Bill O’Reilly vs. Rush Limbaugh

Daily Beast ^ | April 1, 2013 | Peter Beinart

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There are various ways to describe the civil war rising inside the Republican Party: insiders versus outsiders, pragmatists versus true-believers, establishment versus Tea Party. Here’s another: Bill O’Reilly conservatives versus Rush Limbaugh conservatives.

Last week, the two media titans clashed after O’Reilly accused opponents of gay marriage of lacking “compelling argument[s]” and merely “thump[ing] the Bible.” Limbaugh responded by saying that conservative Christians “were sort of marginalized” on O’Reilly’s show. On the surface, the scuffle merely reflected differing opinions about the arguments deployed last week at the Supreme Court. But in reality, it reflected a different view of conservatism itself.

O’Reilly is a conservative populist, which is to say, he only champions those conservative viewpoints that he believes enjoy mass appeal. His evolution on gay marriage—as helpfully chronicled by New York magazine’s Dan Amira—illustrates the point. While O’Reilly’s own views have shifted, what has remained constant is his tendency to justify those views by reference to the popular will. In 2006 O’Reilly said he opposed gay marriage because “it is clear that most Americans want heterosexual marriage to maintain its special place … Traditional marriage is widely seen as a social stabilizer.” In 2009 he again phrased his opposition in terms of public opinion: “You don’t do it [pass gay marriage] particularly if people in California … don’t want it, they think that the heterosexuality is a societal stabilizer.” But by linking his own notions of social stability to those of the public at large, O’Reilly gave himself room to shift. By May of last year he was declaring that “individual states should decide the question.” And last week he said he supported civil unions, while on gay marriage, “I don’t feel that strongly about it one way or another. I think the states should do it.”

[Matchett-PI]

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“Legalizing pedophilia is next.”

They have already started on this campaign. All you have to do is look at the clothing ads for young boys and girls. Victoria’s Secret selling undies to pre-teens?