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It’s been a whole day since I first read Jason Whitlock’s Foxsports.com column defending ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips, who was fired from the network after having an affair with a 22-year-old production assistant, and I’m still not sure what to make of it.
Whitlock’s main point is that “[a] little off-the-books nookie should
not infringe on man's ability to discuss bats and balls in October.”
I’m going to set aside the obvious fact that a job at ESPN is a
privilege, not a right, and if an employee does something to embarrass
the network, of course he can be fired ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
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Abigail, is "the main problem" really that "Rush is preaching to the choir"? Isn't there something slightly lacking in the message itself? I think Obama's budget is problematic, relying as it does on implausible growth rates. I worry, as does Nobel Prize winning Macroeconomist Edmund Phelps, that the stimulus might prolong the recession by diverting resources from productive activity to rent-seeking. But I certainly don't expect anyone to listen to Rush Limbaugh when he starts talking about fiscal restraint or the limits of state power.
This is a man who evidently believes our government so efficacious that it can transform the political culture of a foreign society, so beneficent that we ought to let it monitor our phone calls without even the flimsiest pretense of oversight. This is a man so inspired by his faith in the federal government that he was happy to invest $2 trillion on a war the moment Washington deemed it necessary. When Rush Limbaugh says the new guy is being irresponsible with taxpayer money, it just looks like rank obstructionism. Because, you know, it is.
Of course the White House wants to promote Rush as the kind of person who opposes its economic policy. The implication is that if you think spending billions of dollars on something vaguely defined as "green jobs" is kind of dubious, you're probably a sexist incoherent cigar-smoking overweight white dude with an overdeveloped taste for OxyContin. He's not helping.
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Hanna, as bizarre as it may seem to you, the way you feel when you listen to Rush Limbaugh is the way a large portion of the country feels (me included) when they read the Washington Post editorial page—amused, slightly terrified, and in shock that there are people who really think that way. Rush gets about 20 million listeners a week on about 600 stations—which may or may not justify White House acknowledgment but are pretty impressive numbers nonetheless. Especially when compared to certain plummeting newspaper sales.
As crazy as it may seem, there are still a few people in America (at least 20 million of them) who don't think government intervention is the solution to every problem. Or that it's a coincidence that every time Obama unveils a new package of regulations stocks on Wall Street descend into further freefall. And earlier, when you were wondering "whither the movement"against terrifying appointees like Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has gone"it's gone to Rush and to talk radio. Why? In part because no major mainsteam newspaper is going to do any investigating in that story. Why is that? I don't know. I assume it's because journalists don't believe the fact that Sebelius supports (blandly labeled but truly gruesome) partial-birth abortion is something that compromises her credibility as a lawmaker. Conservatives do. But maybe that's an incorrect assumption of journalists on my part?
The main problem (although probably good news for you) with that movement of the conservative voice to talk radio is that Rush is preaching to the choir—not to Congress. Until conservatives find a way to get their message out to a larger audience, they're going to have a hard time gaining any ground. But until then, Limbaugh won't be going away. He's one of the only sources that's providing information on the issues conservatives care about—information that they're not finding in the mainstream media and maybe never will.
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I don't know if the White House is being cynical or not in puffing up Rush Limbaugh's importance. The Bush people did the same with Michael Moore. As Howard Kurtz reports this morning, Limbaugh does have a 60 percent favorable rating among Republicans. And there's no doubt Rush is loving it, going on and on about how the White House is "targeting" him and making him into a "demon." For my part, I can't believe we are having any kind of serious discussion about Rush on the front pages of newspapers and the White House briefing room. (Kathleen Parker grudgingly addresses here.)
If any of you have not yet read his rant at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, you should do so. (But don't watch, as it will eat up 85 minutes better spent organizing a closet.) Limbaugh's put-it-on-the-gravestone-motto is "conservatives don't check principles at the door." And what are those principles, exactly? Hard to say, in any specific terms. The speech opens on a dumb Stalin joke, followed by a dumb irreligious St. Peter joke about how God is actually Limbaugh. He does a lot of ranting about big government and socialism. His main gripe seems to be that Obama portrays America as a "soup kitchen" [Translation: in a recession] when really it's a kick-ass country. The overall spirit of the thing seems to be "I'm persecuted, and loving it." My favorite line, translated with stage directions by his own Web site: "John Kerry [BOO] who served in Vietnam[LAUGHTER]. Now that's poetry.
In his dishonest rage, his simplified politics, his ability to turn otherwise intelligent 20-year-olds into frothing morons, Limbaugh is a classic demagogue. I see what the White House is trying to do, but this is not exactly a moment when you need to be extra-creative in making Republicans seem like the loser party.
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