Rush freaking out

I cannot help but experience great joy in seeing Rush flummoxed and mayhaps even demonstrably out of touch. Please please please let him go away and trouble us no more.

I cannot help but experience great joy in seeing Rush flummoxed and mayhaps even demonstrably out of touch. Please please please let him go away and trouble us no more.

Rush Limbaugh's glory days may swiftly be coming to an end with all this talk about Huckabee ushering in a new conservatism. He might deny it, but Rush is now a part of the Republican elite, the establishment that Huckabee defies.

Reagan

As much as it pains me to be on Limbaugh's side, he's right about both Huckabee and McCain. They aren't a "change" from Bush. They have many of his same attributes, but in greater quantity. Huckabee's a "compassionate" conservative on 'roids, McCain is an interventionist and amnesty-flogger sans pareil. The only good thing one can say about their getting the nomination is that the Democrat will probably beat them in the general election.

Derek: if you don't care for either Huckabee or McCain, then whom do you support? Surely you can't be falling for Romney or Giuliani, panderers to the extreme, shameless fearmongers, no moral basis whatsoever. Ron Paul is the most honest man in the race, if a little bit out-of-touch with the party. I'm all for Huckabee, or McCain.

Quite frankly, Rush Limbaugh is the poster boy for what it means to be Republican, not conservative. He has been married and divorced three times and seems to conflate the pursuit of wealth with the pursuit of happiness. I recall listening to him occasionally years ago, and I remember the frustrations of some of his callers who were stuck, economically speaking, when Rush's only advice was essentially "Go start your own business," which was not a viable prospect for people with families whose combined incomes was less than $40,000/year.

These are the people who have been ignored and ignored by Republicans. These are the people who are still struggling, often on one income, to make ends meet, while their co-workers raise haughty eyebrows over their lack of savings and empty stock portfolios. These are the people the Republicans expect to line up and vote every four years, while their quiet desperation is repeatedly and calculatedly overlooked. And if Mike Huckabee is elected president, these are the people who will elect him.

Rush is the prototypical Puritan: wealthy=good, moderate/poor=lazy.

He has better instincts, but they've been suppressed lately...

Who is Rush endorsing? Giuliani, I suppose?

"Who is Rush endorsing? Giuliani, I suppose?" Kirk

He does not endorse anyone during the primaries. Kirk, don't believe half of what you hear or read about Rush, especially one of Rod's liberal friends. Listen, just once, for yourself.

"But if your statement is true, it says an awful lot about the dumbing-down of American society over the past few decades."

Very perceptive, Simon.

"Who is Rush endorsing? Giuliani, I suppose?"

He's leaning towards Thompson, though he won't officially say so.

>> Cleveland

I listened plenty starting way back in '91. I used to record Rush on my VCR so that I could listen to him after work. The schtick gets old. It never changes. Us versus them. And you better be careful, 'cause we might just put you with 'them' (as he has done with Huck).

>> Derek

It's hard to tell from his website: all I see are items attacking Huckabee and Hillary. Home page looks like a tacit endorsement of Mitt.

"Actually, Cleveland, the only thing I'm even remotely qualified to discuss is literature." Erin

You are much too modest, my friend, and I envy your abilities, but your political insights are not yet quite as well formed. Nor is your belief as to the depth of RL's pro-life views correct.

"I'm sure [Rush] may be a good person in many respects, but his politics have always been the epitome of us vs. them..." Erin

As I said before, your political insights are not well formed. Politics have little meaning absent an "us vs. them" format and belief. Don't ever fall for the "can't we just all get along" lie during political campaigns--it really is war, for the morality of our culture, for our kids' future and for God's continued blessing on our country. Many on this board will cringe at that, but Rush understands it. Compromise is for crafting legislation which seeks to address two or more opposing views, not political campaigns.

"...more and more Americans are getting weary of that endless [us vs. them} construct." Erin

Not this American, Erin. You are too good and too gentle a soul--stay out of politics the way you would stay out of the military. You would have your throat cut before you could say, "Can't we just sit down and reason together?"

I hope, Erin, you don't take my comments here as condescending. You are my better in many fields, and I look up to you in those matters. That goes for Susan, Sig and others as well.

NOTE: For my Amazon friends, I am not speaking to you in this comment. You may well be as equipped to do political battle as I am. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"The shtick gets old. It never changes. Us versus them. And you better be careful, 'cause we might just put you with 'them' (as he has done with Huck)." Kirk

If you had continued to listen to Rush, you would not have fallen for the lie that Rush simply decided to attack Huck. The fact is that a Huck operative in D.C. attacked Rush, publicly, OUT OF THE CLEAR BLUE. Rush took exception to that, naturally, and said so, but certainly not in an angry manner. That would have been the end of it. But then, days later, Huck opened his mouth and lied through his teeth--incredibly, he was the only person in the country who didn't know what had been said, he didn't know who said it, he couldn't apologize to Rush because he didn't know how to contact him, etc..

So now Rush got slightly upset at all this Arkansas Slick B.S., and said so. That translates to "freaking out" in Dem speak. My guess is that Slick was being true to his M.O. and wanted to get a whole lot of free national publicity concerning how tough and unafraid he was of right-wingers, just before the semi-liberal Hawkeye Cauckeye. It worked, just as it used to work for Slick Willie.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Shoot, I can't wait to see Ann Coulter's post-Huckabee-win column.

For those who haven't been keeping track, her previous three columns were two anti-Huckabee pieces followed by her annual 'Kwanza is a fake holiday' heartwarmer.

I recall listening to him occasionally years ago, and I remember the frustrations of some of his callers who were stuck, economically speaking, when Rush's only advice was essentially "Go start your own business," which was not a viable prospect for people with families whose combined incomes was less than $40,000/year.

Yep, I listened to him some today and it was the same "you make your own way" spiel he always does. That's not going to work when your government is flooding you with out-of-country workers or setting up trade deals that send your job overseas. Most people don't realize that a lot of US engineering and tech graduates can't find jobs because H1-B visa holders take them. Based of Bureau of Labor statistics, from 1999-2005 the number of tech jobs grew by 332,660. During that same period, 330,524 H1-B visas were approved. Simply put, the government has let businesses undercut US technical labor.

I'm not a Huckabee supporter because I don't trust him and his immigration policy is Bush-Kennedy amnesty redux. Also, he reminds me too much of Clinton. However, a lot of what he says is true.

Angry white men, Rush's demographic, are a declining part of America's demographic -- and an even smaller part of Huck's. (Steve "Keep Iowa White as the Driven Snow" King endorsed FDT, Rush's putative candidate, after all.)

No wonder he's blowing his stack.

Who could anyone think that Rush Limbaugh is ANYTHING like William F. Buckley?

Buckley is a scholar, a thinker, and a gentleman who challenged the ideas and policies of the liberal establishment with intelligent and respectful argument. Limbaugh is a flim-flam man who recognized the potential for a high-paying gig by merely using cheap polemics and ad hominem rhetoric to appeal to the pre-existing prejudices of his target audience. The degeneration of public discourse in the media -- including Anne Coulter and Michael Savage among the more extreme examples -- begins with Limbaugh.

The remainder of your post is similarly ludicrous and calumnious.

Ludicrous AND calumnious, that's quite a condemnation. Ranks right up there with the Nanny Boo-boo Assertion.

I will agree, Cleveland, that Sotto went a little over the edge with his description of Limbaugh, even if the gist of it was true. But anyone who's read or listened to both Buckley and Limbaugh for more than 5 minutes would have to conclude that Buckley was a much more nuanced and influential intellectual than Limbaugh will ever hope to be. Buckley's eruption at Gore Vidal was a rare exception for a man who usually expresses himself in a much more dignified manner.

Limbaugh is a flim-flam man who recognized the potential for a high-paying gig by merely using cheap polemics

Limbaugh is merely the creation of the MSM. Hardly a flim-flam.

Had the media been fair, there would have been no market for Limbaugh. However, back in the day he was really the only place for the common man who didn't read much to get an opposing view to the liberal media. The liberal elite absolutely hates the typical rural conservative, so millions of them were begging for somebody, anybody, to provide them with news without contempt. Rush jumped on it once the Fairness (sic) Doctrine fell, and the rest is history. Sadly, the media still absolutely hates rural conservatives, pro-lifers, etc. They just can't let it go, and didn't learn a thing.

Rush has a lot of talent as a performer, but there are dozens of guys like that. He just happened to fill a slot that needed to be filled first and is now living off the past. Right now, due to cable and the internet, he has lost his reason for being.

The fact liberals even care about him at all speaks more to their frustration they feel due to the loss of their media control much more than it does about Rush himself, who is actually pretty mellow, nothing like so many hate-filled folk on the left and right, say Savage and Air America. The guys been on the air for 20 years, 3 hrs a day, and there simply isn't much nasty stuff to look at over all that time. He's actually pretty tame and boring. Libs, however, will never forgive him for breaking their monopoly.

Drudge is really who libs should be bashing. He appeals more to the higher end of the bell curve, controls a lot of the MSM, and thus has higher impact. I can't believe everyone doesn't just ignore Rush, he's no longer the "go-to" conservative and is mostly about entertainment. He would put me to sleep in less than five minutes.

I listen to Rush (sometimes) because he is right on the morality of "The Left." But, he is sorely misguided on what he thinks about Christians in politics. We are not the fiscal conservatives he is, and believe me, we are nothing like whatthe Democrats want to do to the populace. What bad can really happen "by" the Democrats? They'll implement some basically evil things on Americans, BUT, only for a few short years. Cleveland, isn't it interesting how much Leftists really do NOT believe in free and open speech? They are purely evil people IMHO. I like Rush for the most part, but he needs to get to know Christians a bit better. Moderate taxation, The Right to Life and morally sound marriage (a man a woman) is of course what decent people support. Other than that, the discussion is open.