Posted on 08/06/2012 10:13:19 AM PDT by matt04
Rush Limbaugh celebrated 24 years on his national radio talk show Wednesday, and that date is as good as any to benchmark when the country began its journey into a deeply polarized political climate. Limbaugh -- universally called Rush by friends and critics alike -- almost single-handedly started a narrative that recast Americans into conservative heroes or liberal villains, patriotic saviors or mainstream media dupes.
He was helped by the 1987 demise of the Fairness Doctrine, the longstanding regulation that required broadcasters to present both sides of a issue in roughly equal measure. He was perfectly poised to take advantage. A fervent audience quickly congealed around him and became the largest in talk show history. Some listen for three hours a day, alternately outraged by his latest discoveries of Democratic malfeasance or entertained by his often politically incorrect humor.
As in the last presidential election, he seems lukewarm about the presumptive Republican nominee. In 2008, he ridiculed John McCain as a moderate until McCain got the nomination and took on Barack Obama. This year, he warned against nominating another moderate. But Mitt Romney has nothing to worry about. Rush is all about exposing, bashing and unraveling the Democrats, especially Obama. He will be Romney's hatchet until election day, urging his audience to take on liberalism in all its forms and disguises.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.latimes.com ...
“as good as any to benchmark when the country began its journey into a deeply polarized political climate.”
In other words when the liberal media began to lose their monopoly on the news. Bwahahahahaha.
Yes, until 1987, the other side could not make its views known.
Speaking of ‘fairness’ - doctrine or not - I wonder what percentage of political stories written by the LA Times favor democrats? Half? LOL - they are such hypocrites...
I remember radio before 1987.
When I first heard Rush on the radio, it was as show someone had suddenly flooded the earth with oxygen. It didn’t seem real. I could not believe what I was hearing - and I was overjoyed.
Thank you, President Reagan!
Correction: "He was helped by the 1987 demise of the Fairness Doctrine, the longstanding regulation that required broadcasters to present the leftist side only, or be thrown off the air.
The famous Missourian was never going to amount to anything when he was fired by the Kansas City Royals in the mid- 1980’s. He and George Brett were buddies and Rush made sure George got home at night. Rush went out to be a sucess and the Royals have been horible since they fired Rush. Maybe Rush needs to buy the Royals from David Glass.
I measure Rush’s success by how many retards scream that he’s losing ratings and that he’s just entertainment. The louder those voices get each year, the more powerful he’s becoming.
Rush has never forgotten how Brett befriended him when he was a minor functionary for the Royals. I recall Rush telling the whole story on a broadcast 15 or 20 years ago.
As Rush says, Rush is showprep for the lamestream media. He and his topics are always the subject of their gossip.
Why did you omit the name of the author?
Just a guess, but it could be an unattributed editorial.
As Rush has rightly explained it, millions of Americans suddenly their own opinions coming over the airways. Hither too, they had thought themselves oddballs. Now they found that tens of millions of others thought the same. It is like walls went down, and one felt himself in the company of like-minded friends, not a sect, but a multitude.
IMHO, however, it is also those who realize that by getting as close to possible to government that they can save their own hides. I call this the Krupp approach, the way that the industrialists who sided with Hitler protected and enriched themselves. Many capitalists, on left and right, are corporatists. Corporatism is a form of collectivism, like Fascism and Nazism.
YOU sound like the linguine spine moderates. Rush has made is money HOW???? YACKING.... I lost all respect for him on bloody Thursday when he let his hirelings do his homework and decapitated NEWT in the Florida primary. SCREW Rush he is NOT going to take a dime of his vast wealth that he obsesses about when his flesh returns to the dust and his soul returns to the Maker that sent it. Conservatism is NOT just the worship of the 'golden bull' of Wall Street. And when Rush went limp on so many things, but in particular the influx of perversion because some of them are the best at what they do he caved to what you just accused me of being.
In the corrupt liberal media, there are 2 sides to any story. Liberal viewpoint and far left viewpoint.
YOU sound like the linguine spine moderates. Rush has made is money HOW???? YACKING.... I lost all respect for him on bloody Thursday when he let his hirelings do his homework and decapitated NEWT in the Florida primary. SCREW Rush he is NOT going to take a dime of his vast wealth that he obsesses about when his flesh returns to the dust and his soul returns to the Maker that sent it. Conservatism is NOT just the worship of the 'golden bull' of Wall Street. And when Rush went limp on so many things, but in particular the influx of perversion because some of them are the best at what they do he caved to what you just accused me of being.
***When I first heard Rush on the radio***
When I first heard that Rush was going to get a radio talk show, I thought....”Why would they give some guy who sells football tickets a talk show?” or whatever he did with football.
***He was helped by the 1987 demise of the Fairness Doctrine.***
I remember the “fairness doctrine”. It did nothing but allow anti-gun rants while all pro-gunners were made to look like fools.
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.