Unchallenged Demagoguery
This kind of sloppiness, ignorance and/or fabrication is run of the mill in Limbaugh's commentary, both broadcast and print. From dioxin to Whitewater, from Rodney King to Reaganomics, Rush Limbaugh has a finely honed ability to twist and distort reality.
Limbaugh's facts are almost never challenged on his programs. A hostile caller hardly ever gets through the screeners on his radio show, and his TV show is just him doing a monologue in front of his cheering audience. No one in the history of national television has had such a political platform. He has almost never corrected anything he's said--although he did apologize once to the aerosol industry for implying that spray cans still had CFCs in them. (CFCs were removed in 1978.)
Limbaugh's chronic inaccuracy, and his lack of accountability, wouldn't be such a problem if Limbaugh were just a cranky entertainer, like Howard Stern. But Limbaugh is taken seriously by "serious" media--in addition to Nightline, he's been an "expert" on such chat shows as Charlie Rose and Meet the Press. The New York Times (10/15/92) and Newsweek (1/24/94) have published his writings. A U.S. News & World Report piece (8/16/93) by Steven Roberts declared, "The information Mr. Limbaugh provides is generally accurate."
He's also taken seriously as a political figure. A National Review cover story (9/6/93) declared him the "Leader of the Opposition." Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who recently officiated at Limbaugh's wedding, says he tapes Limbaugh's radio show and listens to it as he works out (USA Today, 5/13/94).
I think that this very fact reveals a very scary scenario: that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas actually listens to Rush Limbaugh is very unsettling to me.
Rush Limbaugh hides behind the FREEDOM OF SPEECH concept to continue his tirades and his misinformation. He has a very long history of doing just that on the air. And he does not allow this misinformation to be challenged. Of course, it is freedom of speech when it comes for him to be saying it, but when it comes to somebody else challenging him they are labeled “wackos, liberals, socialists and a slew of other derogatory labels.
Again, people, how much longer are we Americans going to let this self serving, pompous, arrogant buffoon get away with his antics?
SOURCES: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895
PHOTO SOURCE: http://home.att.net/~jrhsc/rush.jpg
Of course I don't have any statistics on this, but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of Rush's audience is deeply religious and therefore used to unquestioningly accepting and believing the nonsense fed to them by larger-than-life blowhards.
ReplyDeleteThat is a real possibility but also consider that a lot of them have not finished the 7th grade.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think that Bush was so popular among these folks? To these intellectually challenged crowd Bush was a Rhodes Scholar.
saludos,
raulito