Rush Limbaugh the hypocrite

Cash said:

The same reason we don't burn witches anymore. What was once socially acceptable no longer is.

stockula said:
Well I started listening to Rush a little less than a year ago. Never really listened to him before because, why? AM radio is the pits with all the commercials, I pretty much agree with most everything he says, I can get all the right-wing punditry/politics/media criticism I want from blogs, and I like NPR fine (you always learn some neat things you didn't know before, especially arts & culture-wise). But last year at a new job, sometimes my boss and I would go on business trips on long drives and the choice I had for listening on the drive was country music or Rush Limbaugh. Kind of a no-brainer, I took Rush. After a while, he sort of grew on me and I found myself looking forward to his show.

I find Rush to be really funny and pretty sharp. He belied a lot of pre-conceived notions I had about him. But that's not the best thing about Rush. The amazing thing about him is how he completely and fully understands how the mainstream media works and how they report things. When events happened, he's capable of telling his audience exactly how the media will report it according to their editorial biases, and he's almost always dead on. He can also tell you what the Democrats and liberals will say before they say it as well.

When politicians, bills, and various other machinations happen in Washington, he knows all about the players, their motivations, their tactics and strategy, the ramifications, stakes, and consequences, and explains it all very lucidly and in an entertaining manner. And like with the media, it's almost like he's getting inside these peoples' heads.

I'll give you an example of this: the judicial nominations filibuster by the Democrats early this year. The Democrats decided to obstruct the president's nomination of federal judges by suddenly declaring such important posts warranted a 60-40 vote to end debate. This qualification has NEVER been demanded in the case of bringing nominees to a vote. It was a blatent abuse of the Senate rules. But the Democrats with remarkable mendacity managed to play on the public's fears of one party wielding too much power in Washington, to say that it was the REPUBLICANS who were destroying Senate tradition and abusing power by considering using the nuclear option to stop this nonsense. And amazingly, due to the weakness of the GOP Senate leadership and the complicity of the RINOs, the Democrats won a half-assed comprimise to permit a handful of the president's nominees a confirmation vote when all were so entitled. Rush explained all this as it happened.

Fast forward a couple of months, there was a lengthy article in the New York Times Magazine about the post-election Democrats and how they handled political life after their huge defeat in 2004. The reporter interviewed Democrat strategists, consultants, and Senators about the nominee filibuster and they candidly confirmed everthing Rush had explained on the fly as it happened months earlier. Then the reporter asked "Well, you basically turned the truth of the situation on its head; the Democrats were the ones breaking Senate tradition and abusing power, not the GOP. Aren't you worried the public will resent being played and manipulated like that?" The consultant laughed derisively and said these matters are above the public's pay-grade. The Democrats had complete contempt for not only the truth, but the public's intelligence as well. And Rush was providing the straight story through his commentary, while if you wanted it from the NY Times, you had to wait until months later after the whole issue was settled and over. And it wasn't half as funny or entertaining.

Albion said:

I've never heard Rush use it

but raises a question - if caucasian is the socially acceptable anthropological term for white people, what is the equivalent for black people?

burning_bright said:

african, and in america, the cultural term used would be african american.

(look at the root of the word: caucASIAN. its counterparts would be asian, african, polynesian, and i don't remember the rest. (sorta identified as genetic groups of humans, if i'm not mistaken.)

Jaquelin_Michael said:

Not actual genetic groups, as the genetic difference between a white man and a black man is the same as between a white man and another white man.

burning_bright said:

african, and in america, the cultural term used would be african american.

(look at the root of the word: caucASIAN. its counterparts would be asian, african, polynesian, and i don't remember the rest. (sorta identified as genetic groups of humans, if i'm not mistaken.)

Runk said:
Limbaugh's ratings are down 43% over last year here in Minneapolis. He's on his way to his rightful place as historical footnote.

stockula said:
What's wrong with calling people negroes? There's a lot of negative connotations the the word "black" that subconsciously append themselves to people by calling them that.

burning_bright said:

african, and in america, the cultural term used would be african american.

(look at the root of the word: caucASIAN. its counterparts would be asian, african, polynesian, and i don't remember the rest. (sorta identified as genetic groups of humans, if i'm not mistaken.)

Albion said:

Doesn't "caucasian" derive from "Caucus Mountains"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

I can't see that "African" would be accurate enough. It's the name of a continent that has a wide diversity of races - perhaps too wide to use term as an anthropological identity.

Hosni Mubarak & Charlize Theron are African, but they aren't "African".

Al Sharpton isn't African, but he's "African".

venomkid said:

I prefer "black" over "African-American". It's a more inclusive term and is more accurate. There are plenty of very dark skinned peoples in parts of the world other than Africa, and black people in America don't seem to identify that much with the actual African continent. There are also many white people in Africa, if they move to America are they African-Americans?

If "white" works then "black" works just fine.

Plus it just sounds stupid when someone is identifying the race of a black person from europe and calls them "African American"

legionnaire said:
However, the original question, which I don't think you really answered, was whether you think that it's fair that Rush doesn't apply the same degree of scrutiny to Republicans that he does to Democrats. Even Bill O'Reilly will (very, very infrequently) do this, mainly as a show of good faith that he's more interested in "the truth" than advancing any particular partisan agenda. So stock, as an admitted fan of Rush Limbaugh, do you think it's OK that he essentially gives Republicans and their leadership a pass when they make mistakes?