As he went off on yet another full-throated rant on filthy ditch-dwelling liberals daring to criticize Dear Leader, he touched on one of his more generic beefs, one he returns to quite regularly, like the proverbial dog to his vomit. His contention that "liberals" exist only to hate and thwart conservatives struck me in a couple different ways.
One is in the obvious "pot meets kettle" way, that without liberal bogeypersons and feminazis and womyn's studies departments at Hairy Armpit Lesbo Commie U, Limbaugh would have nothing to talk about. Really, he doesn't anyway -- the fact is that the opposition party has been remarkably inept in thwarting any of Dear Leader's attempts to undermine this country and drive it back to the Gilded Age. They did finally get some backbone on Social Security, but let's face it, Bush was his own worst enemy on that one. They couldn't have had a more incompetent marketing plan if they'd had Bob Shrum design it for them.
Which leads me to the second way it struck me, which is just how incompetent Republicans are, if Limbaugh is to be taken even half-seriously. "Liberals" and Democrats can at least point to objective ways in which the Republican agenda has effectively blocked and thwarted the goals they supposedly have in mind. But again, aside from SS, the Republicans cannot remotely make such a claim. Bush got the war he wanted, when he wanted it. He's gotten all the money he wanted for them. He's gotten his tax cuts. He's had to work a little for those things, but everything worthwhile in life requires hard work by good people, does it not?
Anyway, what could the Republicans possibly desire to change, that the Democrats have not eventually rolled over and given to them? Even on Social Security, there's no guarantee they won't eventually compromise somewhere along the line -- indeed, it would be considered par for the course. But Bush has wanted for very little. He's never even had to veto anything, in five years of mismanagement. That's unprecedented, which is another in a long list of words he has no clue how to pronounce or use in a sentence.
But in four days (which seemed like four years) of listening to Limbaugh's disjointed rants, I scarcely heard him utter a peep as far as what he'd like Republicans to do about much of anything. It was all about how the evil protesters were keeping Dear Leader down, how the evil congressional Democrats were idiots and dinosaurs. Well okay, but again, Dear Leader's gotten most of what he wanted, even down to Abu Gonzalez and Singin' John Ashcroft (aka The Titty Fairy). So what's the fuckin' problem, pillhead?
The occasionally useful Keith Olbermann may have the answer, and even if he doesn't he provides an interesting slant on Rush's reign of error.
Understand this about Limbaugh. He doesn’t believe half the junk he spouts. I’ve met him, and had pleasant enough conversations with him, twice - at the 1980 World Series when he was still a mid-level baseball flunky with a funny name, and once in the mid ‘90s at ESPN when he was just beginning his campaign to get a toehold there. He is a quiet, almost colorless man who, if he could be guaranteed similar success in sportscasting, would sell out the sheep who follow his every word - and would do it before close of business today.
But with that ESPN bid having gone up in flames just under two years ago, and sports forever closed off to him, he’s gotten into what the novelist Robert Graves called a “Golden Predicament” - overwhelming success in a field he really had no intention of pursuing - and he has to keep churning this stuff out every day.
I have actually debated a fair amount of staunch Republicans who, when cornered, will characterize Limbaugh as little more than a carnival barker, a shill. And they're right about that, but that didn't stop them -- or many other people -- from regurgitating Limbaugh's lies and misinformation as if they were gospel.
On his daily radio soap opera, on August 15, Limbaugh said “Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real…” The complete transcript of the 860 words that surround those quotes can be found at the bottom of this entry.
Yet, apparently there was something so unpopular, so subversive, and so crazy about those remarks that he has found it necessary to deny he said them - even when there are recordings and transcripts of them - and to brand those who’ve claimed he said them as crackpots and distorters. More over, that amazing temple to himself, his website, has been scrubbed clean of all evidence of these particular remarks, and to ‘prove’ his claim that he never made the remarks in question on August 15, he has misdirected visitors to that site to transcripts and recordings of remarks he made on August 12.
Limbaugh is terrified. And he has reason to be.
....
Since we declared Limbaugh “The Worst Person In The World” two nights later for the remarks about Sheehan, he has had the transcript of his pier-drive expunged (even though he initially thought so much of it, that it was posted as a “featured quote” for paying subscribers to his website). Simultaneously, the hapless Brent Bozell, who runs that scam called The Media Research Center, declared that I was guilty of “distortion” in quoting the Sheehan remarks.
Well, as you’ll see below, the only distortion here, is that which lingers in Limbaugh’s ears. His remarks about Sheehan were so embraced by at least one of his fans that they were preserved on another website, and we can present them in full here. You will notice that nothing has been taken out of context, nothing in the minutes before nor the minutes afterwards mitigates against the utter callousness and infamy of his comments about Sheehan.
In the interest of space, I encourage you to read the whole article, as well as the excerpt Olbermann refers to, and see how he's got Fatboy by the short n' curlies. Of course, none of it will matter in the slightest to the dittoheads, but they are their own worst enemies anyway. Let them fester in their welfare red states, praying to the god they only think they believe in to bless them with that Walmart promotion. George W. Bush will fuck them over just like he's fucked everyone else over, they're just less equipped with a cushion to handle it.
One last quick example that I think epitomizes both Limbaugh's brain, and those of his moron listeners, is this: apparently an Islamic-American relations group is pressuring a court district in North Carolina to allow Muslim witnesses to swear on a Qu'ran, rather than a Bible. Now, I instantly found myself thinking about the interesting can of worms opened up here, the discussion that could be had. Obviously the Bible in this instance is just a totem for emphasizing the sanctity of the courtroom oath. Even atheists pretty much go along with it, even though it doesn't literally mean much.
But here's an opportunity, perhaps, to scrutinize what is really a rather outmoded tradition, that in all practicality has nothing to do with anything.
Naturally, Limbaugh didn't see it that way -- he fumed and blustered and slippery-sloped it to how allowing the Qu'ran to be substituted would eventually lead to people "swearing on goats". I kid you not; that's what he literally said. And I understand he was being his usual polemic self, but still....really infantile. Yes, Rush, you just never know -- some o' these swarthy types may not think a promise means anything unless they get to paint a goat's haunches with, uh, "prophet butter".
The first caller surprised me -- he flashed his quals as a lifelong Republican and a former JAG in the armed forces, and supported the idea of allowing the Qu'ran. Frankly, I'm surprised he got through in the first place. He must have told them he was from Merck. Anyway, he laid out his reasons, which basically boiled down to the idea that what's important is impressing upon the person that the oath is serious and inviolable, and if a different book gets that point across more effectively, what's the harm?
The next couple callers answered that rhetorical question, predictably enough, and with practically the same answer -- because we've always done it this way. And their frenetic tone effectively contrasted the calm, sober demeanor of the first caller, who after all was right. Look, you really don't need a book at all, or even an oath. An admonition from the judge should be enough. "You are expected to provide complete and truthful answers in this proceeding. Failure to do so will mean that your ass winds up in jail for perjury. You got all that?" Swearing an oath to someone you only believe in when the chips are down is so step-on-a-crack-break-your-mama's-back.
But that's the base mentality of the window-lickers who listen to this anal cyst bloviate three hours a day. It's sad, because they could be organizing their overalls, or sorting out their seed corn for the next plantin'. No, seriously, it's fucked up, because these people clearly have not taken any opportunity to avail themselves of facts, figuring somehow that soaking themselves in polemic and bluster will somehow absolve them from the drudgery of participatory democracy. This pisses me off, because it's their duty to me, and you, and every other American to read as many sides of the story as they can find, to acquaint themselves with facts and useful knowledge, and take all that to the voting booth from time to time. Hee hee, sometimes I make myself laugh.
It was at about that point that I said "fuck it" and found the soothing, inflection-free tonalities of NPR. Thank God.
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