is, quite simply, nobody like him.
After all, before there was talk radio, there was Rush.
And before there was Fox News, there was Rush.
And before there was NewsMax, there was Rush.
And before their was Sean Hannity or Neil Boortz or Michael Medved or Dennis Prager or Mike Gallagher, there was Rush.
No other modern political commentator can lay claim to founding a branch of political discourse.
Honoring Rush for his contributions to America is not an empty exercise. At this moment, the liberal forces that hope to come to power with Barack Obama are set on a course to destroy the very institution that Rush founded – talk radio. Through a rigid application of the so-called fairness doctrine, they threaten to drive talk radio off the air and onto the Internet. Who knows if the listeners and the advertisers will follow?
Their goal is not to assure that liberals will be heard on the airwaves, but to guarantee that conservatives will not. The liberals know that left wing talk radio does not attract an audience and is a financial black hole. The collapse of Air America attests to that fact. NPR, black radio, Hispanic stations, and radio aimed at young people creams off the bulk of the would-be audience for liberal talk radio. So if stations can only air Rush or Sean or Neil if they also air the likes of Al Franken, they’ll probably cancel all talk radio and play music instead.
In our new book Fleeced, my wife Eileen McGann and I also raise the prospect that the left will seek to enforce sections of the FCC law which require “community participation” in the “ownership and management” of radio stations. As the National Review has pointed out, this can be a cover for infiltrating boards of directors and programming departments with liberals – an effort to hijack talk radio.
The liberals wouldn’t be trying to destroy talk radio if it weren’t working. And it was Rush who founded it and Rush who still leads the parade. Having attempted to discredit him, imprison him, silence him, or cow him, they have failed miserably. And, as a result, Rush still rules….and rocks!
Typical anti-Rush hater. Go back to your favorite place - the Daily KOOKIENESS and DUmmie! Fishtank?? Yes you got water on the brain...
Well, Neal Boortz is difficult to deal with in person, but I don’t see how you can call him a dim bulb. He’s pretty sharp.
Sorry.
I’m a conservative FIRST, not a repub party hack.
The party doesn’t mean JACK, if it’s not also conservative.
“***You mean to say anyone who does not revere Limbaugh must be a liberal?
Really?***”
Pretty much. Only a liberal’s kid would hate Santa Claus.
Well, it’s not an absolute. The GOP is more conservative than the democrats, for example.
Chances are there would be no mainstream political party that would make me completeley happy. It’s silly to deride those that acknowledge that the GOP is better than the dems as some kind of ‘party hack.’
Also have the clarity to realize that the conservative agenda doesn’t have a mandate on all issues. If the electorate isn’t buying all of what we are selling, that’s no reason to go completely out of business. We just sell them what they want to buy, and try to win the3 debate on the other stuff and develop consensus.
I wouldn't have read that into what he said...but the concept of silencing debate rather than engaging it has been a tool of the left...and it wouldn't just affect Rush, but lots of hosts both national and local.
One doesn't have to revere Mr. Limbaugh to be concerned about the damage The Fairness Doctrine would cause.
Except for the occasional danger of being sunk by pirates and the US Navy, it might work just fine.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944417-1,00.html
Nope... there’s a huge gap between ‘revere’ and ‘I want him kicked off the radio’... Silencing someone that talks to 15 million listeners, and going along with the lefty sKum, shows you’re doing a disservice to conservatives, and conservative causes... Hence, the prospect of your coming across as a closet lib.
You’ll never win elections by insulting millions of Savage listeners.
Thanks... Talk radio is the most effective means we have, for pushing our agenda through... Without it, we’re dead in the water.
Never heard of Bob Grant - was he nationally syndicated on radio back in the day?
Stirred ‘em up, I see!
I will say Rush is a bit better since the 2006 elections. (water carrier, anyone?)
Savage pounds these guys, and the GOP and many conservatives way harder than Air America ever dreamed of... all under the guise of him being conservative (total lie), spewing hate and lies to his 8 million listeners.
It's time for your meds fella.
Great- another Weiner-ite joins the thread.
Just what Conservative principles will an Obama appointed Supreme Court Justice uphold?
I say someone “like you” who supports the Fairness Doctrine is a liberal.
“Rush is a dried up husk of the greatness that he COULD have been.
He aided and abetted the destruction of American conservatism during the very liberal, internationalist Bush presidency.”
Dude, bro, I need $20 of whatever you are smoking.
I used to listen to Rush religiously during the Clinton reign of terror and enjoyed him immensely, then another voice of reason appeared on my radar that was more vocal about the grave threat of terrorism, the culturally erosive homosexual agenda, the illegal alien disaster in the making, and the two-party Mutt and Jeff game they got going in D.C., and that was Michael Savage.
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