still, there's just one problem with that theory
Posted on 03/09/2009 12:01:50 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
He once described feminism as something invented to allow ugly women access to the mainstream.
According to the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, he once advised a black caller to his radio show, "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."
He once made fun of the body tremors of a man struggling with a degenerative and incurable disease of the nervous system.
Yet, when Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele described Rush Limbaugh's radio program during a recent CNN interview as "ugly" and "incendiary," it was Steele who was required to tender a prompt apology.
People keep asking, in the wake of two consecutive shellackings at the voting booth, what is wrong with the GOP. They have wrung their hands and hung their heads over Steele's goofy attempts ("off the hook") to bring street cred to the party of big business and social conservatism, over the way Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal seemed to channel Howdy Doody in delivering the GOP response to President Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress.
But if you want to know what ails the elephant, you need look no further than the sight of its putative leader groveling before the throne of a radio talk-show host and declaring his "enormous respect" for this "ugly" and "incendiary" fellow.
It must be crowded at the base of the throne. Steele is only the latest GOP official (Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford preceded him) to find himself offering clarifications and apologies for making the mistake of speaking honestly about the party's bloviator in chief. It's a sign that, for all the talk about rebranding and reinventing, the party remains too reluctant and regressive to match its words with actions. And that bodes ill for both it and the nation.
You will not believe it, but I have been rooting for the GOP. As well deserved as its recent drubbings have been, the fact is, single party governance is invariably a recipe for overreaching; the Bush years proved that inarguably. So for the sake of the checks and balances that make our system work, I would like to see the party get off the mat.
But it is hard to imagine this is how the party will do it.
As many pundits and even party officials have noted, given the dramatic cultural and demographic changes under way in this country, the GOP faces a real possibility of being reduced to a regional party of limited national relevance unless it broadens its appeal beyond angry white men living primarily in the states of the old Confederacy. That being the case, why are its members kissing the ring of the angry white man who broadcasts from West Palm Beach, Fla.?
Why are they not in South L.A. talking about entrepreneurship? Or in the Ninth Ward bearing proposals to encourage marriage and strengthen families? Or in Liberty City offering ideas to stem the violence? Why are they not competing for the votes they say they want?
To judge from the eagerness with which they prostrate themselves before Limbaugh, the answer is troublingly simple: They fear losing the votes they have. They are unable to disenthrall themselves from that culturally intolerant, intellectually incoherent, perpetually outraged and willfully ignorant cohort of the American demographic they call their base, i.e., extreme social conservatives.
Through the years, the GOP has reliably been able to woo them by demonizing gays, people of color, Muslims, feminists and anyone else who did not fit their white picket fence fantasies.
But the changes afoot in our country suggest that won't work quite as well in the future as it has up until now. So it's all well and good if the party faithful feel a need to apologize.
But they're facing the wrong way.
You're right, I don't.
[He once described feminism as something invented to allow ugly women access to the mainstream. ]
I’m trying to see the problem here.
“He once made fun of the body tremors of a man struggling with a degenerative and incurable disease of the nervous system.”
I stopped reading there. That is a bald faced lie.
Rush said that Michael J. Fox wasn’t taking his meds when he filmed a pathetic commercial that advocated stem cell research. Turned out, that was exactly correct.
Surprise! Rush was right.
No, the answer is that South L.A. doesn't want to hear about entrepreneurship, but victimhood. The Ninth Ward isn't going to increase marriages when any Republican who shows up will be met by Maxine Waters-ish brigades telling whitey to get out of their neighborhood. Liberty City goes to hell and WE are supposed to do what, exactly, to change that when what we will offer is "Stay in school, don't get girls pregnant" as opposed to "Buy from your own kind, get what's coming to you from the government" and whatever else the ACORNpones will offer.
We should be working for those votes, but after decades of Obama-like figures talking about "outsiders" and "typical white people" and "Hymietown," anyone who presents these ideas with a straight face must also think Obama is against big government.
Way off base there; I have no desire to hear fake apologies from Steele or anyone else. His apologizing to conservatives for his previous apologizing to liberals only compounded his mistake. Just like everyone else in the GOP he needs to get busy going after Obama and his 'rat cronies, and not let himself be pulled into their childish political machinations.
Isn’t it interesting that Rush can keep an audience, and nobody on the left can? If he’s so bad, why is it that his ratings soar every time he is attacked?
His listening audience has grown by nearly 50% in the last few weeks. He’s not back to his all time high levels of listening audience.
Rush is not a racist, and no he doesn’t want out nation to fail. LMAO as if...
The left is playing the game by hurling so many insults that they know some will stick. And in the process, they are destroying themselves.
Rush may not have 20 million listeners every day, but he has had tens of millions of people tune in off and on over the years, and those people know he isn’t a racist or a hater of America.
He supports our founding principles, our troops, and this nation better than any other public figure bar none.
Good luck Democrats, and some of our vile miscreant RINOs, who always agree with them. Rush is here to stay. You are not.
That’s true. I had forgotten about that. The left lies. It cant’ tell the truth about what it is selling, ever.
That’s the exception that proves the rule, my FRiend!
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Rush Limbaugh may be the most take-out-of-context, half-quoted person in modern history. I can’t count the times I’ve read about Rush doing or saying something outrageous, according to the person reporting it, but heard in context, there is nothing outrageous about it at all.
Not that libs bother to look into the facts before complaining. If they did, they wouldn’t be libs.
read
boo hoo hoo. Lenny Pitts is all upset.
For the same ignorant reasons Leonard educates himself by the deliberate disinformation put out by enemies, who, by their 'truth told', should be his. Here is a deluded man who believes that 'accuracy-in-media' is an honest 'Left-wing' endeavor to truthfully inform the public; rather than recognizing 'AIM' for the propaganda machine that it is. Like an evil adult, who abuses a child; the Left abuses the truth. Only when finally unrecognizeable, does it serve them.
The 'truth' of Rush requires only a basic moral reason and 'fair' inquiry; and best of all, an honest listener; rather than one who imagines he 'get's it' by malevelent, third-party analysis.
Rush said that Michael J. Fox wasn’t taking his meds when he filmed a pathetic commercial that advocated stem cell research. Turned out, that was exactly correct.No, it wasn't. Fox was on his meds.
Yeah I thought his was on his meds too. Does anyone have a link that says he wasn’t?
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