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Rush Strikes Again!

mikedenk said:
I don't blame you for the clumsy attempt to sweep that ugly little stat under the rug... since it pretty much blows the whole "Obama is the most put-upon president ever" argument out of the water. Attempts to put "birtherism" on par with the all-out insanity that is the truther movement are another nice-try-but-no-cigar.

In good news, I am very pleased to report that three years later, the number of Democrats who believed the Bush Administration was complicit had dropped to... 25%, with another 12% unsure. So only one-quarter to one-third of Democrats were truthers by 2009. Progress!

But on the other hand, there was that nasty rumor about Bill Ayers being the true author of one of Obama's autobiographies.
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...This assumes a lot.
 
Rush is strictly an entertainer. He's a lousy one at that, on par with the plethora of lousy "reality" TV shows. It's just acting calculated to win ratings and sell books and nothing more.

Really. . .nothing more.

If you want to see a contrast with an actual conservative pundit, compare the wind Rush spews to the writings of George Will.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Rush is strictly an entertainer. He's a lousy one at that, on par with the plethora of lousy "reality" TV shows. It's just acting calculated to win ratings and sell books and nothing more.

Really. . .nothing more.

If you want to see a contrast with an actual conservative pundit, compare the wind Rush spews to the writings of George Will.
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I'd be interested in an honest survey showing who has more influence on the minds of Republican voters.
 
Caper said:
I'll help you out... he probably is.... almost everyone is by some definition.
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Which would make the word virtually meaningless in the context of this discussion. I have very little use of these kinds of arguments. "What do you mean that no evidence of aliens speaks against UFO's? If there are no aliens why do you think we have an INS?".

And no, "how racist" doesn't really help anything.

Merriam Webster said:
Racism: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
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ANTPogo said:
How many presidents before Obama have released even one birth certificate, much less two? How many presidents before Obama have had a Secretary of State of one state publicly contact the Department of Health of another state to try and get official verification that yes, the two released birth certificates that they issued for that president are, in fact, genuine? How many presidents before Obama have had a county sherriff hold a press conference announcing that they don't believe said president was born in the US and that those two birth certificates are fraudulent?
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this bears repeating. and yes, it started with hillary's people checking the rumor. they are actually the ones who found Obama's birth announcement in Hawaii newspaper archives. That was where it stopped on the left. on the right it will never stop, because there is no evidence they will accept...just like troofers. The only real difference is that troofers are considered nuts inside the Democratic Party structure, the Birthers are considered an important constituency inside the TEApublican/Fox structure.

-z
 
Brainster said:
Oh, really? How about the Bush Hitler comparisons? Why, there's even a poster on this very thread who has a website called the White Rose Society, after the group of German students who were executed for opposing the Nazi regime with leaflets. He's bravely standing up against the new fascism; amazingly he has not yet been beheaded.

Keith Olbermann called Bush a fascist:


Google Assassinate Bush: 2,660,000 hits
Google Assassinate Obama: 403,000 hits
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It is more troubling that any sane individual would "Google" either one.
 
Brainster said:
Keith Olbermann called Bush a fascist:
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Yeah. You have a problem with Olbermann getting it right for once?

Let's see:
Tied to big business - check
Motivates by fear of the other guy - check
Destroys civil rights in the name of safety - check
Demonizes a particular group for the sake of the nation - check
Espouses nationalism and exceptionalism - check

Yeah, Olbermann got that one right.
 
jj said:
Yeah. You have a problem with Olbermann getting it right for once?

Let's see:
Tied to big business - check
Motivates by fear of the other guy - check
Destroys civil rights in the name of safety - check
Demonizes a particular group for the sake of the nation - check
Espouses nationalism and exceptionalism - check

Yeah, Olbermann got that one right.
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I agree. Bush was a fascist.
 
RandFan said:
I don't know if Rush is a racist. I've tried to be honest in my assessment of him. I've even lost friends defending the guy. As a former decades long fan who for years went through the trouble of taping his 3 hour shows to VHS and bought his two books, I can say I find him mostly to be an opportunist. A true believer in capitalism and conservative principles I've no doubt, but his actions and rhetoric are more about making money. If he can exploit racist or bigoted sentiment to make a buck he'll do it. And hey, if it happens to advance his ideology so much the better. I'd say he's as principled as a crack whore who hasn't scored a hit in over a week. Racially insensitive? Yeah. Undercurrent of xenophobia and an unconscious fear of America becoming less white? Sure.

But I don't know anymore. If he had a secret tape surface where he was caught making overt and gratuitous racist statement I guess that wouldn't surprise me too much either.

I'll probably not come to his aid much anymore.
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You and me see eye to eye about Rush, Rand.

I was a fan too. Not anymore!
 
Tricky said:
Here's a clue.

He was fired from Monday Night Football for commenting to the effect that black quarterback Donovan McNabb was only in the NFL because the NFL wanted blacks to succeed.
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Oh, I remember that well. The difficulty I have is in reading the guys mind. Does he harbor ill feelings or does he believe there are real and substantive differences between races. Does he sincerely believe that racial minorities deserve all rights and privileges? While I think we can make the argument that racism falls on a continuum, I think in the context of this discussion we need to recognize that the word is easily equivocated. I would focus more on his being insensitive and bigoted. JMO.

Other than that I don't care to defend him. It hardly breaks my heart that people think him racist and he surely works hard to put that notion in people's heads. So I'll make that my last word.
 
Tricky said:
Here's a clue.

He was fired from Monday Night Football for commenting to the effect that black quarterback Donovan McNabb was only in the NFL because the NFL wanted blacks to succeed.
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That's not what he commented at all.

"I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They're interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there's a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."
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(Italics added for emphasis)

The media wanted a black quarterback to succeed. It would be ridiculous for the NFL to want blacks to succeed; they already do. IIRC, they make up something like 60% of the players in the league. But that wasn't enough; the media felt like blacks should also make up 60% of the quarterbacks in the league. And so they hyped young black QBs beyond where they belonged; Michael Vick and Vince Young being just two recent examples.

Now, as it happens, I think Rush was wrong about McNabb, who had started out his career as a good quarterback and had shown solid progression, to the point where he looked like a blossoming star. But he did play poorly at the beginning of 2003, when Rush made his comments. In the first two games that year, his statistical line was 37-82-334-0-3. In fairness, that was against Tampa Bay (defending Super Bowl Champs) and New England (went on to win the Super Bowl that year). Still, those are the teams that Philly had to beat, and McNabb definitely did not perform at an adequate level to give his team a chance.

McNabb did go on to have a great season in 2004, marred only by his listless play at the end of the Super Bowl, and performed at a high level for the next several years after that. So I think Rush was wrong about McNabb overall, and he was right about the media over-hyping black QBs in general (but not McNabb).
 
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Rush may be an entertainer, but he claims to be more than that.

I listen to him when I have no choice. A couple of minutes while waiting for the traffic on a local station, or when another driver insists on listening to him in the sleeper berth, with the volume cranked to the max. I would agree, George Will is not only more entertaining, but far more accurate. But Limbaugh, unfortunately, is the "voice" of the right according to many on the right, and a great many on the left who would just as soon see the right marginalized. Not a good place for him.
 
Roadtoad said:
Sorry. Besides, how the hell were they going to top Moving Pictures?
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For the win. Great album and well deserving technically, critically and commercially as their pinnacle, though my sentimental favorite remains A Farewell To Kings.
 
Roadtoad said:
No question, and neither is Obama. Problem is, from my perspective, that when I listen to the criticism, I can catch the "code" from the critics which tell me it's more to do with Obama's race than his policy, and it's confirmed when you realize that what's being criticized might have been acceptable under Clinton or Bush, but not Obama.
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It's interesting to compare the myths about Bush versus the myths about Obama on Snopes. Some are the same -- so dumb they don't know which end of a phone is up -- but many are different, and in systematic ways.

For instance, no one looking at Obama's life, his policies, and his votes would ever imagine that he's a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, a supporter of reparations, or a "crony capitalist".

So why do those accusations stick?

It's because they conform to what his opponents want to believe about a black (or half-breed) Chicago Democrat -- taking money from hard-working white people and giving it away to undeserving lazy minorities in exchange for political power is "what those people do".

Ditto the rumors about Michelle Obama gorging herself on room service and living it up on the public dime, and the rumors that accuse them of having no class (see, for example, the "feet on the desk" brouhaha, and the Photoshop of Michelle in plain clothes next to the stylish first ladies of France and Spain).

This isn't the 1950s... people aren't standing up and railing against the -----s in the White House... instead, they're mounting whisper campaigns which conform to racist stereotypes: low-class people who don't know how to act in poper company and who are going to wreck the country by siphoning money from diligent whites and handing it out to their shiftless minority brothers.

More subtle, to be sure, but clearly racist nonetheless.
 
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