I’m not a particular fan of Rush Limbaugh, or of talk radio generally whether it be right wing Rush or lefty Air America. Although I’m a news junky generally, and follow politics closely, the agenda-driven medial genre is not entirely my cuppa. I’ve grown up with media resources telling me not just what happened, but how to interpret it – to do my thinking for me, essentially. And I always resented it when the analysis preceded the news item, didn’t matter the source.
Don’t watch Hannity. Don’t watch Olbermann.
And I frankly don’t much care about Limbaugh’s bid to join a consortium looking to buy the St. Louis Rams. Insofar as I thought about it all, it seemed to me that the entertainer works hard for his money, and ought to be able to spend as much as the government leaves him however he pleases.
With that in mind, I found it a little off-putting that the NFL could force Limbaugh out of his bid to purchase the team based largely on manufactured quotes, themselves a product of manufactured outrage. If there is, as Limbaugh’s detractors insist, sufficient evidence that he is a racist, why didn’t they use that?
And is the NFL really so delicate an organization that Limbaugh’s offenses put him in poor odor, while considering it acceptable to pay an animal torturer a quarterback’s salary?
This has more to do with the politics of humiliation than racism, it seems to me. A way of silencing prospective opposition rather than engaging with it.
Which, have as much of that as you can stand, I’ll have none.
I would bet a months supply of Guinness that if the magic “polls” were taken, most people would say it was o.k. to force Rush out, and that we ought not make a “moral judgement” about Vick. Vick having paid his dues to society and all. Rush is apparently just a bad person, and worse, a right wing, patriotic conservative.
Sad commentary on our social fabric.
I want to bring judgmental back. Seriously. Anytime someone I’m talking to tells me I’m being “judgmental”, they automatcally lose IQ points in my mind. Nothing like “forming an opinion based on discernment” to reveal your hidden biases. (Judgmental people are probably also racist, come to think of it).
Besides, everyone knows you can’t recover from being a rightwing patriotic conservative. It doesn’t work that way.
To clarify, judgmental people are generally accused of being racists at some point. One seems to be supplanting the other these days.
Irony being what it is, Rush (whom I never really cared for myself) is a genuine product of Mk I Mod 0 Capitolism, plain and simple. That’s obvious. What’s less obvious, is those whom voiced the march to his defeat in his bid to buy the Rams are themselves too out to make a buck, in selling their talents. Entertainers each one of them, but more importantly, capitolists cut from nearly the cloth.
Kinda reminds me of cannibalism.
My possibly flawed analysis is this is becoming “business as usual.” If any one group/person/politician dislikes any other group/person/politician, they just find a willing MSMer and screech….all of a sudden, someone can’t play anymore, just because someone else doesn’t like it.
Who gets to determine who makes who, who buys what, who travels on what, who eats what anymore? Answer: Ask the MSM.
So, here we are in the post-racial, post-partisan world, with The Great Unifier (who wanted to hear our voices one balmy evening last November), with race and “which side of the political road are you on” comments flying about like snow flakes in the mother of all blizzards.
Worst part: No one seems to to holding the big guy accountable for at least standing up to the promise that we are above all that (and seemingly keeping away from any mention that he is one of the ones being exceptionally partisan).
If this is post-racial/partisan, I’m for the good old days….
Stated rational was often heard that Rush was “divisive”. And yet one of the NFL’s prime TV properties is Sunday Night Football on NBC that features (and I haven’t quite figured out why even if he did start in the biz as a sportscaster) Keith Olbermann as a pre-game commentator who seems every bit as divisive a figure as Rush but coming from the other side. So the stated reasons are BS and its more pandering to the likes of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, race baiting whores that they are.
Ah, but if Olbermann oversteps his bounds he can be fired. It’s a lot harder to get rid of an owner once he’s in the club.
Statistically speaking, it is unlikely that Olbermann is every bit as divisive as Limbaugh.
Sure, he’s the poster child for the dangers of untreated syphilis and/or rabies, but he hasn’t got a tenth of the audience Rush has. If a moron screams in the woods and there’s no one there to hear him…
daveg,
Finally a description of Olbermann that explains it all:
“. . . he’s the poster child for the dangers of untreated syphilis . . . .”
Priceless.
Lex, if you wrote copy for Rush, he’d own the world
Political correctness run amuck… and much too far!!!
The hired help comes and goes, and can be disposed of if things become too dicey. In any case, one doesn’t have to associate with them socially – or in any other fashion, that’s what GM’s are for. But ownership; ah, that’s a different matter. The Senate is supposed to be America’s most exclusive club, but there are fewer NFL owners and they’re probably wealthier (Green Bay not withstanding). One has to associate on occasion with one’s fellow owners, and their tenure tends to be for life. They are a lot more careful who they admit into their circle, and controversy of ANY sort is unwelcome. It draws attention. Besides, God alone knows what Rush might hear or see that would end up on his show. Nope, he’ll never do.
And liberals call conservatives fascists. LOL
Forcible suppression of opposition? Tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control? Yes, that is the liberal left posing as intellectual thought now days. So long America….it was a neat experiment while it lasted.
I work so I don’t have time to listen to Rush but I did take some time to listen to the San Diego Air America station back when it was still around as I commuted home. It struck me as intensely amusing that Rush gets paid $40 million/year for his efforts and Air America was forced to pay for the pathetic air time they got. It seems syndicated Rush gets paid to broadcast and Air America had to pay to get broadcast.
I don’t think liberals understand business….
. . . nor do they have a product worth selling!
Curtis,
Excellent point on Air America radio. Several years ago, I was making fairly regular runs up to the Bay Area on US 101. Would usually listen to NPR on FM or Rush on AM — depending on time of day and reception (sketchy between Salinas and San Jose on my ancient radio). A few times, the best reception north of Prunedale was the Air America station in Santa Cruz. I’d heard about the ‘network’ but it was not available locally (probably for good reason). Anyway, I gave it the old college try but could only listen for less than half an hour before deciding that silence was a better choice than listening to Al Franken in the morning (makes me wonder if he tortures the Senate with similar drivel or if they lap it up). I did this on at least three trips before giving up on it forever — totally pointless and boring.
A year or so after I quit making the runs, I read that the Santa Cruz Air America station was pulling the plug. Turns out that after giving it a three year or so try, they had NEVER sold an ad. Sounds like a great business plan to me.
__________
Mitch,
You summed it up perfectly.
Uncle Mike,
I used to commute to the Bay Area from San Diego and to San Diego from the Bay Area. Yes, ridiculous but it went on for years. I would listen to Radio Pacifica as I left the Bay Area until I reached the giant lake off Blood Alley east of Gilroy where the reception finally faded out. They had the most amusing lineup of loonies who they would invite to speak to us about how cow farts were dooming not just mankind but Gaea herself! Since I was driving into the night I used to rage against the machine to stay alert while driving. After that, it was coast to coast with Art Bell. Usually this was good for a laugh but honestly the best one was when he played the 911 calls and the one about who got the deer had me laughing hysterically (Joe vs the deer). OK, and also the one from the woman that wanted to kill her cat. That was really good too.
Yeah, I’m sure that the current NFL owner’s club would be devastated by having to associate with Rush Limbaugh. But what can you say about a group that has Al Davis as a member? If you wallow with pigs you already stink, but you surely don’t want to be be called a “conservative organization.”
Rush isn’t fit to be an NFL owner, but aparently it is OK to be a self admitted Nazi collaborator. It is my understanding that George Soros is a member of the group trying to buy the Rams. By his own admission he fingered Jews for the death camps when he was 15.
Jim Collins/
Soros? If that’s true, could explain a lot. This thing looked waaay too orchestrated waaay too fast to have evolved organically. Doesn’t have to be a full blown conspiracy, just a few seeds judiciously planted here and there.
The old “politics of personal destruction” has been bumped up a couple of notches in the last year or so.
Joe the plumber was ravaged in the media. Sarah Palin was villified, crucified and made fun of, as well as lawyered out of office. Rush’s experience is at least being recognized for what it is, a pack of liars savaging him mercilessly. Liz Cheney is apparently about to become the next victim of the left and the media (but I repeat myself).
Anyone on the right is now considered a weapons free target, usually with coordinated attacks.
Sad commentary on a country where debate was civil and accepted and expected, with at least a partial basis in fact.
I remember listening to Rush on my walkman back in college, some 20 years ago, during my boring work-study job. During my hours in the car these days I’m as likely to listen to the farm report on WNAX as Rush or NPR or others, but I do admit I tune him in probably once a week for an hour or so.
I believe the same now as I did then, the man has one heckuva talent. Any radio talk show host able to stay in the market does, but what Rush does isn’t just talk radio, it’s improv. For three hours a day, five days a week, and he’s been doing it for 20 years, he’s doing what every stand-up comic trying to become famous is doing, and instead of leaving that behind he’s continued to play to his strength. There is absolutely no reason with his fame that he needs to stick his neck out every day for a potential mistatement and with hordes writing transcripts. He could easily be working at Cato with editors and research staff dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.
I have to admire that. Anybody doing what they love and making money at it, that’s the American dream. Becoming wealthy enough to be a viable partner in an NFL team? American wet dream.
What also makes him a target is that his market share is so vast Hannity and Savage can only see a red shift in his wake. Olberman’s best night is a blip on Rush’s ratings.
What I find interesting here is the story is being perpetuated by the major media. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, the list goes on.
Toby Harnden of the London Telegraph makes a great point:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100013647/the-rush-limbaugh-media-lynch-mob/
Isn’t this the same media that tells us bloggers are not to be trusted, that only actual accredited reporters with editors and staff and ombudsmen and such can be counted upon to give us the real, unvarnished, truth? That their product is worth the subscription price precisely because they fact-check everything, because they do their due diligence, because they’ve no axe to grind and thus give an unvarnished recital we can make our own opinions from?
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/limbaugh.asp
I’m seeing a decline in major media trustworthiness, relevance, and stock price as a continuing trend. I’m also seeing a backlash brewing, and very much expect between the time of the 2010 elections and the time of those Congressmen and Senators sworn in that the FCC will be tasked as a non-partisan agency to enforce some very partisan laws enacted early December.
Hopefully I can still trust the weather and farm report from WNAX.
– Max
I have program buttons in my car with about 6 AM stations and 7 FM stations. I’ve been working late of late and I listen to the “local talk talent after 1900″ on those AM stations and the interesting thing about them is that there is no talent there. The evening crowd on KFI suck as do the local talent on KOGO/KGO. I don’t mean that they’re bad. No, they’re worse than that. They are nauseatingly horrible and there is no dead cow that they can’t beat to death again and again and again and again and again. Yes, silence turns out to be the far better alternative.
Rush at least knows how to entertain.
Seems to me that if Paul Allen can own the Seahawks, then Rush and the Rams can’t be a bad fit. Also believe that if Vicks has paid his dues and can return to the NFL, then Pete Rose should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Concur with the Soros/Lib angle on the attacks, which were orchestrated out of thin air. Rush now finds himself in the good company of Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, Liz Cheney…soon to be joined by Michelle Bachman. Isolate. Attack. Marginalize.
Mitch Albom has a radio show here in the D, and his comment yesterday was that most NFL team owners make Rush look like a lefty. That being said, he feels Rush is divisive and has no business owning an NFL team.
I personally would prefer ANYONE to the current owner of the Lions…:)
We’ll trade you Danny boy and his side kick Vinny…
- SJS
bullnav/
The one small saving grace (small consolation, I know) for you guys up there is that they haven’t screwed much with what are arguably (I feel) some of the best-looking uniforms–home AND away–in football.
If Soros is, in fact, in the group, then it’s possible that Rush was suckered. He was INVITED, out of the blue, to participate, then attacked for doing so. HMMMMMMM
I know, another conspiraacy theory….still makes one wonder.
Could be that Rush wouldn’t have lasted as an owner anyways. Last time the Packers offered stock, the NFL inserted a condition into the purchase that bound the stockholder from ever making a comment that could be “construed” as negative about the NFL or its employees (as in referees etc.). The NFL was happy to block potential stockholders (who bothered to read the agreement before buying) with that teeny tiny little condition limiting first amendment rights. Ya think the NFL wouldn’t try to place the same kind of limitation on private owners that they place on the Packers’ public owners?