There are two things that consistently drive me crazy about Rush Limbaugh. First is his irrational hatred of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The second is his problem with "blue blood Republicans" and "country club Republicans."
Listening to Greta Van Susteren's series of excellent interviews with Limbaugh, I learned something. Evidently there have been "blue bloods" and "country clubbers" who have treated him like dirt at one time or another. I know the feeling. Only I've been treated like dirt by the far right conservatives and religious right.
I don't know if Rush is fueling the "civil war" in the GOP. To be honest, I don't think there are all that many "country club blue bloods" left in the GOP. The ones who are left appear to be supporting Mitt Romney, or, like Peggy Noonan, have completely gone over to the dark side and are slobbering servants of Barack Obama. Maybe he's talking about Kathleen Parker who is a Democrat in Republican's clothing.
Poor Rush thinks the GOP is still run by a bunch of country club Republicans who pay lip service to conservative values but are basically liberals. I have news for Rush Limbaugh — those country club Republicans he detests are the very men and women who labored night and day to put Ronald Reagan in office and did the same to make Newt's Contract with America a dream. I know. I worked side by side with these people.
The real problem is the rise of the extreme right, libertarian, tea party drinkers, who changed the game and have no rules.
Rush has this misguided theory that the "new" extreme conservative can win elections. Conservatives have won three major election cycles: Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America, and George W. Bush. Now, are we talking conservative values or personality?
He then points to the Congressional defeats in 2004, '06, and '08 as an example of why conservative values must be used in order to win elections. It's like this. One of the real problems was the rise of the far, far, far, far outrageous right that that has slipped beyond reason. They are now more interested in the showman-like, overacting rants of Glenn Beck to the point where they are ignoring the fact that Beck is now "libertarian" and detests the GOP.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - El Bicho
Gadzooks, it's bad enough having to look at the messed-up spacing between sentences and words, the poor punctuation, and the garbled sentences (talking radio head?), but after the idiotic line "his Democrats are planning to kill with Health Care Reform," I couldn't take any more of your foolishness. I think you are looking for RoughDraftCritics.
2 - Arch Conservative
I'd take Glenn Beck over Obama or Pelosi any day of the week SJ.
With King Barry and his mainstream media aka the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda openly ridiculing American citizens for questioning his government takeover of healthcare there is bound to be a major backlash. He's just incapable of getting beyond his own arrogance. he still thinks of himself as "the one." You would have thought the cap and tax failure would have given him pause for reflection but instead it was just jump right into the next item on his socialist agenda.
3 - Joanne Huspek
What's an independent with libertarian leanings to do?
Obviously neither party appeals to me, and the crowd behind me appears to be growing.
It's laughable to think of "country club" Republicans. The Republicans around here can't afford the membership fees.
Rush is sometimes entertaining and many times disturbing. I am in bed asleep long before Greta comes on TV and I'm still weighing whether or not I missed anything.
4 - zingzing
eb: "Gadzooks, it's bad enough having to look at the messed-up spacing between sentences and words, the poor punctuation, and the garbled sentences..."
well, that's some lazy editing... who dropped this turd?
archie: "I'd take Glenn Beck over Obama or Pelosi any day of the week SJ."
maybe he'll let you fall down then cry about it until screaming "GET OFF OF MY SHOW!" guy's a lunatic. he's about as emotionally stable as a 15-year-old girl on meth.
5 - zingzing
"The same people his Democrats are planning to kill with health care reform are the ones who could have prevented this fine mess in which we now find ourselves. Don't you love the irony?"
yes, we will kill you! ahahahahaha. but wait... we have to live under the same system. we will kill ourselves to kill you! we will use our deaths to cause yours!
that's fuckin dumb.
the real irony is that it was the people you are talking about that put us in this mess, and they had no clue how to get out of it.
6 - Clavos
maybe he'll let you fall down then cry about it until screaming "GET OFF OF MY SHOW
Actually it's "Get off my phone!"
And it's not original: back in the eighties, in Tampa, there was a radio talk show host named Bob Lassiter who used it.
7 - handyguy
I was very entertained by this piece, which with breathtaking viciousness [and equally astonishing malapropisms] accuses other people of being vicious.
As Bicho and zing point out, the line about the Dems killing old people gives the lie to the whole piece.
I would add to that the nonsense about the election being stolen. Was it Baronius who said Republicans never make this assertion, and always simply fess up to losing an election -- that whining is a Democrat thing?
Anyhow, thanks for this hoot of an article.
8 - zingzing
clavos: "And it's not original: back in the eighties, in Tampa, there was a radio talk show host named Bob Lassiter who used it."
i am very familiar with lassiter. when he did things like that, it actually was funny. you also had the feeling that he was completely in control of himself (at least most of the time). with beck, you start to wonder if he isn't, perhaps, a recovering drug addict who rolled away all his serotonin and can't quite control his emotions anymore. i can almost guarantee you that beck's career will end, or skyrocket into godhood, when he has an on-air meltdown so violent that it can't be played off as "entertainment."
back to lassiter, remember michael j. west, the commenter who left these boards maybe a year or so ago? he actually runs a lassiter website called boblassiterairchecks.com, but it seems to be in a rebuild right now.
9 - handyguy
Glenn Beck is not a mental patient, but he plays one on TV [and radio] -- and gets paid handsomely for it. Life just ain't fair.
10 - zingzing
whenever i think of beck, i think of him like one of those anime characters who gives out the kubrick stare, then his face cracks open and a unbelievably large, bizarro-world, purple-veined, tentacled version explodes out of his skin, laughing. then his penis twitches.
11 - Clavos
zing #8:
Yeah, I remember reminiscing about Lassiter with MJW back then, and checking out his site.
And you're right, Lassiter WAS funny. He was, at the time, my favorite on-air personality.
I think MJW told us back then that he was dying (Lassiter, not MJW), or had just died.
12 - zingzing
and it was true. he died late last year, i believe. maybe earlier this year.
i'll try to let you know when the site comes back up. they have hundreds of shows and all sorts of stuff.
13 - Baronius
Thanks a lot, Handy. Leave me to defend this raving article? Not happening.
I said that Republicans are less inclined to whining and latching onto conspiracy theories. Needless to say I've been disheartened by the birthers. But I still think overall we handle loss more honestly. We definitely are more likely to put the blame within our own party, which SJ does in this article.
14 - handyguy
She blames some things on some Republicans [the ones she dislikes personally]. But she blames the election loss on a 'corrupt' Obama 'stealing' it. Bleah.
15 - zingzing
if obama stole this election, that wasn't some sneak and grab operation, it was roll up on the curb with a baseball bat and jump a motherfucker type stuff. good ol' ass-whuppin. wait, wait!
it's like this:
Taggart: I got it! I got it!
Hedley Lamarr: You do?
Taggart: We'll work up a Number 6 on 'em.
Hedley Lamarr: [frowns] "Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one.
Taggart: Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a-whompin' and a-whumpin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.
Hedley Lamarr: You spare the women?
Taggart: Naw, we rape the shit out of them at the Number Six Dance later on.
Hedley Lamarr: Marvelous!
16 - Baronius
So, Handy, this place is dead. Wanna go get a beer?
17 - Silas Kain
Rush Limbaugh's tirade on today's show comparing Barack Obama and his staff as Nazi is way over the top. But he gets the listeners because he's spewing what the traditional white man is feeling these days. They don't like their transition to the minority majority so they'll use racist buzz words and scare tactics to stem the tide. Get over it Rush. Take an Oxycontin, you'll feel better.
18 - Silas Kain
So, Handy, this place is dead. Wanna go get a beer?
What kind of beer, guys? Do you like the Sgt. Crowley fruity beer? Or the Gates Jamaican swill beer? Or how about a Bud Light? For me, I'd kill for a Schlitz.
19 - Bliffle
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
20 - WTF?
"John McCain...was defeated by Barack Obama's abject corruption and unwillingness to tell the truth about anything."
WTF?
21 - zingzing
"Sierra Nevada Pale Ale."
ack. gross. that shit tastes like potent armpit.
brooklyn lager for me, and plenty of it.
22 - roger nowosielski
Samuel Smith is good. And so Samuel Adams and Newcastle. From lagers, try Stella Artois. And there's always The Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu GmbH.
I agree with you about Sierra Nevada; it's like drinking mud. In San Francisco we have Anchor Steam, pretty much in the same category.
23 - Charles Euchay
The real shame in America today is that morons like Glenn Beck and Oxycontin addicted buffoon like Rush Limbaugh get any attention, let alone a serious one. People who listen to these hate mongers and benders of the truth in the name of political dogma belong in the scrap heap of history. They have no relevance in the serious discourse needed to get us over these troubled times. This, after all, is the United States of America. These folks and their ilk would rather turn it to the DisUnited States of..... Fill the blank. It's a sorry state of affairs and profoundly pathetic. Such crass ignorance, as portrayed by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh threatens to taint all Americans.
24 - Silas Kain
And the networks love them, Charles, because these so-called pundits appeal to a segment of the population that drives ratings. The fact that these "news outlets" promote the agendas of the fringes is appalling. They spit in the memories of every Revolutionary War soldier who died fighting for what we have now. With freedom comes responsibility. Along the way these news organizations flipped the paradigm around. It's going to take an informed public determined to change the mentality to drive the point home. Instead of almost violent protests at Town Hall meetings, we should be protesting the headquarters of news outlets and local stations instead. In order to achieve real political reform, a retooling of the media is in order.
25 - Bliffle
Not a brewer in the bunch, they nevertheless offer their opinions based, one must assume, on proximity to their Gold Standard: Budweiser.