Posted on 04/01/2013 9:01:32 PM PDT by Pinkbell
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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
You say that, but you haven’t done anything to refute it. I can only judge Limbaugh by what he says, not what’s in his heart.
“Limbaugh was urging me to vote for the guy who pioneered Obamacare.”
_____________________________________________________
Oh, so he should have endorsed some third party guy who had no prayer of being elected?
Is Obozo better then Romney?
I have shown you exactly what Limbaugh said about the "caller abortions"...and you ignored it and avoided it like it was poison. Here it is again.
"None of what I did was real. Yet, in this country an abortion happens 4,000 times a day--for real...There is real emotional distress. There is physical harm and there's death...Where is the outrage against those who do it for real just down the street from where they live?...If you didn't know in your heart of hearts that abortion was a savage, violent act, what I did wouldn't have bugged you so much. I took you inside an abortion mill, and some of you couldn't take it."
This refutes your notion that Rush became pro-life late in the game and that he was trying to be funny with the "caller abortions."
If you won't acknowledge what he has said here, own up to your misunderstanding and knock off the ignoramus act, you're trolling, plain and simple.
Good Pelosi style Catholic boy.
Is O’Reilly still on television...? lol Haven’t watched Bill in ages....!
O'Reilly is not a conservative, just ask him, he'll tell you. At best O'Reilly calls himself a "traditionalist", but O'Reilly believes in the efficacy of government regulation of the economy and of human behavior. O'Reilly believes that gasoline prices are the result of collaboration among oil companies. Just watch any of the segments of O'Reilly with John Stossel. O'Reilly simply does not understand how free markets actually work.
In any battle between Rush and O'Reilly, O'Reilly will be crushed. It won't be pretty.
Wouldn’t he have to give up his radio program OR give equal time to all candidates?
Rush says he is equal time.
You obviously don’t listen much to Rush, because he’s many times expounded on the greatness of the free-enterprise system and other conservative issues and beliefs.
Recall O’R kissing bam’s butt when he interviewed him.
There's no such animal.
I figured that it was an April Fools Day joke.
At this point I rarely watch FNC at all, sometimes I'll flip over during a commercial break on whatever else I was watching. But from what I remember, BOR show was about the worst one on the channel, and it always apparently has the most viewers. Sad comment that.
What especially irritated me about that, is that Rush came on the air yesterday and tried to put some sort of spin on that statement.
He threw the left a gigantic Brontosaurus bone, and instead of coming on the air and admitting that it was a stupid thing to say, he tried to defend it. I can only describe it as a brazen act of cowardice.
You make a lot of good points there.
“O’Reilly is a conservative populist, which is to say, he only champions those conservative viewpoints that he believes enjoy mass appeal. “
************************
0’Pinhead...just let it go at that....
and...if ya go to ny...don’t get in his taxi...
Semper Trvth!
*****
Unfortunately, some libertarians act that way - playing right into the hands of those eager to use that broad brush to paint libertarianism out of the picture.
If we had small l libertarian government right now, the governnment wouldn't be in the job of punishing free people for peacefully choosing to reject things they deem immoral.
Social conservatives can't seem to grasp that a government powerful enough to impose personal morality is also powerful enough to erode personal morality.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.