Rush Limbaugh

Condemned as "Not a Real Person" By Rush Limbaugh, a Small Businesswoman Speaks Out

2012-02-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

Saying something idiotic is a daily occupation for Rush Limbaugh, as I note in my book about him, but today he outdid himself. Limbaugh spouted a particularly bizarre conspiracy theory, claiming that the Obama Administration had created a fake twitter account in order to pretend that people supported a cut in the payroll tax. The only problem was that the twitter account is a real small businesswoman, and Limbaugh's reasoning for why it must be fake (that self-employed people don't get a payroll tax cut) was completely wrong.

Limbaugh's parade of error began this morning when the Obama Administration urged people to tweet messages about what a $40 payroll tax cut would mean to them. One reply was from a twitter account named Scarebaby: "$40 a month means I can pay my Internet bill and keep my tiny small business alive."

Limbaugh seized upon this statement as proof of a fraud:

it's BS. Nobody actually sent that. That's a White House-generated response. And do you know how I know?...ScareBaby cannot possibly have a small business and get this payroll tax cut. The self-employed don't get it. If you are self-employed, you know it. This doesn't even apply to you. There is no payroll tax cut for the self-employed.

The only problem with Limbaugh's conspiracy theory is that it's based a completely false presumption. As Money Magazine points out, “The extension also applies to self-employed individuals.” Self-employed people pay both the employee and the employer payroll taxes, so naturally they would receive the Obama tax cut for employees.

Yet Limbaugh declared, “this is obviously not a real person. This is somebody in the White House getting this Tweet ball rolling.”

Scarebaby had a message for Rush, and she tweeted, “rushlimbaugh do your homework before you accuse someone of not existing. A simple google search would find that I am a real businessperson.” Scarebaby, who does T-shirt designs (including pro-Obama designs), is indeed very real. Yet Limbaugh returned to her again later in the show, repeating his lie that Scarebaby was the secret identity of a White House employee and claiming falsely once again about the payroll tax cut, “No self-employed person gets the payroll tax cut. You gotta be an employee.”

One tweeted, “We all know you are a White House plant.” Another responded, “a WH plant has more brains than this moron of a fraud.” A third tweeted, “Hey @scarebaby, try not making an idiot of yourself. Rush speaks truth, never slime.” Another wrote, “Like #Rush said she wudn't qualify 4 PR cuts as biz owner. And Obama followers r stupid anyway.” Another tweeted, “No Scarebaby, you have been outed. Marxist scumbag/useful idiot. How much does the dictator pay you to post such drivel?”

I emailed the contact email for Scarebaby on her website. She responded and identified herself as Holly Hertzel:

Yes, I am a real person. I live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. I own a number of shops on the internet, including one called Scarebaby Design (www.scarebaby.com). These shops are my only source of income. I am not, and never have been, a White House employee, an Obama employee, nor an employee of any organization that works for the Democratic Party.

I asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to Limbaugh. She responded,

I would appreciate a public apology and retraction from him, as his comments have not only caused me personal anguish (being called a fraud, a liar and worse, on Twitter), but may have been injurious to my business and livelihood. I understand that he's just an entertainer, but his followers who spread his falsehoods seem not to know the difference between entertainment and fact.

Of course, Rush Limbaugh isn't just an entertainer. He's one of the leading sources of information for conservatives, with an audience of gullible millions. When a man with that much influence on the right is repeatedly willing to falsely smear a small businesswoman in order to promote a crazy conspiracy theory, it shows just how moronic the conservative movement has become.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh, Reading from a Script

2012-02-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

On today's show, Rush Limbaugh declared, “we have learned now that Media Matters for America was writing the primetime scripts for MSNBC,” with his website linking to a Daily Caller story. But it appears that Limbaugh didn't actually read the Daily Caller story about Media Matters. Instead, it seems Limbaugh simply took the word of Carol Platt Liebau (her script, if you will) who inaccurately summarized the story on her townhall.com blog: “Media Matters was pretty much writing the script for MSNBC's primetime.” Limbaugh's attack on MSNBC is almost word-for-word what Liebau wrote, but it bears no resemblance to the Daily Caller story.

The Daily Caller, apparently in an attempt to undermine the impact of a new book by Media Matters revealing close links between Fox News and the Republican Party, launched an attack on Media Matters based on personal smears and rumor-mongering. As part of the attacks, the Daily Caller's sole anonymous source (supposedly a former Media Matters employee) said about MSNBC, “They were using our research to write their stories.”

That certainly sounds true. Media Matters produces a lot of very accurate research. But there's a big difference between “using research” and “writing scripts,” which is what Limbaugh alleged. This isn't an exaggeration; it's a lie. So Limbaugh simply read, without attribution, an inaccurate summary by Liebau, carefully omitting the words “pretty much” to create the illusion that MSNBC simply accepted material written by any advocacy group and read these “scripts” on the air. Perhaps Limbaugh found this lie about reading scripts so believable because it describes exactly what Limbaugh does.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Revenge of the Electric Car

2012-01-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

"Revenge of the Electric Car" is the critically acclaimed documentary and follow up to "Who Killed The Electric Car?" The DVD of “Revenge of the Electric Car” was released today. I interviewed producer Stefano Durdic via email about the movie.

Because Rush Limbaugh is so committed to hating the electric car, I asked Durdic the following question. For the full interview, go to DailyKos.

John K. Wilson: Rush Limbaugh has argued, “there are a lot of sheep out there that think buying the electric car can save the planet. It's gonna be a fashion accessory. Driving around in one of these things says I'm better than you, I care more than you do. It just illustrates the absolute idiocy of liberals and how terribly drastically dreadfully wrong they are about things.” According to Rush, “If there were something better than the internal combustion engine, it would be there. If there was something better, more economical, cleaner, it would be there. It's not. Markets work; attempts to manipulate them do not.”
How do you respond to that argument?

Stefano Durdic: Short answer: Any fool can condemn, criticize, and complain - and most do.

Long answer: It’s amazing to me that discussions about electric cars often turn political. Liberals tend to like electric cars for their environmental appeal. Conservatives tend to dislike electric cars because liberals like them.

I agree that markets work. I know how markets work better than most. I retired from options trading at the ripe age of 40. I thrived in one of the last bastions of pure capitalism in the United States - the trading pits. The problem with Mr. Limbaugh's argument is that the market he is describing is already manipulated in favor of internal combustion. The tax incentives on trucks and SUVs (including the Hummer) passed by the Bush administration in 2004 dwarf the tax incentives offered to today's electric car buyers. It's estimated that the US government spends anywhere from $10 billion to $40 billion per year in fossil fuel subsidies. This doesn’t take into consideration the military spending--much of which is used to defend oil interests. Nor does it take into account the environmental and human costs. How does the cost of cleanup in Alaska or the Gulf region figure into the price of a barrel of oil? How do we price the human costs of our service men and women into the price we pay at the pump? If the true cost of fossil fuels and internal combustion was factored into the equation, the market cost of electrics versus internal combustion would be significantly cheaper.

What's unfortunate is that if conservatives like Mr. Limbaugh actually looked at the electric car from a political perspective, they would see that it has a lot of conservative appeal. Look at a company like Tesla Motors: It was founded by American entrepreneurs. It's headquartered in Silicon Valley and is creating high tech jobs employing home grown engineers. Their Model S sedan will be manufactured in the USA. It is the first American car company to go public since Ford. Wall Street has embraced the company--driving its stock price up to twice its IPO price. Foreign car manufacturers Toyota and Daimler-Benz have invested in Tesla, as has Panasonic. All of the energy used to propel their cars is made in the USA. It’s a shame that in their quest to oppose anything embraced by the liberals that the conservatives are forgetting their own ideals. Tesla Motors and GM personify American capitalism and appeal to the American spirit that the Republican Party once spoke to. Nissan Motors plans on building 200,000 electric car battery packs per year at its facility in Smyrna, Tennessee. The electric car industry has the potential to revive American manufacturing and create jobs, yet all Mr. Limbaugh wants to talk about is sheep.

Over 99% of the cars on the road today are propelled by internal combustion of fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are predominantly controlled by hostile governments and extremely profitable corporate giants. The support of this fossil fuel infrastructure costs the world untold billions in subsidies, and further untold billions in environmental, health, and human costs. It seems to me that the people that pump their cars full of gas on their daily commutes to and from work look and act more like sheep than the pioneers that are trying to overcome engineering and public acceptance obstacles to find a better way to propel our cars. They seem more like shepherds to me. Perhaps Mr. Limbaugh should follow the advice of his beloved Ronald Reagan: "If you're afraid of the future, then get out of the way, stand aside. The people of this country are ready to move again. "

Limbaugh Endorses Prison Camps for Union Organizers

2012-01-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

Following a fawning interview with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, on his radio show today Rush Limbaugh expressed support for putting union organizers in prison camps:

You tried to unionize in China? If you try to pull off in China what they're doing in Wisconsin, it's the union that goes to jail, prison camp, reeducation, hard labor, what have you.

Limbaugh also displayed his incredible ignorance of how elections work (“if Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler can sign a recall petition, there's no doubt in my mind they can also vote”). Of course, anybody can sign a recall petition with any name, and organizers are obligated to turn in all of the names. But fake names aren't counted, nor can they vote.

Still, the strangest and most disturbing comment by Limbaugh today had nothing to do smearing unions, but instead was about smearing shoe polish. Fondly recalled his days shining shoes in a barbershop, Limbaugh declared: “I loved making shoes shine....it was a fetish.”

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's Class Warfare Vs. College Presidents

2011-12-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh normally hates class warfare. So it was a bit unusual today when he came out and denounced millionaires. Of course, Limbaugh only hates one particular kind of millionaire: college presidents.

Limbaugh declared,

the bottom line here is 36 college presidents make a million dollars a year or more. Where is Occupy Wall Street? Has somebody told them about this? The tuition keeps going up. We keep pointing it out here. The tuition keeps going up. Nobody ever talks about the greed of Big Education, 'cause that's where Obama's buddies are.

Actually, that's where one of Limbaugh's buddies is. He specifically exempted from his criticism Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College (which spends vast sums of money advertising on Limbaugh's show). Arnn earned $608,615 in compensation in 2009, making him the second highest paid college president in the state of Michigan despite running a tiny and not very prestigious college.

Limbaugh added,

So Big Education keeps raising prices. Tuition keeps going up. As we know, the Occupy crowd and a lot of students all over the country are unhappy with the student loan situation. And never once do we hear about the greed of Big Education. Never once do we hear about the millionaires that are the college presidents.

In reality, lots of progressives on campus criticize the excessive salaries of college presidents and other administrators. I'd love to see colleges adopt a practice of never paying college presidents more than twice the median professor's salary. Colleges would have much better presidents if they stopped paying them so much money.

Limbaugh concluded,

I'm really struck by the fact that nobody ever talks about the greed in Big Education, and the students, the children, the future are going into hock. Student debt, loan debt, all of this, and what's the solution? It's never to be critical of the institutions of higher learning for charging too much.

Actually, there's an enormous amount of criticism of high tuition at colleges. Many Occupy protests on campus are devoted to opposing tuition hikes. In fact, just today on Truthout, Henry Giroux writes about students “protesting the ways in which universities now resemble corporations.” As Giroux notes,

higher education has been increasingly corporatized and militarized and subject to market-driven values and managerial relations that treat faculty and students as entrepreneurs and clients, while reducing knowledge to the dictates of an audit culture, and pedagogy to a destructive and reductive instrumental rationality.

Rush Limbaugh was inaccurate, as usual, to attack the Occupy movement for ignoring the institutions of higher education. But he was right to question the high salaries for college presidents. It's too bad that Limbaugh only questions excessive salaries when he dislikes the institution someone works at. We need to question the misguided priorities of Big Education, even while we denounce the cynical attacks of Rush Limbaugh who want to destroy higher education because of crazed conspiracy theories that “most citadels of higher learning are the incubators of Marxism, liberalism, socialism, that's where the indoctrination takes place.”

Crossposted at DailyKos and AcademeBlog.

Rush Limbaugh Admits Conservative Bias of Media

2011-11-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

A few minutes ago on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh finally came out and admitted the conservative bias of the mainstream media in America. It came when Rush was complaining about the difficulty in finding liberal soundbites to play and ridicule on his show. Rush declared, “If it weren't for MSNBC, there wouldn't be any liberal soundbites.”

Limbaugh said that he hates MSNBC and wanted to tell his employees to ban clips from the network on his show. But he realized that he couldn't do that because MSNBC was the only media outlet where he could get liberal soundbites. (He admitted that “Al Gore's network” has them, too, but apparently Rush doesn't want Current TV to get any attention.)

Furthermore, Limbaugh admitted that most of MSNBC's programming didn't reflect any liberal viewpoint: “MSNBC's it....And it's two shows, three shows.” Interestingly, among these few shows with liberal viewpoints allowed that Limbaugh identified was Morning Joe, the show named for host (and former Republican Congressman) Joe Scarborough.

For years, as I note in my book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Limbaugh and other conservatives have promoted the myth of the liberal media in America. Now, Limbaugh has finally confessed the truth: liberal views are so isolated in the corporate press that the only places he can find liberal views in the mainstream broadcast media are a few shows on one cable news network. It's proof that there isn't a liberal bias in the media.

UPDATE: Here is the full transcript from Rush Limbaugh's website:

if it weren't for MSNBC we wouldn't have any liberal sound bites. I've told Cookie I'm sick of it, ban MSNBC, and we can't, 'cause there's no other place to get liberal sound bites. There isn't any other place. I mean CNN is just insane over there. They emphasize their hosts, they have guests, but just roll tape on 'em and it's so boring. It's not worth putting anything from CNN on the air.

If it weren't for MSNBC there wouldn't be any liberal sound bites. Now, that has to mean something. That has to mean that they're rare, that they're not everywhere. They may be everywhere in print, but, you know, left-wingers on the radio, genuine cuckoo's nest. You wouldn't even want to go there. I wouldn't play that stuff. MSNBC's it, and it's two shows or three shows. It's it is morning thing with Scarborough, it's the Larry O'Donnell show at night, and maybe occasionally something from Reverend Sharpton. (interruption) Well, yeah, sometimes Sergeant Schultz. Sergeant Schultz is out there walking amongst abandoned railroad cars looking for the future of America. I know there's Algore's channel, but that's nothing worth highlighting. It really says something. MSNBC is the only place in the media to get these liberals.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Classical Studies

2011-11-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

It's difficult to imagine a major more beloved by conservatives than Classical Studies. The one bulwark against all those trendy majors has always been a nice dose of Greek and Latin. So it was strange yesterday to hear Rush Limbaugh denouncing Classical Studies as part of a vast left-wing conspiracy and announcing, “If you go to college, do not do classical studies.” Inspired by an Occupy Wall Street protestor with a sign about how worthless her Classical Studies degree is, Rush denounced her: “somebody shoulda told you that from the moment you declared the major in Classical Studies.”

Rush asked: “Tell me, any of you at random listening all across the fruited plain, what the hell is Classical Studies?” It became painfully, and embarrassingly, obvious that Limbaugh had no clue what Classical Studies is: “And how are the classics studied? Oh, cause you're gonna become an expert in Dickens?” He added, “What if it's classical women's studies? What if it's classical feminism? Who the hell knows what it is? One thing I do know is that she, the brain-dead student, doesn't know what it is, after she's got a major in it.”

Limbaugh declared that Classical Studies was a devious plot within the leftist conspiracy to destroy America:

The socialists that run universities dilute the education, they offer useless majors, and then they lie about the quality of these useless majors. They lie about the happiness and the jobs and the money that awaits you after you get the degree in something like Classical Studies....I think this is part of a strategy that the left has had....They got great degrees like classical (raspberry) studies! They're un-hireable, unemployable, and that's just unfair and unjust -- and ergo, here comes the clamor and the clarion call for socialism, for government to fix it.

This kind of lunatic conspiracy theory (which is not in any way meant jokingly) has become a daily ritual on Limbaugh's show, where he imagines Barack Obama is plotting to intentionally destroy the American economy, among other crackpot assumptions of a Manichean worldview.

During a break, Rush looked up classical studies on the internet and found that it involved the study of ancient Greece and Rome. Incapable of admitting that he was wrong, Rush instead decided to take a McCarthyite tactic of guilt by association, declaring that “Karl Marx was a classical studies scholar.”

Later in the show, Limbaugh announced that “Queer musicology is a degree at UCLA” and “You can get a degree in Star Trek at Georgetown.” There have been classes on queer musicology at UCLA and a class on “Philosophy and Star Trek” taught at Georgetown, but obviously not a degree. Perhaps when Rush denounces “you idiot college students,” he ought to take a long look in a mirror. Limbaugh is so uneducated he doesn't know what Classical Studies are or even the meaning of the word “degree.”

In my book about Rush, I cite about case after case where Limbaugh's views are not merely wrong, but entirely ignorant. The leading conservative voice in America is a monument to stupidity who denounces even the most conservative-friendly major in college. All of us, left and right alike, should be concerned about the state of conservatism in America and the move led by Limbaugh to new heights of anti-intellectualism on the right.

Crossposted at Academe Blog.

2011-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh hates college. He hated it when he was a student flunking out of Southeast Missouri State, and he hates it even more today. According to Rush, Barack Obama's plan to help students with loans is a vast conspiracy to help "big education" which destroys the minds of students:

Suzy Creamcheese gets into George Washington University and borrows from the government the requisite $212,000 to obtain an undergraduate degree, and what is Suzy Creamcheese's degree in? She spent it on a degree in Oppressed People in the Orient, some meaningless degree like Conflict Resolution 505, whatever, some meaningless, worthless degree. She's comes out after borrowing $212,000 with no marketable skills, and the only thing she has learned at Bill Ayers University is it's all America's fault. She goes in, gets a stupid degree, worthless education, $210,000 in debt, and she has no marketable skills. And it's America's fault after she's borrowed all this money. So now here comes Obama riding to the rescue after his buddies in academe -- i.e., the Bill Ayers types -- have taken these young skulls full of mush and turned them into basically pizza.

Really? Rush thinks students major in "Oppressed People in the Orient"?

Crossposted at Academe Blog.

Why Rush Refuses to Debate Liberals

2011-10-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh was angry this week at Snerdley, his call screener, for allowing several “seminar callers” (liberals) to be on the show. Limbaugh failed miserably in all of his arguments, and that's why Rush refuses to debate liberals.

Credit goes to Mike Stark, and other callers he's trained to get onto right-wing talk shows, for getting a contrary voice out there. Normally, Limbaugh likes to have an idiot “liberal” caller to mock on his show. But when it's a smart caller like Stark, Limbaugh always has to cut off the caller. This time, Limbaugh had to offer a lame excuse for hanging up on Stark: “We were talking with somebody who was purposely pig ignorant....That's why I didn't hang in with the guy, folks, because it would have been like trying to talk to James Carville. I'm not going to change his mind about anything.”

Of course, the real reason Limbaugh hangs up on smart liberals is that his arguments can't stand up to a contrary voice telling a few facts. As I note in my new book about Limbaugh, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, the man simply can't get basic facts right.

Consider this argument he made with Stark:

RUSH: Now that's the only funding source for Social Security. So we've got a Democrat president who wants to cut funding for Social Security.
CALLER: Well, any tax cut is going to take away from the general fund.
RUSH: No, no,...Many tax cuts raise revenue and generate new money to the Treasury.

Then Rush cut off Stark and concluded with this declaration: “your president comes along and cuts the only funding program that they've got in half and you support it.”
Here Rush manages to combine two directly contradictory mistakes. First, Rush doesn't understand that the payroll tax cut comes out of the general fund, not the Social Security fund. So this tax cut isn't a cut in funding for Social Security at all. Then Rush compounds this idiotic error with his delusional view that tax cuts raise revenue, which they don't. If you cut taxes, you get less revenue than you would otherwise have. That's the reason why the debt is so large, thanks to the Bush tax cuts. Of course, since Rush insanely believes that tax cuts increase tax revenue, it raises an interesting question: why does Limbaugh oppose the payroll tax cuts? Partly it's because a Democrat proposed it. And partly it's because the payroll tax cut benefits the poor and middle class more than rich people like Rush and his golf buddies.

These are the kind of intellectual inconsistencies and obvious factual errors that Rush Limbaugh makes on a daily basis. Rush can only sustain his bubble of lies and mistakes when he's talking with bobbleheaded Dittoheads, which is why he can't allow intelligent liberals and moderates on his show to tell the truth.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Zev Chafets' Book on Limbaugh

2011-09-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

On his show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh denounced “the fringe, left-wing website the Daily Kos.” Limbaugh also praised the biography of him by right-winger Zev Chafets as an “excellent, excellent book” and told his legion of fans to read it. Chafets' fawning biography just came out in paperback yesterday. I contacted Chafets' publisher, Sentinel, and found out that they made no changes compared to the hardcover. That's astonishing considering how many misspellings and factual errors were uncovered by me and other reviews. But since Chafets isn't changing his book, I have no reason to change my review. Therefore, I'm reprinting below the review of Chafets book that I wrote last year when it appeared.

I challenged everyone, left and right, to read both books and compare which one is the more honest portrait of what Limbaugh believes.

Book Review: Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One

Zev Chafets' new biography, Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One, is a shallow portrait of the nation's conservative-in-chief. Chafets gets only one thing fundamentally right about Rush: Limbaugh is an immensely powerful figure within the Republican Party and American politics. Would Republicans have become “the Party of 'No'” without Limbaugh's daily diatribes against compromise and desire for America to fail? Perhaps to some degree. But without two decades of Limbaugh's relentless militance against liberalism, it is unthinkable that the Republican Party would stand where it does today.

Chafets wrote a glowing profile of Limbaugh in 2008 for the New York Times Magazine. Rush would never allow a New York Times reporter such wide access without being completely assured that the article would be written from a sympathetic, conservative approach. Chafets provided exactly that, since he is a prominent critic of Palestinians (and former director of Israel’s government press office), and had written a column on the right-wing website Townhall.com. Limbaugh even referred to Chafets as a “friend” on his show. Chafets shared that friendship, declaring about Limbaugh, “I'm a little bit defensive because I think that the liberal media takes such an unfair view of him.”

Chafets' 2008 profile lavishly praised Limbaugh, comparing him to “the great black singers of his generation” and calling him “the first white, Goldwater Republican soul shouter.” His new book compares Limbaugh to Muhammad Ali and Oprah Winfrey.

Bob Garfield of “On the Media” observed to Chafets in 2008, “Your piece on Limbaugh was very generous, I would say even flattering. You seem to give him a pass for his excesses.” When Garfield confronted him with the infamous Limbaugh quote, “The NAACP should have a riot rehearsal, they should get a liquor store and practice robberies,” Chafets responded, “Not my sense of humor, but it's not a lie.” Really? It's not a lie to link the NAACP to riots and liquor store robberies?

Chafets is a relentless defender of Rush. According to Chafets, “A lot of Limbaugh's critics dismiss him as a buffoon or a fanatic. These are people who don't listen to his show. Limbaugh is not only a brilliant communicator, he is a smart political strategist.” A Columbia Journalism Review blog noted, “it seems Chafets was distracted by all the bling in Rush’s World, so that the piece reads more like an episode of MTV Cribs...”

Janet Maslin's devastating review of Chafets' book in the New York Times reveals some of the flaws in it. Maslin notes that even the mild criticism of Limbaugh found in Chafets' original New York Times Magazine piece was largely purged from the book.

Limbaugh knew from the beginning that Chafets was a fan and a friend, and even told him, “if you think the editors of the New York Times Magazine are going to do a story on me that isn't a hit job, you are naïve.”(115) Chafets pretends to be shocked when Limbaugh refers to him on the air as a “friend,” but it certainly wouldn't shock anyone who reads this book. Chafets is a relentless defender of Limbaugh, even to the point of insulting his ex-wife Marta Fitzgerald as a gold digger. He writes that Rush's first two wives didn't marry him for his money, but “The third Mrs. Limbaugh is a different matter.”(130)

Chafets dutifully reports what Limbaugh said years ago on his show about his drug use: “Limbaugh concluded by saying that he would like to go into more detail but couldn't, because he was under criminal investigation.”(95) One would imagine that Chafets could have gone into more detail years after the criminal matter was resolved and the statute of limitations applies. But for some reason, Chafets reveals nothing more about Limbaugh's drug addiction. He reports that Limbaugh now thinks drug use should not usually be a crime, although he omits Limbaugh's earlier hypocrisy on the issue or the fact that Limbaugh never expresses this view on the air.(98)

On race, Chafets dares to be slightly critical of Limbaugh. Chafets recounts that he suggests to Limbaugh that he has a “blind spot” on race, that he doesn't understand “why American blacks didn't share his narrative of America as a uniquely virtuous nation.”(173) Chafets admits, “It was cringe inducing to hear Limbaugh defend his lack of bias by mentioning his housekeeper.”(176) But he lets Limbaugh claim, “the Constitution set up a process to gradually end slavery,” even though that's not true.

Chafets mentions the two fake quotes spread about Limbaugh on slavery and James Earl Ray (although he gets their origin wrong, falsely blaming writer Jack Huberman for creating them), but he never discusses the real racist quotes from Limbaugh's mouth, such as calling Obama “Halfrican-American” or “the little black man-child.”(183) Chafets even defends Limbaugh's bizarre claim that the media want black quarterbacks to succeed as “perfectly true,” apparently not caring if there's any evidence to support Limbaugh's claim (there's not).(184) Chafets depicts Limbaugh, a man who regularly occupies luxury boxes and even the sidelines at NFL games, as a victim who “found himself excommunicated”(185) merely because he was dropped from one ownership group's attempts to buy a team.

Chafets projects his own moderate conservative views onto Limbaugh: “Rush and I were both raised at a time of racial optimism and naivete, when the goal of decent white people was an integrated society. We were taught that skin color shouldn't matter, that we were all basically the same, that we should judge others not by their color but the content of their character.”(172) However, Chafets revealed that when Limbaugh was growing up, his public school responded to Brown v. Board of Education with de facto segregation of black students in low-level classes. Did Chafets ever ask Limbaugh about his segregated school, or growing up in a former slave state during the midst of the Civil Rights Movement? Did he ever ask Limbaugh if his notoriously foul-mouthed father or other friends and family used the N-word? Chafets had a tremendous opportunity, as the only journalist who has ever had the opportunity for in-depth conversation with Limbaugh.

When giving his own opinion, Chafets has many disturbing racial views. Chafets writes that GOP head Michael Steele was “intimidated” by comedian D.L. Hughley, a “former gang banger,” into criticizing Limbaugh.(147) Chafets claims that after 9/11, “total war was justified until the Arabs cried uncle.”(101) It's not clear if Chafets or Limbaugh or both believe this, but it's certainly a disturbing viewpoint to call for “total war” against a group of people that includes some of America's strongest allies.

Chafets got attention for his book by trying to arrange a golf outing between Obama and Limbaugh: “I spoke to a very senior Democratic activist with whom I'm very friendly, and he said he would convey the message. A day or two later he got back to me with the answer: 'Limbaugh can play with himself.'”(192) It's a funny line. The problem is that we don't know who said it, if anyone. Was this Obama's personal response to Limbaugh, as some in the media reported (and Chafets did not seek to correct)? Was it the response of some aide? Or was it Chafets' source simply commenting on the failure to get any response from the White House? We don't know, and Chafets seems more interested in using it to generate publicity for his book rather than clarifying what was actually said. It's noteworthy that when Chafets wrote a pointless op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about his dream Limbaugh-Obama golf outing, the “play with himself” quote was nowhere to be found. Perhaps that's because Chafets' lightly-sourced claim didn't meet a newspaper's standards for facts. Fortunately, Sentinel Books has no such standards.

In fact, Chafets' book has no endnotes or sources. After all, his primary audience is Dittoheads, and they certainly don't expect evidence after years of listening to Limbaugh. There's very little new information uncovered by Chafets, and much of the biographical parts of the books closely follow Paul Colford's 1995 book, The Rush Limbaugh Story.

From a literary point of view, Chafets' book is a mess. The final chapter is followed by an epilogue summarizing some events in 2010. The final line, a product placement urging people turn in weekdays at noon, is almost embarrassingly bad. That's followed by the acknowledgments where Chafets whines about the difficulty of finding a “New York publisher” for a pro-Limbaugh book and praises Limbaugh for being “cooperative and candid,” which if true means that Chafets simply failed to ask any important questions in what Limbaugh claims were 16 hours of interviews. That's followed by an appendix where Chafets denounces “the liberal consensus” in the media and academia, and claims that Limbaugh listeners are smart because they know basic information such as the majority party in Congress.

The book is also piled high with filler. He reprints Limbaugh's list of “35 Undeniable Truths of Life” with his own “unofficial and personal commentary” that reveals Chafets' agreement with nearly everything Rush says (“except for maybe the one about the Steelers”).(74) Whole pages of his book are devoted to the lyrics of the lame parody songs by Paul Shanklin that Limbaugh plays on his show.

There's not one word in the book about Limbaugh's inept misunderstandings about the Constitution (such as quoting, with the wrong words, the Declaration of Independence and and claiming it was in the Constitution). Instead, Chafets writes: “Big Rush would have been proud to hear his son expounding with such passion on issues of constitutional law.”(168) This is the kind of fluff that Chafets uses, words that would humiliate a real journalist to write.

Chafets' book has shoddy editing, too. There are several typos, including “the a great” (130) and “Limbaugh had set his sites on Congress....”(77) As Janet Maslin noted in her New York Times review, “Even the name of one of Mr. Limbaugh’s wives is misspelled here, as are Hugh Hefner’s and Phyllis Schlafly’s.” I found even more misspellings, including Senator “Clair” McCaskill (103) and even John Forbes “Kennedy” rather than Kerry.(159)

The book is poorly researched, and misses many important facts. According to Chafets, “There was never a doubt that Limbaugh would support the reelection of George H.W. Bush in 1992...”(81) Chafets somehow never realized that Limbaugh supported Pat Buchanan's primary campaign against Bush in 1992. Rush wrote that Buchanan accomplished “great things” by moving Bush to the right.

According to Chafets, “After Obama accidentally read the speech of his guest, the Irish prime minister, instead of his own, Limbaugh developed the conceit that the teleprompter, not Obama, was in charge.”(163) Obama never accidentally read the speech of the Irish prime minister; it was the opposite.

Chafets refers to the Sullivan Group as a “fictitious entity.”(44) In reality, the Sullivan Group was founded in 1980, long before Tom Sullivan became a talk show host and met Rush Limbaugh, and it continues to exist. What's fictitious is the idea that the Sullivan Group “audits” the accuracy of Limbaugh's opinions, which Rush often cites as proof of his truth-telling, and many of his listeners actually believe it.

Media Matters for America points out several errors in Chafets' book, including his propensity to give Fox News Channel credit for breaking stories that other mainstream media outlets actually reported first. Media Matters, which has become Limbaugh's chief nemesis by writing daily about his errors and distortions, merits only a couple of mentions in Chafets' book, although Limbaugh often refers to them on his show in a clearly irritated manner. Chafets notes that Media Matters “reported that Rush had referred to military personnel who objected to the war as 'phony soldiers,”(108) which is exactly what Limbaugh had declared. Chafets denies this reality, and then compounds his mistake in defending Limbaugh by falsely claiming that “Media Matters tried to correct its initial mistake” on the phony soldiers issue.(108) As Media Matters noted, Limbaugh referred to John Murtha as a “phony soldier,” providing all the evidence anyone could have needed to prove that Limbaugh's use of term “phony soldiers” applied to real soldiers who criticized the war in Iraq, not fake stories. If a man who served for 38 years in the Marines and the Marine Corps Reserves, winning the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, is a “phony soldier,” then Limbaugh's use of the term has nothing to do with fake soldiers.

I should note that Chafets quotes me at length, accurately, writing about the impact of Limbaugh's Operation Chaos in Mississippi, where Limbaugh fans helped Hillary Clinton pick up some delegates. According to Chafets, “the media reacted with alarm,” and then he quotes my words.(117) It's a strange world we live in, where my little blog makes me a member of the “media,” but the vast media empires of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the New York Freaking Times Magazine don't count as part of the “media” in Chafets' estimation.

The book is full of odd claims about the press, such as saying that “the media” “reflexively squawk at any politically incorrect use of racial language.”(157) That's a favorite term of Chafets', who claims that in 1988 when Limbaugh began nationally, Time and Newsweek were “politically correct” and PBS was “unmistakably liberal,” which may surprise those of us who were watching Firing Line, the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, Wall Street Week, and the McLaughlin Group.(138)

Chafets complains that Limbaugh didn't get the same approval in New York City received by other “outsiders” like Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings. According to Chafets, “the price of admission is accepting and, in some small way propagating, the group ethos.”(50) It's nothing short of bizarre for Chafets to join in with Limbaugh's pathetic crying about how he wasn't embraced as one of the leading journalists in the country because he had a syndicated talk show.

Is Rush Limbaugh a serious political force, or just a hammy jokester? Chafets denounces media critic Todd Gitlin: “He also doesn't listen to Limbaugh. Rush, like any satirist, engages in hyperbole, sarcasm, and ridicule, none of which is meant to be taken literally.”(139) Whenever Chafets wants to excuse or ignore some offensive, ignorant, or downright stupid remark by Limbaugh, Rush transforms from the leader of the conservative movement into a silly DJ having a laugh to tweak the liberals.

And while he refuses to take Limbaugh's own words seriously, Chafets condemns others for things they've never believed: "Some, like Professor Todd Gitlin of the Columbia School of Journalism, think the government should take Rush off the air."(139) I emailed Gitlin and he wrote back to me, “I do not think the government should take RL off the air. I never have thought that.”

On occasion, almost by accident, Chafets offers us an insight about Limbaugh: “This lack of partisan engagement is a recurring theme in the recollections of Limbaugh's old friends and colleagues in his early radio career. He was in his midthirties before he began giving strong, consistent voice to his conservative beliefs.”(17) The day after the White House Correspondents Dinner, where Wanda Sykes insulted him, Limbaugh was silent on the air but sent an email to Chafets: “I know I am a target and I know I will be destroyed eventually.”(166) Limbaugh normally has enough sense to keep his self-indulgent paranoid ravings off the air. But Chafets treats this absurd statement as if it were a justified response to unfair attacks, rather than evidence of Limbaugh's unbalanced mind. (Notably, Townhall.com is offering free copies of Chafets' book in exchange for a subscription to their magazine, under the headline, “Obama's master plan: Take out Rush Limbaugh.”)

On his show, Limbaugh admitted that he hadn't read Chafets' book: “If they get it right, I already know it, if they get it wrong, it's par for the course.”(May 26, 2010) Nevertheless, Limbaugh gave it his endorsement and prominently promoted it: “everybody who's read it has said it was pretty good.”

Chafets' book, and its admiring attention to Limbaugh's massive estate full of tacky decor, his $54 million jet, his fleet of $450,000 black Maybachs, shows that the author learned one essential lesson from studying Limbaugh: you can make a big pile of money by giving a conservative audience exactly what it wants to hear, as long as you're willing to sell out your integrity in the process.

John K. Wilson is the author of seven books, including “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason” (2011, Thomas Dunne Books). Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's Hoffa Hypocrisy on Violence

2011-09-06T10:10:00.001-07:00

Just like Fox News and other right-wingers, Rush Limbaugh has been selectively editing and distorting Jimmy Hoffa Jr's comments about a “war on workers” at a Labor Day event: “let's take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong!” Rush devoted most of the first hour of his program today to smearing Hoffa. At least three times, Limbaugh declared about Hoffa: “that's a direct call for violence against the Tea Party.”

A caller to Rush's program (fearing that Limbaugh's credibility might be questioned) mentioned that the show had removed the first part of the quote where Hoffa said, “Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize,...” But Rush refused to admit he was wrong: “there's nothing out of context here.”

Of course, the use of war metaphors is common in American politics. It's particularly common on Limbaugh's show. In 2005, Limbaugh told Sean Hannity that he was upset about George W. Bush working too much with Democrats, such as supposedly letting Ted Kennedy write the “No Child Left Behind” bill: “it just proves something that I've always thought: This is war.” In 2007, Limbaugh declared about a vote over an immigration bill, “This is war. This is what politics is.” In 2008, Limbaugh blamed the recession exclusively on Democrats and said, “this is war out there, this is political war.” In 2008, Limbaugh raised no objections to the war metaphor: “I see the Democrats as warriors, and I see them in this, the way people are in blood sports. They want to wipe us out, talking politically now. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. I think that should be the objective.”

But Limbaugh, unlike Hoffa, has gone far beyond war metaphors. Unlike Hoffa, Limbaugh actually has called for an armed revolution. Earlier this year, Limbaugh proclaimed about left-wingers who urged a nonviolent revolution: “They better be careful what they wish for -- and you don't hear me talking like this, folks; but if they're gonna start talking about 'revolution,' they better be very, very careful what they wish for, 'cause they are outnumbered."

In 2009, Limbaugh declared, “before Obama's through, folks, we're all going to have a mug shot one way or the other.” It was a typical kind of Limbaugh paranoia: Barack Obama will arrest all the conservatives in the country. Or, he seemed to hint, the patriots would be arrested for taking up arms against the “dictator” in office.

Speaking about the 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Limbaugh noted, “the coup was what many of you wish would happen here...” A few days later, he again endorsed the idea of an American military coup against Obama: “If we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back.”

Limbaugh was supporting a violent revolution against the Obama Administration: “Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, what we are living through right now is exactly why the Revolutionary War was fought?”

Limbaugh routinely uses violent rhetoric, not just war metaphors, to describe Democrats and the Obama Administration. The fact that Limbaugh does dream about a coup, and constantly refers to Obama as a dictator, reflects how Limbaugh, unlike Hoffa, is encouraging violence by his followers.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh: "Melanin Is Thicker Than Water"

2011-08-29T10:20:00.001-07:00

A few minutes ago on his radio show, Rush predicted that Colin Powell would vote for Obama again, despite refusing to declare anything on Face the Nation yesterday. According to Limbaugh, “Melanin is thicker than water.”

This openly racist claim that all black people support each other because of their genetics is a common refrain from Limbaugh. I've documented Limbaugh's bigotry extensively on my blog (www.limbaughbook.com) and my book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason. My book is now on sale for $4.61 at Amazon, which is both a great bargain and an indication that very few Limbaugh fans are inclined to read anything critical of El Rushbo.

When Republican Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president, Rush claimed it was all about race. Powell said: "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without."i Rush responded: "I just think he's just mad at me because I'm the one person in the country that had the guts to explain his endorsement of Obama. It was purely and solely based on race. There can be no other explanation for it."

Limbaugh declared, “Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with.” Of course, Powell did endorse an inexperienced white candidate whom he had some disagreements with, a man named George W. Bush. But Limbaugh could only see race.

Powell retorted on CNN, “And when you have non-elected officials such as we have in our party who immediately shout racism or somebody who is quite prominent in the media says the only basis upon which I could possibly have supported Obama was because he was black and I was black even though I laid out my judgment on the candidates, then we still have a problem.”

When Powell was a loyal Republican, Limbaugh had nothing but praise for him. In 1997, he said about Powell, “Look at him. He is dignity. He is honor. He's a four-star general. He is a man who is perceived to be the epitome of honor and integrity, and he's a leader.” How did Powell go from being the “epitome of honor and integrity” to being a racist? The answer is purely political: Powell endorsed a Democrat, and therefore Limbaugh used the accusation of racism he makes against every non-white liberal.

Yesterday, I appeared on Robert McChesney's excellent radio show Media Matters (listen to it here) and one of the callers was a Limbaugh fan who simply dismissed any possibility that Rush is a racist.

It's difficult to break through a corporate media stranglehold on public debate, one where discussing the racism of the leading conservative voice in America is simply forbidden. But it's important that we continue trying to raise these issues. A few weeks ago, I wrote about persuading a Republican defender of Limbaugh, D.R. Tucker, that Rush is a racist.

The declaration that “melanin is thicker than water” is the embodiment of a racist viewpoint, and we need to keep stating the obvious, and asking Republican officials if they agree with this claim, until the mainstream media and Limbaugh's supporters are forced to defend it. And when you have someone as indefensible as Limbaugh is, that would be a victory.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

My Media Appearances

2011-08-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

For those of you who heard me mention it on This Is Hell, here's my debate with Paypal founder Peter Thiel (before he became a billionaire) in 1996 at the Heritage Foundation on C-Span. Thiel was discussing the book he co-wrote, The Diversity Myth, while I was discussing my book, The Myth of Political Correctness. (You can see my other C-SPAN appearances about my Obama book here and here.)

If you didn't hear me on This Is Hell, the podcast of today's show should be up soon. My interview begins about two hours into the show.

And you can listen to me Sunday, August 28, at 1pm CST on Robert McChesney's show Media Matters on WILL, discussing my Rush Limbaugh book.

Joe Scarborough Is Right, and Rush Is Lying

2011-08-11T22:04:00.001-07:00

Today, Rush attacked Joe Scarborough for daring to say, “We all are rooting for the president. If Rush Limbaugh is still rooting against the President, then he's also rooting for America to be in a fast decline, rooting for his stocks to collapse.”

Rush claimed, "I was rooting for the country when I said, 'I hope he fails.' But it's too late, Joe. He's succeeded."

Rush is lying.

In fact, Limbaugh had made it clear that he wanted the country to fail. Limbaugh said: "Of course I want Obama to fail. And after this stimulus bill package passes, I want it to fail."

On February 13, 2009, Limbaugh told his listeners about the stimulus plan: “I hope it prolongs the failure. I hope it prolongs the recession. Because people are going to have to figure out here that this is not how economies recover. Government is not the central planner.”

Back in 1993, Limbaugh had a very different approach to Democratic failure when writing his second book, See, I Told You So: “I sincerely don’t want Bill Clinton to fail, unless failure is defined as the defeat of his current economic policies.” Now, openly hoping for the recession to be prolonged—and then lying about this fact over and over again—is considered the norm for the conservative movement.

Scarborough is one of the rare Republicans who has the freedom to criticize Rush Limbaugh, because he doesn't need to win a primary or keep a job on Fox News.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Guest Blogger: D.R. Tucker's "Robbed of Credibility"

2011-08-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

I've never had a guest post on this blog before, but I'm making an exception for D.R. Tucker. I first met Tucker when he invited me to appear on the podcast he co-hosts, Patriot Games Radio, and I was impressed by his willingness to engage in intellectual debate about Limbaugh even if he didn't agree with my critiques. I may not have convinced Tucker then, but last week I posted a blog entry about Limbaugh's depiction of Obama as a burglar on the cover of The Limbaugh Letter.

In a blog post on his site “The Urban Right” titled, “Talent on loan from the devil: Rush Limbaugh embraces old-school bigotry,” Tucker concluded, “I can't defend Limbaugh anymore after seeing that sickening image.” I asked Tucker to explain what changed his mind, and he wrote the following essay about it:

Robbed of Credibility
By D.R. Tucker

What did they see that I didn’t see?

Years ago, I’d get into huge arguments with liberals, particularly black liberals, over Rush Limbaugh’s views on race. Liberals would insist that Limbaugh’s rhetoric was racially inflammatory and that he seemed to look down upon black people. I always responded that nothing Limbaugh said or did fit a traditional definition of racism, and that while Limbaugh said and did things that were certainly politically incorrect, he was not a bigot.

I started listening to Limbaugh on Boston’s WRKO-AM in the mid-1990s. I didn’t think he was as good as the late Boston radio star David Brudnoy, but he was certainly entertaining and quite insightful at times. I was outraged when President Clinton tried to link Limbaugh’s rhetoric to the Oklahoma City bombing; while Limbaugh was a harsh critic of the federal government, he certainly wasn’t encouraging his listeners to go blow up federal buildings.

Liberals in my social circle couldn’t understand why I was so defensive of Limbaugh. To me, it made common sense: Limbaugh was an articulate voice for the conservative agenda I supported, and I had no intention of leaving Limbaugh to bleed on the battlefield of ideas. I liked Rush, and I hated the liberals who found fault with him.

To be fair, there were times when Limbaugh made statements I found distasteful. As a pro-choice Republican in the late-1990s, I found Limbaugh’s scorn for those on the “wrong” side of the abortion question intolerable, and inconsistent with his stated support for the concept of limited government. Limbaugh’s contempt for libertarians struck me as bizarre, as did his October 2000 declaration that George W. Bush would defeat Al Gore as decisively as Ronald Reagan had defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, despite the fact that no poll indicated such an outcome.

Yet I stood by Limbaugh, especially when the left suggested that he was bigoted because of his controversial remarks about football star Donovan McNabb and his promotion of an anti-Barack Obama parody song. Standing by Limbaugh wasn’t easy: I found his 2008 attacks on the “conservative intelligentsia” (i.e., David Frum, David Brooks, William Kristol and Ross Douthat) to be over-the-top, and his suggestion that race was the main factor behind Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama to be unsupported by facts. However, I felt compelled to defend him whenever liberals would question me about his remarks.

In January 2009, Limbaugh’s attacks on Obama and conservative pundits who were allegedly too deferential to the new president became so repetitive and so negative that I temporarily abandoned the show. I resumed listening in April 2009, but in March 2010, his show moved from WRKO-AM to WXKS-AM, a Clear Channel-controlled station with a weaker signal. WRKO replaced Limbaugh with veteran Massachusetts-based GOP consultant Charley Manning, a lively personality who I found to be much less predictable in his views than Limbaugh; by the summer of 2010 I found myself completely uninterested in listening to “El Rushbo.”

Even after I stopped listening to Limbaugh, I still felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt on the question of race.

Until now.

I was repulsed when I learned that Limbaugh had depicted Obama as a burglar on the cover of the August 2011 issue of his publication, The Limbaugh Letter. Some images are politically incorrect but not bigoted. This image was bigoted.

I became a conservative because I disliked what I saw as the culture of victimology on the left, the tendency to blame all social problems on racism, sexism, anti-Semitism or homophobia. I felt the left promoted a “grievance industry” that encouraged minority groups to hate members of the majority.

Of course, there’s a difference between saying social bigotry is not the cause of the woes of certain groups and saying social bigotry doesn’t exist at all.

I’ve been in restaurants where white women have reached for their purses when I’m walking nearby. I’ve gone into elevators where white women have shifted nervously once the doors close.

It’s an ugly, unpleasant feeling. I thank God it’s not a commonplace occurrence in my life, but when it happens, it hurts.

I try to rationalize it, to understand that these women are not reacting to me personally, but to what they see in the news media. As Boston talk-radio star Dan Rea, who inherited David Brudnoy’s old job, noted in a 2008 interview,“[L]ocal television news is one of the great purveyors of racism of our time…[i]f you are somebody who lives out in one of the…suburbs, and never have a reason to really interact with people of color, the only time you’re going to see young black males is when they’re being arraigned, they’re being arrested, or they’re dying in the street.”

It’s painful when someone reacts to your body based on a media stereotype. I try not to let it bother me. Yet I wish prominent figures in the media would be a little more cautious about peddling stereotypes.

Rush Limbaugh, I now realize, is not one of those figures. By depicting Obama as a burglar, he’s peddling the old-school stereotype of the black man as shady, shifty thief. Even a black man who graduated from Harvard Law School can’t be trusted not to take your stuff when you’re not around.

I didn’t vote for Obama. He was too progressive for my center-right tastes. I wanted judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas on the Supreme Court, not Ginsburg and Breyer. I admired the fact that he chose to run—he had more courage than Powell in that respect—but my support went to John McCain.

Do I regret that vote? No. What I do regret, however, is my inability to see Limbaugh the way the folks I used to debate saw Limbaugh. Because I was obsessed with defending Limbaugh from any criticism, I couldn’t distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate criticism of the man.

Does Limbaugh personally dislike blacks? I can’t credibly make that claim. Has Limbaugh exploited racial stereotypes to make money? The evidence for that is obvious.

Obama is not a burglar, in fact or political theory. While I’ve criticized his decisions and his leadership, I’ve never forgotten that he’s a citizen who’s doing what he believes to be best for the country. Previously, Limbaugh has characterized Obama as a “man-child,” a secret hater of the United States, a white-hating fiend whose economic program constitutes de facto reparations for slavery. Now, he depicts Obama as a thief. Having defended and supported Limbaugh for fifteen years, I realize, perhaps too late, that I must have been robbed of my common sense.

D. R. Tucker is the operator of Massachusetts-based blog The Urban Right (theurbanright.blogspot.com). He is also a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in the Boston Herald, Human Events Online, FrumForum.com, TheNextRight.com and BookerRising.com. In addition, he hosted The Notes on Blog Talk Radio (blogtalkradio.com/drtucker) from August 2009 to June 2010.

For more about Tucker's essay, see my DailyKos blog entry about it.

Limbaugh's Racism: "Obama the Burglar"

2011-08-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

50 years ago, when Barack Obama was born, the idea of a black president in America was unthinkable. The fact that he is president shows how much racial progress has been made in America. But there is still a large core of racism in this country, reflected in the open bigotry of leading conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh.

I just received the August issue of “The Limbaugh Letter” (Rush's highly profitable 16-page “magazine” consisting of ghostwritten pieces cobbled together from his various radio rants).

The cover features the latest in Rush's racial provocations: “Obama the Burglar.” Obama is dressed as a burglar with a black cap, carrying a bag of stuff and a silver candlestick as he exits the ransacked home of a rich man—Rush Limbaugh, to be precise, who looks on startled at this black robber in his castle.

Ah, yes, Obama as the dangerous black man coming to steal the white man's property. It's an ancient racist image.

In the article, Limbaugh accuses Obama of “robbing this country blind” and proclaims: “He's a burglar. All liberals are burglars. All liberals are thieves. That's what they do. It is who they are.”

Limbaugh depicts Obama's critique of tax loopholes and breaks for corporate jet owners as an attack on technology itself, predicting that he would go after the iPad 3 and the iPhone 5 and “tax the hell out of it so it ceases to exist.” According to Limbaugh, “You leave it up to Obama, and we won't need to be defeated by al Qaeda; we'll end up in the seventh century on our own.”

Of course, I'm sure that Limbaugh and his defenders will claim that he is not a racist because he believes that all liberals, black and white, are burglars. That's true. But it's no coincidence that Limbaugh depicts the black guy as the stereotypical burglar. Limbaugh hates Obama because he's a liberal, not just because he's black. But Limbaugh's racism shapes the bigoted way that he talks about Obama.

Perhaps one picture does not prove Limbaugh's racism beyond any doubt. But I wrote an entire chapter in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, proving Limbaugh's racism. Here are a few examples of Limbaugh's racist statements about Obama:

Limbaugh is fond of using racial insults against Obama, calling him “a Chicago street thug,” “a half-minority,” a “Halfrican,” and even “the little black man-child." This was Limbaugh’s variation of the ancient insult “boy” (which Limbaugh also used to describe Obama) wielded by racists to demean black men. And let's not forget Limbaugh calling Obama a “spade.” In 2009, Limbaugh claimed that food safety advocates were "going to go after Oreos" but would wait until Obama was out of office, which was Limbaugh's way of calling Obama an “oreo” (black on the outside, white on the inside).

Limbaugh often uses racially demeaning language, declaring that, “Obama is essentially a primitive indigenous guy.” When Limbaugh describes the man who ran the most technologically sophisticated political campaign in history as “primitive,” race can be the only explanation. And there can be no doubt that Rush would never describe a white person born in America as “indigenous.”

Limbaugh claimed that because Obama calls himself an African-American, “Obama is telling us he is a black American first and an American second.” Of course, Limbaugh is too smart to believe that Obama is black. Limbaugh said: “He's not black. Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood? He doesn't have any African -- that's why when they asked whether he was authentic, whether he's down for the struggle. He's Arab. You know, he's from Africa. He's from Arab parts of Africa. He's not -- his father was -- he's not African-American. The last thing that he is is African-American.” The fact that all this is completely untrue should be less important than the open racism of Limbaugh's obsession with Obama's ancestry.

After Obama became president, Limbaugh called him "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" and accused him of “fooling white people.” Limbaugh claimed, “the only reason Obama's anywhere is because whites are willing to support him because they feel so guilty over slavery.” He also accused Obama of “inciting racism” and “inflaming racial hatred.” Limbaugh claimed about Obama, “You organized riots and communities and stuff in Chicago.”

Limbaugh (the college dropout) asserted that Obama (the magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School as president of the Harvard Law Review) "probably didn't get outta Harvard without affirmative action."

When a racist caller declared that Obama was fighting “against white America,” Rush agreed with him wholeheartedly: “you're right down the line” and supported the idea that “Obama hates white people."

Today, as we celebrate the 50th birthday of America's first black president, we should also think about all the people like Rush Limbaugh who hate him because of his race.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh on Killer: "Maybe We Ought to Listen to Him"

2011-07-28T11:09:00.001-07:00

Rush Limbaugh hadn't commented on Norway's mass murderer Anders Breivik until today's show.

In response to a conservative caller who urged opposition to Muslim extremists and right-wing extremist, Limbaugh said about Breivik: “Maybe we ought to listen to him.”

Rush was claiming that after 9-11, Bush's State Department had asked “Why do they hate us?” and suggested he was simply doing the same. Limbaugh tried to rewrite history, declaring that “Obama, after 9/11, said he had empathy for the terrorists” and said that “they were blameless” As Obama's actual words show, Obama said nothing like that. Obama actually said that the terrorism was caused by a lack of empathy for others, and Obama never suggested that the terrorists were “blameless.”

Limbaugh claimed, “This guy in Norway, I've been waiting for that call.” But strangely, Limbaugh claimed to be unaware at first that the killer was a right-wing extremist. After a break, when he apparently had a moment to research the issue further, Limbaugh continued to urge listening to Breivik. Rush also offered a paranoid suggestion that the openly conservative caller was secretly plotting to trap him: “I knew what the caller was trying to do.”

Rush tried to claim that Breivik was just a “run-of-the-mill Neo-Nazi.” According to Limbaugh, “This guy is a lunatic, he's against everybody, not just Muslims.” Obviously, Limbaugh does not endorse the mass murder of children. But he wanted to make sure that Breivik's right-wing ideas were not criticized. Limbaugh called Breivik's manifesto “a plagiarist of the Unabomber, who loved Al Gore.”

Limbaugh even said about Breivik, “He was not a Christian.” Bizarrely, Rush claimed that in Norway, “If you're non-Muslim, everybody's called a Christian.” That will probably come as a surprise to all the atheists, Jews, Buddhists, and various other believers in Norway.

Oddly, Limbaugh said that he had refused to state “my original thought” on the massacre, and declined to answer when the caller asked him about it. This indicates that Rush probably does have a strong sympathy for the killer's views, which mirrors much of the same rhetoric Limbaugh uses against liberals and the left. Earlier in the show, Limbaugh declared that everything Obama and the Democrats do is “poison” for America. But Rush understands that expressing agreement with a mass murderer is beyond the pale even for him.

Limbaugh still declared repeatedly, “Maybe we should listen to him,” but did so in a way that he could deny any responsibility and claim (falsely) to be doing the same thing as liberals after 9-11. In reality, repeating “Maybe we should listen to him” conveys the message of Limbaugh's sympathy with a mass murderer's hateful ideas.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh Announces Potential Debt Ceiling Deal

2011-07-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

A few minutes ago on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh announced the latest potential deal for raising the debt ceiling.

He spoke an hour ago with House Speaker John Boehner, who “filled me in on what is the latest proposal on the table.” According to Boehner via Limbaugh, “Boehner and Reid and McConnell are working among themselves.” Limbaugh said, “Sen. McConnell is on the same page with Boehner now.”

Limbaugh said, “The deal is that they're going to offer Obama $1.1 trillion in cuts, $1 trillion in debt limit increase,” and “appoint six members of each chamber to recommend the cuts.” “Each Congressional leader will get three appointees.”

Limbaugh said of the deal, “This short-term deal has no tax increases in it.” He added, “These are real rate cuts. There will not be any defense cuts in the 1.1 trillion.” According to Limbaugh, “The second round would require a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment.” I take that to mean that the Republicans would demand a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment next spring before extending the debt limit, but not demand its passage.

When Limbaugh asked if the $1.1 trillion in cuts would happen now or later, he said Boehner told him, “the 12 members of the blue-ribbon panel will make that decision.” Limbaugh worried, “We don't know what the cuts are and we don't know when they will occur.” He said, “This takes us through next April.”

Limbaugh seemed skeptical of the deal: “I'm still assimilating all of this.” But he didn't condemn the deal and seemed mildly supportive of this fact: “They are denying Obama what he really wants, which is a deal that will take them beyond 2012.” Limbaugh declared to Obama, “You're not even in the game at all.”

Is this real? I have no reason to doubt Limbaugh's close relationship to leading Republicans. I'm more skeptical of whether Harry Reid is on board with this. But an AP story indicates it might be real.

But I take this potential deal as a hopeful sign in many ways. Yes, it simply postpones the debt ceiling debate for another 9-12 months. But this is a losing issue for the Republicans, when Obama has repeatedly offered a long-term solution to the problem. As for the $1.1 trillion in cuts, it's far from ideal, but having six Democrats on the blue-ribbon committee means that there will not be cuts controlled by Republicans. The fact that Limbaugh is uncertain about this suggests it's not such a terrible deal for liberals, considering the dire circumstances that Republicans have put this country in. Obama will take a political hit by backing down from a veto threat now, but next spring he'll be able to do an “I told you so” when another debt crisis looms and the Republicans will be, once again, standing for the principle of tax cuts for wealthy, which will hurt them in the elections.

As always, it's so bizarre that the Republican leaders are running to a right-wing crackpot like Rush Limbaugh to announce their plans and desperately try to convince him not to bring the conservative movement down against this. As I note in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, it shows how much the Republican politicians must bow before Limbaugh, no matter how much it harms the country.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh Lies to 13-Year-Old Girl

2011-07-07T12:39:00.001-07:00

On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh told a 13-year-old girl who called the show that he was “documented to be right 99.6% of the time,” in response to her mentioning that she had heard he was right 99% of the time. There's only one problem with Limbaugh's assertion: it's a total fabrication.

I don't mean “fabrication” in the sense that I disagree with the people who document that Limbaugh is right 99.6% of the time. I mean “fabrication” in the sense that there are no documents, no audit, no people measuring Limbaugh's accuracy. Limbaugh simply is making it all up and inventing an arbitrary number that makes him sound authoritative.

That's right: Limbaugh actually has the audacity to completely fabricate his own accuracy ratings. And he does this regularly, declaring his accuracy ratings to be above 99% on almost a weekly basis.

For almost his entire career as a talk show host, Limbaugh has claimed to have a highly specific measure of his accuracy, declaring in 1992 that he is right "97.9 per cent of the time."

By 2009, Limbaugh was claiming, “I have an official opinion auditing firm, the Sullivan Group in Sacramento. They just last week released an audit of my opinion since the election. As you know, I went into the election documented to be almost always right 98.9%. I have jumped a full tenth of a point. I have not been wrong since the election, according to Sullivan Group, the opinion audit now documented to be almost always right 99% of the time.”

The Sullivan Group is an investment brokerage firm started by Limbaugh’s friend Tom Sullivan, who hosted a show at Limbaugh's original station KFBK in Sacramento (and now hosts a show on Fox News Radio and the Fox Business Network). The Sullivan Group, which Sullivan sold to Prudential Securities in 1986, would have no expertise in documenting opinions, and the entire reference is an inside joke by Limbaugh. There is no audit of Limbaugh's accuracy by The Sullivan Group or anyone else, and the whole idea of auditing opinions rather than facts is silly. It's simply a way of mocking his enemies and even his own audience by getting them to think there is some kind of statistical basis to his claim to being right.

Limbaugh explained, “they only audit opinions. They don't audit whether I misspeak on a fact or something like.” He added, “it is a massively complex -- I mean the server farm to handle all this, folks, fills rooms at the Sullivan Group. I mean this is even more complicated than trying to explain my diet.” Obviously, there is no computer program that could measure the accuracy of opinions, nor is there any “server farm” filling rooms that would be needed to run it. In this unique instance, Limbaugh was detailed enough about the “audit” to reveal to a careful listener what a fraud it was. But on most shows, Limbaugh simply declares that he is “documented to be almost always right 99.8% of the time.” Magically, his error rate dropped from 1 percent to 0.2 percent in less than a month in 2009. Limbaugh's claims to be almost perfect in his accuracy have grown precisely when his dishonesty and inaccuracy on the air has reached new heights.

As I document in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason (Thomas Dunne Books, March 2011), Limbaugh is a professional liar who routinely spreads false rumors and lies about his enemies.

Yet not one media outlet I've found has ever reported on Limbaugh's fakery. It should be a scandal that the leading conservative regularly fabricates accuracy ratings in order to deceive his gullible listeners. This is not a new story. But there's something just so sleazy about Limbaugh directly lying to a 13-year-old who trusts him because she thinks there's scientific proof that Rush is always right.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Compares Obama to Dog

2011-06-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today, Rush Limbaugh called the president of the United States a dumb animal, comparing Obama to Limbaugh's dog:

One of our dogs -- poor Wellesley, cutest little sheepdog puppy -- just no matter what we do... You know, I'm sitting on the couch, and Kathryn will come home and the dogs go nuts when Kathryn comes home; and this dog, I'll have the iPad, and I'll be flitting around on the couch, too. She'll just attack. She just starts licking me and I put my arms up to protect myself. "No, Wellesley, no," and Kathryn says, "She just doesn't know." Well, Obama just doesn't know. He just doesn't know. He thinks that attacking corporate air travel and corporate air manufacturing happens in a vacuum.

Of course, this assertion that Obama “doesn't know” anything runs in direct contradiction to Limbaugh's favorite conspiracy theory, that Obama is intentionally destroying the American economy in order to expand his political power. But intellectual consistency has never been Limbaugh's strongest trait.

But this attack on Obama as a dumb animal came because Obama spoke out against tax breaks for the owners of private jets. As the owner of a very expensive private jet, a $54 million Gulfstream G550, Limbaugh cannot tolerate having his luxuries critiqued. Of course, Limbaugh's economic analysis, claiming that tax breaks for the wealthy are the only things keeping aloft the private jet industry (and, apparently the whole American economy) is idiotic. However, Limbaugh never met a tax break for the wealthy that he didn't like.

As I note in my book about Limbaugh, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, he often compares Democrats to dogs, although in the past he has almost always reserved this attack for women. Early in his talk show career, Limbaugh called the National Organization for Women “a terrorist organization” and described two members of the group on the air as “ugly dogs.” Limbaugh also mocked Rosie O'Donnell by saying, "I'm telling you, the deal was about the dog biscuits that they gave her on the floor in the dressing room were just the wrong flavor. They couldn't come to an agreement on the flavor of the Ken-L Ration that she eats."

Limbaugh also compares the children to liberals to dogs, as he did to Chelsea Clinton. On November 6, 1992, Rush said on his television show: “In: A cute kid in the White House. Out: Cute dog in the White House.' Could--could we see the cute kid? Let's take a look at--see who is the cute kid in the White House. [A picture is shown of Millie the dog] No, no, no. That's not the kid. [Picture shown of Chelsea Clinton] That's--that's the kid. We're trying to...[Applause] No, just kidding.” Over the years, Limbaugh has tried to lie about this and pretend that he never arranged the dog-Chelsea comparison on his TV show.

So the newest comparison of his enemies to dogs should surprise no one. But it's typical of Limbaugh that he compares Obama to a dumb dog precisely on an issue where it's Limbaugh who has an idiotic perspective.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

The Myth of the Muslim 57 States

2011-06-20T10:37:00.001-07:00

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx) last week announced on the floor of the House of Representatives that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who announced his devotion to a global caliphate in 2008 by referring to 57 states. Here's the crazy:

GOHMERT: And I know the President made the mistake one day of saying he had visited all 57 states, and I'm well aware that there are not 57 states in this country, although there are 57 members of OIC, the Islamic states in the world. Perhaps there was some confusion whether he'd been to all 57 Islamic states as opposed to all 50 U.S. states. But nonetheless, we have an obligation to the 50 American states, not the 57 Muslim, Islamic states. Our oath we took is in this body, in this House. And it's to the people of America. And it's not to the Muslim Brotherhood, who may very well take over Egypt and once they do, they are bent upon setting up a caliphate around the world, including the United States. And this administration will been [sic] complicit in helping people who wants [sic] to destroy our country.

This loony conspiracy theory has been around for a long time, as Snopes notes. There’s a very simple explanation for Obama’s slip of the tongue in this youtube video that's been watched more than three million times:

Obama said in this 2008 visit to Oregon that he had visited 57 states, “one left to go” and then noted that he couldn’t go to Alaska and Hawaii because it was too far to justify. So, Obama was trying to visit all 48 continental states, and he was trying to say that he had been to 47 states. It’s very easy to say 57 instead of 47. “fifty” is similar to “forty” and when we talk about the states, it is ingrained in all of us to say “50 states” instinctively.
It’s true that people mocked George W. Bush for his slips of the tongue, although Obama's “57 states” slip wouldn't even come close to making the top 25 Bushisms. But no Bush critic even went back three years and imagined some crazy Muslim plot was behind a slip of the tongue. This lunacy deserves a lot more media coverage, to expose just how far the wingnuts of the conservative movement have gone.

Rush Limbaugh is a particular fan of the “57 states” slip. He has referred to it at least 22 times on his show (I can provide the links for anyone who is interested). In the past month alone, Limbaugh has twice referred to the three-year-old “gaffe.”

Back in 2008, Rush Limbaugh decided to tweak the media and declared, “Obama said he's going to campaign in 57 states, and it turns out that there are 57 Islamic states.” This goofy comment has now become the theory of bigoted Republicans speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Why has Obama Derangement Syndrome reached the point where the right-wing is obsessed with delusional Muslim conspiracy theories over one very minor slip of the tongue by a presidential candidate three years ago? It reflects both the racism and the anger of the far right, who believe that “all liberals are idiots” (to quote Rush Limbaugh) and must flail at pathetic evidence to prove the evil and stupidity of Barack Obama, when all it does is reveal their own idiocy and bigotry.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh Sells Out the Tea Party

2011-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh has always sought to make himself rich from the tea party movement, by turning the discontent of Americans from the Bush Recession into profitable listeners who delight in hearing him blame “the Obama recession” for all their problems since two days after Obama was elected in 2008.

But now Limbaugh has decided that the tea party movement really is a sucker born every minute, and so he's going to make more money off them by selling them bottles of tea, with a label hilariously featuring Limbaugh dressed up as Paul Revere on a horse, except that he's holding a bottle of his own tea instead of a bell, or whatever it was Sarah Palin said was used to warn the British. (In fairness, Limbaugh's site offers a history of Paul Revere that is actually accurate, unlike Palin's.)

Today on his show, Limbaugh announced that he is selling “Two If By Tea.” Limbaugh proclaimed “the labels are works of art” and even added, “it's the best shrink wrap to go along with the best tea.”

According to his website, “Two If By Tea™ is made just the way my mother used to make it.” However, Rush explained on his radio show, “this is real tea brewed in giant vats” and added, “this assembly line has created jobs.” Perhaps Rush's mother used to make her tea in giant vats on an assembly line, but I doubt it.

Limbaugh proclaimed that buying his tea was a stand for America: “Fellow Americans, hold on to our exceptional values, stand up against those who want to suppress your individual rights and above all take pride in being an American! While you’re at it, join me in drinking a bottle of my tea as we admire the great United States of America and the military and law enforcement officials who fight to defend our freedom every day. Thank God, yes God, for the blessings of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and of course, this wonderful drink - Two If By Tea™!”

The website explains, “The Liberals are coming. My good friend Paul Revere laid out the blueprint of how to deal with this. Sound the alarm! One if by land, Two If By Tea™!” What this bad pun would seem to mean is that liberals are invading America via tea, if any of it made sense.

Limbaugh's site declares, “Each bottle is designed to rise above the sameness and mediocrity that threatens our great nation. Just grab a 12-pack and join the fight to preserve the America we know and love. It's worth it!” Worth it? Patriotism is expensive. Limbaugh is charging $23.76 per case, or $1.99 per bottle, an extraordinary markup on 16 oz. of tea. By charging over $15 a gallon for his tea (more than four times the price of gasoline), Limbaugh is simply trying to turn his dutiful listeners in a profit machine.

Limbaugh claims that part of the money he'll make will go to charity, but he's been telling different stories about exactly how much. The website promises a $100,000 donation to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation. Limbaugh proclaimed that “a portion of each sale goes to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation” but he also said that “a percentage of the profits are going to” the charity. So which one is it? Limbaugh loves to use the military to make more money, such as when he asks fans to give him money in order to provide a free Rush 24/7 subscription to soldiers, with Rush and his company making a healthy profit. His tea seems to be just another cynical manipulation of patriotism to line his own pockets.

This week, Politico revealed something that I had reported in my book about Limbaugh, that his praise for the Heritage Foundation is a product of the $2 million a year that Heritage gives him to promote their work.

Limbaugh has been a dutiful promoter of his advertisers. Limbaugh declared that he was “continually amazed that the Heritage Foundation” produced its right-wing analysis. Not convincingly, he added, “I'm not saying this because they're a sponsor." Of course, Limbaugh was saying that precisely because they're a sponsor. In fact, he charged them an enormous amount of money for what he said.

Remarkably, in the middle of one ad, Rush proclaimed, "I, my friends, am a long time member of the Heritage Foundation, I'm not a comp member, either, I pay for it, I don't accept comps, I don't want to be obligated, I don't like conflicts of interest.” To Limbaugh, taking something for free is a conflict of interest, but getting paid $2 million to promote an organization is not.

Of course, Limbaugh denounces the leaders of liberal non-profit groups who “do not have normal jobs” while he praises non-profit conservative groups like Heritage. It's all a question of profits. That's what motivates Limbaugh.

Selling overpriced tea with his face on it is just another way for Limbaugh to make money from his gullible listeners.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush and Breitbart: The Lunatics of the Right

2011-06-03T09:16:00.001-07:00

The June 2011 issue of The Limbaugh Letter features Rush's interview with Andrew Breitbart, and it's an unintentionally illuminating look into the dark soul of a sick and hateful man. The Limbaugh Letter is not online, but as the author of a new book about Limbaugh, I have a subscription. Most of the issue recycles a few of Limbaugh's tirades, such as his bizarre demand after the killing of Osama bin Laden that “the left owes us an apology” because “the primary obstacle to achieving the end of bin Laden was the Democrat Party.”

But I devote a book to analyzing the partisan insanity of Rush Limbaugh, so let's just look at the only original aspect of The Limbaugh Letter: the interview with Breitbart. The interview begins with Rush calling Breitbart “my boy” and the mutual love fest grows from there.

Breitbart explains why he became a conservative: “The humiliation of having to get a wait job in fancy Los Angeles, waiting on college and high school friends who were on the fast track to Hollywood success, was a wakeup call.” He resented them for “knowing the right people and possessing the politically correct philosophy of liberalism.” Of course, none of this makes sense, since Breitbart claims he was a liberal at the time, so his ideology had nothing to do with his failures. Breitbart's final words in the interview return to this petulant envy: “I consider David Geffen, Ari Emanuel, all these Hollywood people, they're bullies, they're elitist, they take my lovely 7 o'clock reservations and make me sit near the wait station at 9 o'clock. It's personal.”

Breitbart is admitting that personal hatred at the Hollywood left motivated his return to his parents' conservative views. Ironically, Breitbart became a conservative because of his hatred of wealthy people. Since the rich people where he worked as a waiter happened to be liberal, Breitbart became a conservative.

Bizarrely, he also admits that he disliked Limbaugh until his hatred of bands such as Nirvana led him back to the right: “because of my pure hatred for grunge music, during the 1992 election cycle I grudgingly switched from the FM dial to the AM dial, and I started to listen to you.”

Breitbart also contends that conservatism cured his insomnia: “I used to have insomnia. I think that insomnia was borne of existing in a world in which I believed in nothing. I haven't had insomnia since I embraced conservatism.”

Breitbart espouses conspiracy theories, claiming that American culture is “tilted to the left, on purpose in an organized and conspiratorial fashion.” And he wants his own conspiracy, criticizing those “conservative millionaires and billionaires who don't recognize that our culture is there for the taking.”

Breitbart proudly discussed one of his most recent scams, the student who took video of a labor studies course at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Breitbart posted manipulated videos on his website in an effort to smear the professors. The administration at the university concluded that the videos Breitbart posted were “heavily distorted” and inaccurate.

What's interesting to me is how Breitbart describes this college course: “it showed them in full-throttle indoctrination of the children into communism.” Beyond the bizarre idea that an analysis of labor union actions is “communism,” consider how strange it is that Breitbart regards college students as “children” who are suffering “indoctrination” at the hands of their professors and must be protected from these “bullies.” Breitbart regards other people as dolts and children, idiots who can be controlled by the owners of cultural institutions and incapable of resisting the power of “bullies” who express different points of view than Breitbart's.

Limbaugh defended Breitbart in this interview by telling him, “You've not edited your footage to have somebody saying something they didn't say, which is a common practice on the other side. It's hilarious to watch you be lectured on this stuff.” Actually, Breitbart definitely has edited his footage to have somebody saying something they didn't say. That's precisely what Breitbart has done on many occasions (while Limbaugh offers no evidence of anyone on the left who does this).

Breitbart was quite open about his techniques: “What we do at the end of the day, is the gang tackle. If we see somebody being bullied, like Trig, Palin's kid, I go: 'Sic 'em.' And I say, “Make sure there isn't an ounce of meat left on their bones when you're done.' That is my business model: I hate bullies. I've always hated them.” Breitbart has a bizarre imagination, to claim that Trig Palin is being bullied, and then to invoke the violent imagery of stripping the flesh from the bones of his enemies.

The interview offers some insights into the mental illnesses of Andrew Breitbart, of how an untalented man who failed to make it in Hollywood turned his resentment as a waiter at the success of others into a highly successful career as a right-wing hit man, a brainless bully who imagines himself to be a superhero of the right standing up against the “bullies” who dare to criticize any conservatives.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh: Black Children Taught to Hate America

2011-05-14T08:55:00.001-07:00

Note: for those of you in the Chicago area, I'll be doing a book talk about The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason today (Sat. May 14) at 2pm at the Evanston Public Library.

On Friday, Rush Limbaugh declared on his show that all black children are taught by their families to hate America. He was trying to explain why so many blacks vote for Democrats, while more Hispanics vote for Republicans: “We do not have institutionalized hatred of this country being taught in Hispanic households.”

The irony is that a few moments before Rush accused all blacks of hating America, he declared: “I do not look at people as members of groups.”

Exactly what does Rush mean when he says that black households teach their children “institutionalized hatred of this country”? Limbaugh frequently claims that Obama “hates this country." In part, it's a repeat of the old cry that anyone who criticizes conservative ideas is un-American.

Last week, Rush offered a defense against the accusation that he's racist for hating Obama: “I don't like his white side, either.”

It's true that Rush hates all liberals of all races. Rush would hate Obama no matter what color he was. But that doesn't make Rush innocent of the charge of racism. Rush expresses his hatred of Obama in racist ways.

And when Rush claims that black children are taught to hate America, it reflects a fundamentally racist view.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh Smears Obama as "Osama" 6 Times

2011-05-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh had a lot to apologize for today after the death of Osama Bin Laden. For years, he's been telling his audience that Bin Laden was dead long ago (“don't doubt me”). He's compared Bin Laden to President Obama and other Democrats. He's been smearing Obama as an incompetent president on foreign policy, and repeatedly mocked Obama for failing to get Bin Laden. Now that Obama succeeded where George W. Bush failed, Limbaugh owed his audience a lot of regret.

Instead, he made no apologies at all. Limbaugh simply pretended that he'd never made any of his previous errors about Bin Laden and Obama. Rush gave George W. Bush all the credit for Bin Laden's demise, offering Obama only mock congratulations for following Bush's policies.

Six times on his show today, Rush “accidentally” referred to Obama as “Osama.” And Limbaugh reached his lowest point by claiming that Obama only went after Bin Laden for political opportunism. At a moment when America was united by relief at Bin Laden finally being found, Limbaugh turned it into an opportunity for sleazy partisanship to smear his political enemies.

Limbaugh began his show today by announcing that he was “documented” to be right “99.6% of the time” (a completely fake statistic), and concluded his show by commanding his audience, “Don't doubt me.”

In reality, Limbaugh has a long record of being completely wrong about Osama Bin Laden. As I wrote in my new book about Limbaugh, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, “Crackpot theories dominate Limbaugh's thinking, such as his certainty that Osama Bin Laden, despite regularly putting out tapes, is dead: 'he's not alive! Don't doubt me on this.'” On March 17, 2010, Limbaugh declared that any evidence of Bin Laden being alive was just a vast conspiracy to smear George W. Bush: “The reason he will never be tried in the US court system is, he's already dead. He's been dead for years. Everybody knows it. The reason we're not talking about getting Bin Laden now is because everybody knows he's already dead. They just used that against Bush to show his Iraq policy was wrong and his Afghanistan policy was a failure.”

Don't doubt Rush on this. Everybody knows Bin Laden was dead for years, because any other facts might make George W. Bush look bad. Limbaugh even claimed today that the timing of the Obama speech was a conspiracy designed to interrupt Donald Trump's show Celebrity Apprentice: “Obama single-handedly gets the last half hour of Trump's show pre-empted.”

Six times during his show today, Limbaugh “accidentally” mixed up Obama and Bin Laden: “Obama—sorry, Osama—is dead.” He said, “couriers were needed by Obama—uh, Osama.” He referred to “the death of Obama.” He said, “One of Obama—sorry--Osama's wives pointed him out.” At one point, Limbaugh even got mixed up in his intentional accidents, referring to “Obama—sorry, Osama—no, Obama, Obama.” And perhaps most disturbing of all, Limbaugh talked about “killing Obama and producing DNA—uh, Osama.”

This isn't anything new for Limbaugh. When Obama ran for president in 2007, Limbaugh routinely referred to him as “Osama Obama,” based on a slip of the tongue by Senator Edward Kennedy. But there's nothing accidental about calling the leading terrorist in the world “Obama” six times in one show.

Limbaugh has repeatedly compared Obama to Bin Laden, such as this example from September 2007, when Limbaugh openly compared Obama to Bin Laden: "Well, we've got another tape from -- I get these guys confused -- Usama bin Laden. Another tape says he's going to invade Pakistan and declare war on Pakistan and Musharraf, which, ladies and gentlemen, puts him on the same page with a Democrat presidential candidate -- that would be Barack 'Uss-Obama.'" When CNN accidentally mixed up Osama and Obama in 2007, Limbaugh wondered, “have they apologized to Osama bin Laden for call him Barack Obama?”

In 2008, Obama was shown in a photograph wearing traditional Kenyan garb, and Limbaugh complained that “Obama dresses up like Bin Laden, and if you mention it, it's a scurrilous attack.” On October 10, 2010, Limbaugh discussed “Osama Bin Laden, who, if he would shave his beard and get rid of the imam cap, could run as a Democrat and get elected anywhere in this country.” On January 29, 2010, Rush openly compared Bin Laden to Obama: “Every day it gets harder and harder to tell Bin Laden's complaints from those of the average, run-of-the-mill leftists like Obama.”

Just a month ago, Limbaugh was denouncing Obama's efforts to promote democracy in Libya, claiming that Khadafy's replacement in Libya “could be Osama bin Laden.” This was part of Limbaugh's loony conspiracy theory that the rebels in Libya were actually al Qaeda, but it reflect Limbaugh's insane belief that Obama and Bin Laden share the same political philosophy.

After trying to ignore Bin Laden for most of the Bush presidency because he couldn't blame a Republican for failing to capture him (instead, he blamed Clinton), Limbaugh began to be concerned about Osama Bin Laden's freedom when Barack Obama ran for president. Limbaugh mocked “Little Barry Obama's Summer Trip” to Afghanistan in the summer of 2008: ““Hey, somebody answer a question for me. Has Obama found Bin Laden yet?” Using his usual racist language, Limbaugh accused Obama of “pimping Bush's ride. Here's a guy that's been in the Senate for 143 days, rather, saying we need more troops in Afghanistan when he goes over there?” On July 21, 2008, Limbaugh ridiculed Obama for criticizing Bush's failure to catch Bin Laden: “Hey, Obama, he's in Pakistan. How come you haven't caught him yet, pal? You're right over there.”

Less than three months after Obama became president, Limbaugh was complaining that Bin Laden hadn't been captured. On April 3, 2009, Limbaugh declared: “Have you heard a whisper even about capturing Osama Bin Laden?” By September 16, 2009, Limbaugh was mocking Obama for failing to capture bin Laden less than nine months into his first term: “By the way, whatever happened to our measure of success in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan by capturing Osama? Whatever happened to that? Remember all through the Bush presidency, 'Well, Bush hasn't done anything. We haven't won anything. Osama is out there. We haven't captured Osama.' Are we trying to capture Osama bin Laden now? We're defining victory differently.” On December 1, 2009, Limbaugh insulted Obama again for not capturing Bin Laden: “It's obvious to me that Bin Laden is dead for one reason: Obama hasn't captured him. Because Obama can do everything! Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama! Well, we don't have Bin Laden. That must mean he's dead. There must be nobody to capture.”

When Bin Laden was finally killed, Limbaugh offered only mock congratulations today to Obama: “President Obama deserves praise for continuing the policies established by George W. Bush.” Of course, Limbaugh conveniently ignores the fact that Obama was pursuing his own policy to intensify the efforts in Afghanistan and to find Bin Laden. Bush's policy was to start a war in Iraq that distracted attention from the hunt for Bin Laden and the attempt to secure Afghanistan, with disastrous consequences everywhere. Limbaugh falsely claimed that Obama did not “end harsh-interrogation techniques” Bush had allowed.

Rush gave all the credit to George W. Bush: “This is something Obama inherited from Bush.....He inherited the policy that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden.” Of course, Limbaugh is lying again. Everyone wanted to have Bin Laden captured or killed. Bush's approach was to fail to capture Bin Laden and then divert attention from Bin Laden and Afghanistan by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq. Obama's approach was to escalate military action in Afghanistan, increase the focus on getting Bin Laden, and using far more military attacks within Pakistan. It's absurd to claim that Obama was continuing the same policies of Bush.

Limbaugh attacked Obama today by claiming, “he led his supporters to believe that he would be disassembling this program” that led to Bin Laden's death. Rush was lying again. Obama never proposed getting rid of any special operations program, nor did he oppose interrogations of al Qaeda operatives. Obama opposed torture, and wanted to shut down Guantanamo and put terrorists on trial. He never wanted to disassemble any program to get Bin Laden.

The Obama policy that led to Bin Laden's death was first announced in 2007, when Obama declared that “If we have actual intelligence against Bin Laden or other key Al-Qaeda officials, and we -- and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should.”
Limbaugh declared on August 1, 2007, “this is just a huge boondoggle. He's shown he does not have the gravitas. He does not have the experience. He doesn't have the sensitivities.”

Limbaugh added that he didn't believe Obama would do it: “By the way, for those of you who just cringe when you hear Barack Obama start talking about invading Pakistan to go get bin Laden and thus to claim victory in the war? It's just sophistry.” That dangerous "sophistry" is exacted what Obama did. Limbaugh would make up all kinds of false statements about what Obama said. Rush claimed, “Obama was threatening to nuke Pakistan if they didn't give us Bin Laden when we found him.”
Of course, Obama never said anything like that. Yet on September 15, 2008, Limbaugh mocked the idea that “Obama is qualified to be president” based entirely on that statement about going into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

Limbaugh claimed that in Obama's May 1, 2011 speech about Bin Laden's death, “We all saw Obama announcing his single-handed involvement.” That's a complete lie, as everyone who watched Obama's speech knows (and even Rush's first caller challenged him on it while Limbaugh was baffled by her complaint). Limbaugh asserted that Obama's use of the words “I,” “me,” and “mine” proved his self-centeredness, even though Obama used “we” and “us” more often and only used “I” to reasonably describe his own actions. Today, Limbaugh called Obama “a narcissist in the cult of personality.” The truth is that Limbaugh is the narcissist caught up in his own cult of personality, unable to see anything other than political gains to be made from the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Perhaps the sleaziest things Limbaugh said today was that Obama had attacked Bin Laden solely for political reasons: “If he was a shoo-in for re-election, Osama Bin Laden would still be alive today.” It's time to ask conservatives and Republican officials if they agree with Limbaugh's crude partisan smears, or if they're finally willing to speak out against America's leading force for crazy conspiracy theories, falsified facts, and divisive political attacks.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush's Racist Rant and Fake Quotes

2011-04-26T06:50:00.001-07:00

Rush Limbaugh's racism is becoming more and more obvious as he lets his hatred of Obama shine through in openly bigoted ways. And to push that racism, he's even turned to fabricating quotes that have never been uttered. On Friday, Rush declared on his show,

Obama has not built 'em the new kitchen that he promised or led them to believe that were gonna get in Tampa. And there are no new cars for everybody. And white people are not shining the shoes of black people. Well, I remember that Tampa fundraiser, that Tampa town hall, we had audiotape of some black people who said, "From now on you all are gonna be waiting on us." Remember that? That's what the election meant to some people.

Obviously, the idea of “white people” shining the shoes of black people was what the 2008 election meant to Rush Limbaugh, and he hates it. But for most Americans, the 2008 election was not seen through the prism of racial paranoia that Rush Limbaugh uses.

Limbaugh's racist fear of “white people” subservient to black people drew surprisingly little criticism, except from Media Matters and a few bloggers on the left.

On his April 25, 2011 show, Limbaugh said nothing about his lies about Henrietta Hughes or Obama and his supporters, nor did he over any evidence to support his fictional claims. But Rush did express outrage that Dr. Wallace Charles Smith, pastor of a church Obama has attended, in a sermon earlier last year “saw fit to compare me to the modern-day KKK.” It is indeed an outrageous comparison. The KKK is widely denounced for its racism by nearly everyone today; Rush Limbaugh's racism, on the other hand, is rarely criticized in any mainstream media outlet.

In fact, I can't find anyone in the mainstream media who bothered to report on the astonishing fact that the leading conservative talk show host in the country declared that Obama was elected to make white people serve blacks.

But Limbaugh's shining example of racism was only the beginning of his bigotry. I investigated his claim that black people said, “From now on you all are gonna be waiting on us.” It appears to be completely fabricated.

Here's the evidence. First, if you search for that quote on the internet, nothing comes up. I searched on Limbaugh's own website. I found no quote with the words “waiting on” or even “serving us.” It doesn't appear that Limbaugh has ever mentioned this quote before or anything like it. And if such a quote did exist, or anything resembling it, it's quite certain that Limbaugh would have played it. I've asked Limbaugh for any explanation or sources for his quote. He hasn't responded.

Next, I tracked down the event that Limbaugh is referring to where this quote was allegedly uttered by “black people.” In his Friday comment, Limbaugh says it was a “Tampa town hall” and refers to “new cars.” Because he's made this claim before about a Tampa town hall and new cars, it was easy to identify. And the story reveals another side of Limbaugh, his meanness and stupidity as well as his racism.

There was no town hall in Tampa. But there was an Obama town hall on Feb. 10, 2009 at Fort Myers, Florida (120 miles from Tampa) which Limbaugh often refers to when talking about “new cars.”

At this town hall, a black woman named Henrietta Hughes told Obama: “I have an urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in. We need urgent. And the housing authority has two years’ waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help.”

Limbaugh immediately misunderstood what Hughes said: “There's another bite coming up here, a crying woman named Henrietta asks Obama for a car, for a new kitchen and a bathroom. I am not kidding!”

Limbaugh was completely wrong. Hughes had been living in a pickup truck with her son for a year, and she was explaining that she only had that small vehicle to live in, using park facilities for their bathroom.

She wasn't asking for a car, let alone a new one. She wasn't asking for a new house or a new kitchen or a new bathroom in her house. She was asking for help getting a place to live so that she could have a kitchen and a bathroom, and pointing out that the two-year waiting list for housing assistance meant that she would be homeless for a long time with no hope of getting any help.

Limbaugh declared, “It was a disgrace what was on display in Fort Myers, Florida, yesterday. It was an absolute saddening, shocking, depressing disgrace. And you have created that segment of America that has no faith in and of itself, no faith in this country, and thinks the only reason to talk to a president is to ask him for a kitchen, to ask him for a car.”

Limbaugh's condemnation of the woman (and his fabricated claim that she asked for a new car) was the real disgrace. Limbaugh repeatedly (and falsely) smeared this homeless woman's desperate plea for help, mocking her as a 21st Century welfare queen. On February 17, 2009, Rush said: “You saw evidence of it at Fort Myers town hall. 'Mr. Obama, get me a car, get me a car, get me a kitchen, get me a new house...'” On February 25, 2009, he said: “the dropouts of America thought they were going to have handed to them a plate load of goodies, like Henrietta Hughes over in Fort Myers.”

On March 23, 2010, Limbaugh had once again lost track of where the town hall happened and simply invented a fake quote: “Shortly after Obama was immaculated, he did a town hall in Atlanta and a woman stood up and said, 'I need a new kitchen in my house and I actually need a new car, what are you going to do for me?'"

Limbaugh turned the Fort Myers event into a vast parade of black people demanding free cars: “Last time he was in Tampa all kinds of people showed up wanted a new car, they wanted a new dishwasher, they wanted a new kitchen. Remember that?” The story of one homeless woman asking for help finding a home had been turned by Rush into “these people” demanding all kinds of vehicles and appliances: “He went to Tampa and these people actually asked him for a new car and a new kitchen, a new dispose-all.”

When Limbaugh says “these people,” he means black people. Rush gave his particular racist interpretation of the Fort Myers town hall by describing what he thought Obama said ("My people don't want handouts, they want to work hard") and the crowd's reply ("Amen, bro, amen, amen"). Limbaugh's fictional “my people” and “bro” were obviously meant to refer to race. Obama actually said “people” aren't looking for a handout, not “my people.”

So it's clear that when Limbaugh on April 22, 2011 made this reference to Tampa and new cars, he was talking about the Fort Myers town hall. But that brings us back to the quote, “From now on you all are gonna be waiting on us,” which Limbaugh claims to have on audiotape. Nothing in any of Limbaugh's numerous comments about the Fort Myers town hall reveals any quote even remotely close to this statement. Nothing in any of the news stories and conservative attacks on the Fort Myers town hall shows that this quote ever happened.

The quote appears to be a complete fabrication, and it's time for Rush to put up or shut up. The media should be demanding evidence from Rush about this alleged audiotape, and they should be demanding an explanation for all of the fake quotes he's put in the mouth of Henrietta Hughes over the past two years. I challenge Limbaugh to prove what he says.

In my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, I devote many chapters to Limbaugh's fabrication of the facts, and a full chapter to provide clear-cut examples of Limbaugh's racial hatred. I defy anyone to read that chapter and these examples, and offer any rational proof that Limbaugh is not a racist.

Limbaugh engages in vicious racism and the complete fabrication of quotes to serve his bigoted agenda. It's time for the media and his conservative supporters to stop defending Rush's racism and instead acknowledge his bigotry and deceit as real.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's Lies about Earth Day

2011-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh loves to smear environmentalists at every turn. I devote a chapter in my book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, to Limbaugh's lies about the environmental movement.

But today, on Earth Day, Limbaugh took his deceit to a new extreme by claiming that Earth Day was founded by a murderer. Here's what he said:

Do you even remember, folks, Earth Day's founder, do you remember the story of Earth Day's founder? Do you even remember his name? Ira Einhorn. Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, April 22nd, 1970. Seven years later, the police raided his closet and found the composted body of his ex-girlfriend inside a trunk. Ira Einhorn, the father of Earth Day, killed and composted his girlfriend. And any time you mention this the Earth Day acolytes try to shut you up, and they don't want you having any success at besmirching the image of their great leader.

Except for the fact that Ira Einhorn was a murderer, pretty much everything Rush said is wrong. No one thinks that Einhorn was “the father of Earth Day.” The founder of Earth Day, as everyone knows, was Sen. Gaylord Nelson. The main organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970 was Denis Hayes. The first Earth Day was a nationwide phenomenon. The Philadelphia Earth Week was organized by a committee of 33 people, and it does not appear that Ira Einhorn was one of them.

In Rush's defense, some of the misinformation on his show came from a badly written piece by Remy Melina reprinted on MSNBC.com titled, “Earth Day co-founder killed, composted girlfriend.” That title alone should warn readers of the bias that would follow. (Interestingly, Melina's piece was reprinted from a tabloid-style website, lifeslittlemysteries.com, where other articles being featured include one titled, "CIA Cover-up Alleged in JFK's 'Secret UFO Inquiry.'")

Einhorn was a crackpot who called himself an environmentalist to help get himself attention. In 1977, he murdered his girlfriend and hid her body in a trunk in his apartment, where the mummified body was later found. This is the “composted” girlfriend being mocked in the headline and the story. Since decomposed bodies have nothing to do with composting (in fact, the body was found underneath some Styrofoam packing material), the only reason for putting this word in the story is to try to demean environmentalists.

Melina's article claims: “Although Einhorn was only the master of ceremonies at the first Earth Day event, he maintains that Earth Day was his idea and that he's responsible for launching it.”

It's not clear that Einhorn really still maintains that Earth Day was his idea, since he's serving a life sentence in prison and it doesn't appear that Melina talked with him or did any actual journalism for her article. (Melina's bio, by the way, indicates that “Remy has written for the Long Island Press and Shut Up! Magazine.”)

A Philadelphia Inquirer article from ten years ago, easily found on the web, revealed that Einhorn wasn't the founder of Earth Day, nor was he the host of the Philadelphia Earth Day celebration. Instead, this article indicates that he was a nut with few environmentalist supporters, but many fans among mainstream reporters, corporate leaders, and even the police. Einhorn was a speaker at the event who angered the actual organizers of the Philadelphia Earth Day by holding on to the microphone for 30 minutes and refusing to give it up until he finally welcomed Sen. Edmund Muskie by kissing him on the lips.

Einhorn wasn't the master of ceremonies at Earth Day, nor was he the leader of any environmental movement. He was a slick-talking phony who mostly charmed corporate America, according to a Time magazine profile: “the suits responded with free lunches, grants, consulting contracts, four-figure speaking fees.”

Einhorn was a very minor speaker among a long list of famous speakers at Philadelphia's Earth Week, which was one of many Earth Day events across the country. It is horrifying that Einhorn would murder a woman many years later, but obviously no one could have known that, and nothing about what he did has any connection to Earth Day, nor does Einhorn have any actual role in creating Earth Day except in his delusional mind and the equally delusional attacks of the far right.

It's understandable why Rush Limbaugh is willing to make up fake stories to smear environmentalists. It's less clear why MSNBC.com is doing the same by reprinting articles from a website with dubious stories like this. What Limbaugh and MSNBC.com did today shows the kind of media bias against the environmental movement that persists even 41 years after the first Earth Day.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Trump-Limbaugh 2012

2011-04-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

Nothing embodies the conservative movement today more than the combination of Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh. They're the perfect team: massive egos that know no bounds, and an endless capacity to spew insane conspiracy theories about Obama. Trump and Limbaugh would make the perfect Republican ticket for the presidency in 2012.

Perhaps the best indication that Trump might be thinking of running for president—and might stand a chance of winning the Republican nomination—is his appearance on Limbaugh's show, and the tacit endorsement from the far right's favorite host. Limbaugh is notorious for not having guests (because they interfere with his enjoyment of listening to himself), and Donald Trump may be the first political guest Limbaugh has ever had on twice in the span of two months.

When Trump appeared on Limbaugh's show Friday, he started off by giving $100,000 to Limbaugh's day-long charitable fundraiser. And his return appearance certainly had something to do with the fawning praise Trump gave the first time on Limbaugh's show: “I really enjoy your show and I really enjoy you. And a lot of people enjoy you very much, Rush. They just don't like saying it. They don't like giving you the credit that you deserve.”

The implicit support of Limbaugh for Trump may be the most important factor in Trump's dramatic rise in the polls among Republicans. For Limbaugh, Trump is exactly the wealthy celebrity buddy he loves. Limbaugh and Trump have played golf together. And unlike anyone with taste, a man like Limbaugh (who had a chandelier in the bathroom of his New York City penthouse) obviously loves Trump's ridiculous style. Rush, who relentlessly engages in product placement on his show, must admire Trump's willingness to sell anything. And the two like each other personally. According to Rush, “Trump's a funny guy.” He praised Trump for having “good old American can-do spirit -- and Trump's can-do spirit is backed up with Trump's can-do action.”

But one issue, more than any other, has made Limbaugh admire Trump: the birth certificate. Rush said, “He's tackling this birth thing head on. I mean head on. And they can't say that Trump is part of the Tea Party. He's not there. I mean he's a marginal Republican in terms of the way people classify, but I mean nobody is out there tackling this the way he is. I actually think, by the way, that Trump is providing a blueprint here. The way to beat Obama 2012 is to just go at him.”

Rush and Trump share a mutual friend at the forefront of the birther movement. Joseph Farah, editor of World Net Daily and a leader of the birther nuts, has been advising Trump about the birther issues: "We've have been speaking quite a bit." Farah also was the ghostwriter of Rush Limbaugh's second book back in 1993. Farah has praised Limbaugh for siding with the birthers: "What that did is beyond Rush's impact. It also gives other talk show hosts license to talk about this issue.…Rush is kind of the standard of talk show hosts. A lot of people emulate what he does. He crossed the Rubicon on that show, and I'm very proud of him for doing it."

Limbaugh's embrace of Trump has been controversial among some of his conservative listeners who know that Trump isn't a real conservative. Limbaugh told one caller who criticized Trump, “you're sounding like the left does.” Limbaugh even defended Trump's political donations to Rahm Emanuel and Rod Blagojevich: “If you're doing business in Chicago, what are you gonna do?”

So far, Limbaugh has been nothing but obsequious toward the Donald. He's never mentioned how Trump in 1987 ran newspaper ads declaring that “The world is laughing at America's politicians,” a group that included Limbaugh's hero, Ronald Reagan. Nor has Limbaugh brought up Trump's book where he proposed single-payer health care. (Fortunately for Trump, Limbaugh doesn't read very many books.)

But Limbaugh's show made the Trump candidacy possible. By creating an alternative media universe where insanity has become the mainstream of the Republican Party, a crackpot like Trump can be taken seriously as a political candidate precisely because of the craziest theory he's ever publicly espoused: the birther myth.

Trump and Limbaugh, two nitwits with egos the size of the Trump Tower, have found each other. It's a love affair that America deserves to have on TV. Imagine what this reality show would offer.

Of course, Limbaugh would never accept a vice-presidential nomination. He doesn't want the scrutiny, or the hard work, of a campaign, nor would he ever give up his salary of $57 million per year. But if Trump runs for president, Limbaugh will be his symbolic VP candidate, the one attacking all enemies and reassuring conservatives that Trump is the real thing. Meanwhile, Republican candidates are reluctant to attack Trump out of fear that Limbaugh might turn against them. Limbaugh and Trump may seem like a political odd couple, but they represent the ugly future of the Republican Party.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh's Breast Obsession

2011-04-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

Today, Rush Limbaugh focused on women's breasts. He brought up a story that he's been telling for decades, even though it's all a lie. According to Rush, there was a scientific study years ago that proved, “The higher the bust size, the lower the IQ at Tufts.” He declared, “I remember reporting on that.” No one, including Rush, has ever been able to show any evidence of any study at Tufts linking breast size and intelligence.

As I note in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Limbaugh has been pushing this nonexistent story for decades.

Limbaugh asserted on his TV show on May 13, 1994: "Now I got something for you that's true--1972, Tufts University, Boston. This is 24 years ago--or 22 years ago. Three year study of 5000 co-eds, and they used a benchmark of a bra size of 34C. They found that the--now wait. It's true. The larger the bra-size, the smaller the IQ."

However, no one at Tufts or anywhere else apparently did any study like this. Fifteen years later, Limbaugh again invoked this mythical study, but claimed that it proved “the larger the bust size, the higher the IQ.”

In 2010, Limbaugh complained that he had been criticized for talking about this study that no one has ever been able to find: “it's one of the things that's constantly pointed at as something I lie about, I just made up. I didn't make it up.” Limbaugh then reversed his position again on what this nonexistent study proved: “The smaller the bust size, the higher the IQ.”

Limbaugh also falsely referred to Tufts University as “a girls' school” (he corrected himself later, and perhaps it's just a coincidence that Limbaugh named his male dog “Wellesley”, the name of a famous women's college).

Limbaugh had brought up busts because he read a story today about Nancy Pelosi speaking at Tufts University. Coincidentally, breasts also have factored into some of Rush's most bizarre statements about Nancy Pelosi. After the 2007 inauguration of Pelosi as Speaker of the House, Limbaugh made strange statements on the air about Pelosi and the children of House Democrats at the inauguration, including Heath Shuler's two-year-old daughter. Limbaugh said about Pelosi during his little fantasy: "Maybe Pelosi breastfed him, I don't know, when the kid was pregnant. Who knows? She's capable of doing everything else."

Limbaugh's official transcript “corrected” what he actually said to say instead, “maybe Pelosi breast-fed her when the kid was -- who knows,” fixing Limbaugh's gender error about the child and his bizarre use of the word “pregnant.”

Limbaugh was particularly obsessed about imagined breastfeeding by Pelosi, a grandmother who was 66 years old at the time: "look at Ms. Pelosi. Why, she can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House, all while the kids are sitting on her lap at the same time."

What motivates the idiocy of Rush Limbaugh? Is he trying to pump up his ratings by talking about boobs? Yes. Is he a sexist pig who regards women as little more than their physical attributes? Yes. After all, Limbaugh in 2007 said this about his cat:

She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life.

Shortly after mentioning the imaginary Tufts bust study today, Limbaugh told his audience, “Don't doubt me.” Considering how much of Rush's show is completely fictional, it's amazing that anyone can believe in any of the nonsense he makes up on the air.

Bust size doesn't cause a lowered IQ, but listening to Rush Limbaugh does.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh: Portrait of a Birther

2011-04-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

On Friday's show, Rush Limbaugh finally came out publicly and admitted that he's a birther. He declared about Obama, “he's got a grandmother or aunt in Kenya who said she saw him born there.” Rush was so confident of this lie that he repeated it: “one of Obama's relatives, aunt or grandmother, swears that he was born in Kenya. She saw it. She was there at the birth.”

It's a complete lie, and was proven to be a lie more than two years ago. The truth is that Obama's Kenyan grandmother explicitly declared that Obama was born in Hawaii. However, a mistake by a translator earlier in the conversation with a birther gave the misimpression that the grandmother said something different. The mistake was revealed and clarified later in the tape, but birthers edited out the truth.

It takes a stunning level of stupidity to make these insane birther claims. And Rush Limbaugh has finally reached that level of stupidty.

As I note in my book about Rush, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Limbaugh has always been an ally of the birthers. While he often made birther jokes (some are used as bumper stickers by birthers), Limbaugh also discussed Obama's birth certificate many times, with great seriousness. In the middle of a discussion of Mark Sanford in June 2009, Limbaugh suddenly brought up the birth certificate again: “A friend of mine said, 'Where was Obama born?' And I don't know. He's not a native Hawaiian. Where was he born? I don't know. Supposedly Hawaii, but we don't have independent confirmation of it.” In July 2009, Limbaugh was still endorsing the birther movement by referring to Obama as having “no birth certificate.” Limbaugh was leery of announcing that Obama had been born in Kenya, but his tacit endorsement of the birthers was still clear.

WorldNetDaily editor-in-chief Joseph Farah (ghostwriter of Limbaugh's second book, and leader of a campaign to put up “Where's the Birth Certificate?” billboards around the country) noted the importance of Limbaugh’s stand with the birthers: "What that did is beyond Rush's impact. It also gives other talk show hosts license to talk about this issue.…Rush is kind of the standard of talk show hosts. A lot of people emulate what he does. He crossed the Rubicon on that show, and I'm very proud of him for doing it."

Now, Limbaugh has finally taken the further step to confess openly that he's a birther, something that he probably was all along but simply was too cowardly to admit. The man who gave Limbaugh the courage to come out of the birther closet was Donald Trump. Rush spoke with great admiration of his fellow birther: “Donald Trump is providing a lesson on how to beat Barack Obama. Donald Trump is showing that the way to do that is you go after these people.”

Limbaugh's willingness to admit his birther beliefs reflects the radical transformation of the Republican Party that Limbaugh himself led. Limbaugh has spawned a new generation of conspiracy nuts who have been so dumbed down by years of being Dittoheads that even plainly idiotic ideas like those of the birthers have become the mainstream of the conservative movement. And now Rush Limbaugh feels the need to lurch even further to the right in order to maintain his status as the leader of the lunatics.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh Compares Public Employees to Hitler

2011-03-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today, Rush Limbaugh yelled and screamed at a caller from Wisconsin, Mary Jo, who said she stayed in her public sector job despite offers of higher pay and better benefits in the private sector because “I feel I made a difference.” Limbaugh responded, “Adolf Hitler made a difference.”

After silently cutting off Mary Jo on the phone while he denounced her, Limbaugh proclaimed that if public employees are allowed to unionize, “their fellow citizens become the enemy.” According to Rush, “these people are at war with us.”

Limbaugh expanded his attacks to include every Democrat. He called Obama “a socialist” and accused Democrats of “destroying” the economy, “destroying social security,” and “destroying the housing market.” Rush's show was full of this lunacy, including his insane claim that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “are suggesting that we arm al Qaeda” in Libya. When a caller today referred to Obama as an “miserable little turd,” Limbaugh didn't disagree but simply responded that Obama was a greater threat to America than Gaddafi.

And using his war metaphor language, Limbaugh claimed: “The Democrat Party is taking direct aim at every family in this nation.” The response, Limbaugh said, needed to be more extremism: “We're the extremists? Fine. Then we need more of us.”

My book about Rush, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, includes many more cases where Limbaugh invokes violent rhetoric to attack Obama and liberals.

I'm no fan of false civility, but everyone should be worried when the leading radio show host in the country accuses public employees of being “the enemy” who is “at war with us” and calls for extremism in attacking Democrats.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's Hypocrisy on Media Matters

2011-03-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh joined Glenn Beck and other right-wing media in claiming that Media Matters for America is breaking the law because its founder David Brock promised "guerrila warfare and sabotage" against Fox News.

Limbaugh claimed, “Media Matters as a 501(c)(3). Media Matters, as such, is not permitted to engage in "partisan political activity." Well, that's all Media Matters has ever done.” According to Limbaugh, “they're breaking the law.”

One of Rush's advertisers, the Heritage Foundation, is also a 501(c)(3) charitable group. But Heritage engages in the very same “political” activism Rush thinks is illegal. How do we know that Heritage is involved in partisan political activity? Because Rush said so. When Heritage began advertising on Rush Limbaugh's show, he praised them because “they were, in large part, responsible for many policies that came out of the Reagan administration.” He said Heritage was Reagan's “favorite think tank.” He noted that “they attempt to influence budget questions.”

Of course, neither Media Matters nor the Heritage Foundation are breaking the law, although Heritage comes much closer to violating the law than Media Matters ever has. Heritage is involved directly in politics and legislation. The only connection Media Matters has to politics is criticizing the conservative bias of the media.

Rush added another legal theory to claiming that Media Matters should be criminalized: “What Media Matters is doing, you can call it 'tortuous interference,' which occurs when a person intentionally damages the plaintiff's contractual or other business relationships, and this is what Brock has announced: They're out to harm Murdoch's business interests. You cannot use a tax exempt organization to break the law.”

If criticizing media corporations and wishing ill upon them is a crime, then Limbaugh himself is guilty of it. After all, Rush has been denouncing “liberal” media corporations for years and taking credit for causing their ratings (and profits) to drop. Rush himself has repeatedly called for de-funding public broadcasting (another media corporation) and hurting their profits. So why shouldn't David Brock be free to seek to destroy Fox News Channel corporate interests if that's what makes him happy? Unless we carve out a “criticism of Rupert Murdoch” exception to the First Amendment, everyone should be free to criticize any person or corporation that they want to.

As I note in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Limbaugh only believes in free speech when it applies to him. He denounces progressive non-profit groups, while he takes money to praise conservative non-profit groups engaged in the very same activism. Limbaugh is a professional, partisan hypocrite.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Anti-Defamation League Condemns Limbaugh for "Feminazi"

2011-03-24T09:10:00.001-07:00

On Monday, Rush Limbaugh used one of his favorite words: “feminazi.” He was talking about a Wall Street Journal article in which women worried about how their 12-year-old daughters dress.

We've got some more feminazis concerned their daughters may live the lives they lived. And they don't like it. One of these feminazis is actually quoted as saying, '"If I could live my life over, I would never have pre-marital sex, even with the guy I ended up marrying."

This part of Rush's show was omitted from the transcript on his website, but the title of another segment on his website that day conveys the same sentiment about feminists: "Feminazis Worry Their Daughters Will Dress for Sex Like They Did."

I asked the Anti-Defamation League to respond to Limbaugh's comments, and here is the official statement the ADL sent me today:

The pejorative “feminazi” mocks activist women and at the same time trivializes the Holocaust. Comparisons to the Nazis may be politically expedient, but in the end they trivialize the Holocaust and are an insult to the memory of six million Jews and the millions of others who perished at the hands of Nazis. This sexist, offensive term has no place in civil discourse or society.

The ADL has previously criticized Limbaugh for dismissing the Nuremberg Trials as “an absolute joke, an absolute travesty” and comparing the Obama Administration to Nazis. In 2010, the ADL condemned Limbaugh's “borderline anti-Semitic” comments when Limbaugh said, "To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish” and added, “a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there's – if there's starting to be some buyer's remorse there."

However, this marks the first time the ADL has condemned Limbaugh for comparing feminists to Nazis.

I sent an email to Limbaugh asking for a response, but so far I haven't gotten any reply. He also didn't respond to my query Monday about whether he was willing to now admit that he regards all feminists as “feminazis.”

As I note in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, for years Limbaugh has been denying that he ever referred to feminists in general as feminazis. “No, I never did call feminists feminazis,” he told Barbara Walters. “There are a select few feminists who I call feminazis, and you have to really work hard to earn your way into the feminazi status. You know what feminazi really is is a woman who is so consumed with the advancement of the feminist agenda that she gets mad when a woman who's pregnant, who was going to have an abortion, is talked out of it; and women who think that, for example, all sex is rape, even the sex in marriage.” Limbaugh has repeatedly asserted that he has been misquoted and was only describing a “few” feminists as feminazis. He told Playboy, “I have been misstated, misrepresented, misreported on this. A feminazi is not a feminist.”

For decades, Limbaugh has been using the term “feminazi” without apology to smear the feminist movement. He wrote in his first book, “A Feminazi is a feminist to whom the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur. There are fewer than twenty-five known Feminazis in the United States.” The comparison of feminists fighting for gender equality to the most brutal and murderous regime in human history should shock everyone.

In 2004, Limbaugh named “Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Christine Lahti and Camryn Manheim” as “famous feminazis.” Perhaps the clearest evidence of Limbaugh's extraordinarily broad definition of “feminazi” came in 2007. When Debra Dickerson wrote a Salon.com article about Michelle Obama quitting her job to campaign full-time for her husband, Limbaugh declared, “that's truly bitter. These are angry women. I'm telling you, these militant feminazis are angry." But Dickerson's article never mentioned abortion at all. Dickerson merely expressed a common feminist concern that a politician's wife was expected to give up her professional career. Worrying about gender equality, Limbaugh claimed, makes you one of the “militant feminazis.”

In 2010, Limbaugh turned his incisive analysis to a march by topless women in Portland , Oregon : “I've been wondering, you know, how long are the feminazis going to take to get to this?” So now women without shirts are “feminazis”…because nothing embodies the genocide and terror of Hitler's Germany more than bare breasts.

For many years, Limbaugh has pretended that he only used the term “feminazi” to describe a tiny number of radical feminists. Now, he's using it to describe women worried about how their daughters dress, which is surely a population that runs in the millions.

So the Anti-Defamation League deserves praise for speaking out against a misogynist who tosses around Nazi analogies at mothers who worry about their 12-year-old daughters. It's time for the conservative movement, and Republican officials, to be asked to do the same. Do they agree that feminist mothers who are concerned about their daughters should be called Nazis?

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh: Feminists Are Nazis

2011-03-22T12:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh took a day off from his work denouncing teachers who make $51,000 as “freeloaders” and played golf instead of doing his three-hour job for $50 million a year. Of course, it's Limbaugh who is the freeloader, whether it's moving to Florida to avoid state income taxes, or using the free public airwaves of the stations that broadcast his show to profit himself.

Today, Rush was back at work, and back to his bizarre obsession with race. Limbaugh declared that stories about Michelle Obama's fashion sense were the result of racial affirmative action: “They feel sorry.”

It was Limbaugh's bigoted approach to gender that brought some of Limbaugh's most controversial comments of the day. Limbaugh denounced liberal men in the Obama Administration who were skeptical of attacking Libya as “the new castrati” and yelled, “they're sissies.” Those “liberal men” included Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and considering how Limbaugh used an anal cyst to evade the Vietnam War draft, perhaps he shouldn't go around calling people far more courageous than himself “sissies.”

But the most revealing moment of today's show came when Limbaugh referred to a story about feminist mothers who don't want their 12-year-old daughters to “dress for sex.” He described these feminist mothers as “feminazis.”

For years, Limbaugh has been denying that he ever referred to feminists in general as feminazis. “No, I never did call feminists feminazis,” he told Barbara Walters many years ago. “There are a select few feminists who I call feminazis, and you have to really work hard to earn your way into the feminazi status. You know what feminazi really is is a woman who is so consumed with the advancement of the feminist agenda that she gets mad when a woman who's pregnant, who was going to have an abortion, is talked out of it; and women who think that, for example, all sex is rape, even the sex in marriage.” Limbaugh has never, in his 25-year career on talk radio, offered any evidence of a single person who fits his definition of a “feminazi.”

Limbaugh has repeatedly asserted that he has been misquoted and was only describing a “few” feminists as feminazis. He told Playboy, “I have been misstated, misrepresented, misreported on this. A feminazi is not a feminist.”

But as I note in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Limbaugh regularly uses the term and has repeatedly referred to feminists as feminazis, without any of these narrow definitions. On today's radio show, Limbaugh makes clear what he has always felt: that all feminists are feminazis. He's simply been lying whenever he said anything else.

Will the Anti-Defamation League speak out against the description of feminist mothers as Nazis? Will Limbaugh's conservative friends and Republican officials be asked if they agree with his view that feminists who worry about the sexualization of young girls are “Nazis.”

Yes, there are commentators on the left and the right who abuse Nazi analogies. But no one does it more than Limbaugh, and no far left commentator has anything approaching Limbaugh's audience. When feminist mothers concerned about their daughters are “feminazis,” it means that all of us are “feminazis.” And it shows Limbaugh for what he truly is: a lying misogynist.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's Lies of the Week

2011-03-11T18:27:00.001-08:00

Here is a summary of a few of this week's lies, distortions, and radio atrocities by Rush Limbaugh, the subject of my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason.

It was a week of Limbaugh's crazed conspiracy theories, such as claiming that smart meters give "the government the power to wirelessly control your heat, your air conditioning, your water flow, your electricity all from the cozy central office."

Limbaugh reacted to the earthquake near Japan with great sympathy for the people killed there. No, I'm kidding, he actually used it to attack environmentalists, tell jokes, and discuss at great length how he likes to fly in his private jet over natural disasters, but he wouldn't go to Japan because he would have to land there: “Have you ever been tempted to take your plane and do a flyover in one of these big natural disasters to see it firsthand?” I haven't, because I don't have a private jet and I don't enjoy disaster porn. Rush, however, is very different from the little people he flies over in his jet.

Limbaugh joked about how the earthquake was 8.9 on the “Andy Richter scale” and wondered, “do the environmentalists cheer or do they pretend to be saddened by this?” Limbaugh claimed, “I have no doubt they're gonna try to claim global warming had something to do with the earthquake and the tsunami.” In reality, no one tried to blame the earthquake on global warming. But Limbaugh would never waste a chance to take a great tragedy and turn it into a mindless, nonsensical attack on liberals.

For Rush, the big news of the week was in Wisconsin, where he celebrated the Republican union-trashing as “a great and historic day” and added, “God bless and protect these courageous people.” Limbaugh argued that unions are evil because “95% of all deductions in dues go to Democrats,” which is both a lie and so incredibly stupid that you wonder if Limbaugh even understands that very little in union dues goes to political contributions. In another obvious lie, Limbaugh claimed that the Obama stimulus package led to “no roads, no bridges, no private sector jobs” and instead was all a political “slush fund” and “everything else was a fraud, everything else was a hoax.” Limbaugh also took the opportunity to make one of his classic racist statements, asserting that Obama's stimulus plan was passed because “he's the first black president, and therefore nobody dares utter a word of criticism of his policies.”

Limbaugh bizarrely claimed that “the public workers in Wisconsin are the wealthiest workers in Wisconsin.” The assertion that teachers being paid an average of $51,000 a year are the “wealthiest” workers in the state is simply insane.
Rush hinted that he would like to see some violence directed at liberal commentators: “How about we treat MSNBC and Howard Fineman like the unions and our government treat Fox News and have thousands of people surround their reporters, block their cameras, manhandle their reporters? How about if we do that? How about if we show up and we start physically assaulting MSNBC reporters like they're doing to Fox reporters?” But it turned out that the “physically assaulted” Fox News reporter wasn't assaulted by anyone.

Nevertheless, Limbaugh proceeded to blame Obama for the actions of crackpots and criminals, claiming that a death threat against the Wisconsin Republicans came from “the Obama Wing Of The Democrat Party. These Are Obamaites." Limbaugh falsely accused Democrats of “Molotov cocktails and the defacing of the Capitol,” even though nothing like this happened.

Rush repeated some long discredited lies, such as the bizarre allegation that masking tape had caused “seven and a half million dollars in damage.” And he made up some new lies about “union thugs going in, tearing down statues or whatever.”

Limbaugh falsely accused filmmaker Michael Moore of “calling for riots,” and Rush even made a bizarrely threatening we-have-erect-guns-and-they-have-limp-penises reference: “know these guys that keep calling for civil war and revolution, Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore? They better remember: All they've got are fire hoses. They can't compete with us.”

Limbaugh was infamously once caught by customs carrying Viagra with a fake prescription, and during his prosecution for buying vast amounts of illegal prescription drugs, it was revealed that he doesn't own any guns. Nevertheless, he is happy to proclaiming that his side has the erections and the guns in a revolt, and the left only has fire hoses. Don't try to make too much sense of this phallic metaphor involving fire hoses, the weapons famously used against civil rights protesters in the 1960s. A man of Rush Limbaugh's vast wealth can fly over natural disasters in a private jet, so he obviously doesn't need anything coherent to say.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh, Conspiracy Nut

2011-03-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

Every day on the Rush Limbaugh is full of conspiracy theories, but today Rush took time to refute a conspiracy theory against him. And he's right: the fact that his distributor, Premiere Radio Networks, hires actors to call into radio shows does not mean that Limbaugh ever did this. Of course, no one has seriously suggested such a silly idea. Limbaugh doesn't care what anyone else thinks, and he doesn't need fake callers to help him express his crazy ideas.

It's ironic that while Limbaugh is offended that anyone might believe such a conspiracy theory about him, today he proudly trumpeted some of his dumbest conspiracy theories about the Obama Administration. I devote a full chapter in my new book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, to Limbaugh's conspiracies.

He declared about smart electric meters, “think death panels for your home,” combining two of his favorite nutball ideas in one line. There are no death panels. And smart meters to reduce energy use in your home are obviously not, as Limbaugh has claimed in the past, “tyranny, pure unadulterated tyranny" from the Obama Administration.

Limbaugh today added to his favorite conspiracy theory of all time: the insane belief that Obama is intentionally destroying the economy in order to enhance his political power. He lamented that his crazy idea was not more widely believed: “People don't want to think of their president as purposefully destroying the country.” This is an astonishing conspiracy theory, one repeated on almost a daily basis by Limbaugh. Yet there has been virtually no mainstream media coverage of this deeply influential conspiracy theory. As far as I know, not one Republican politician has ever been asked to agree or disagree with Limbaugh's grand conspiracy theory.

On Friday, Rush Limbaugh admitted that he's a conspiracy theorist, and a tremendously stupid one at that. Here's the conspiracy Rush reported about the Obama Administration on Friday: “they started just arbitrarily reducing the number of jobs available.” According to Rush,

Job openings are down 30%. Job openings, meaning available jobs, are down 30%. Well, if we're gonna take the total job universe number and reduce it by 30%, of course it's going to appear that more people are working (particularly if you add 192,000 jobs). So he's covered himself here, "No conspiracy, no conspiracy, that's just the way they do it." Well, there is one if you ask me. A strict definition of conspiracy is people have gotten together and conspired here to have some good news reported, fine and dandy.

So Limbaugh openly admits that he thinks this is a vast conspiracy by the Obama Administration to cut the number of job openings it recorded and thereby reduce the unemployment rate. The biggest problem with Rush's conspiracy theory is that it literally makes no sense. The number of job openings has nothing to do with the unemployment rate, which is determined purely by the proportion of people seeking jobs.

Why does Rush advocate such an inept conspiracy theory? In part, it's desperation to make the American economy look bad in order to blame Obama. On January 7, 2011, as in the past, Limbaugh had claimed that the “real” unemployment rate was the U6 measure in order to inflate it. But the U6 measure has plummeted in recent months, down to 15.9%, matching the drop in the U3 unemployment rate that is more widely reported.

So, naturally, Limbaugh explains the drop in the unemployment rate by assuming that the Obama Administration is playing with the numbers in a vast conspiracy to mislead the American people.

All of this is laughably stupid. Whether it's death panels or smart meters or the vast Obama plot to destroy the American economy, Limbaugh's loony conspiracy theories need to be exposed and condemned, and Republican politicians (along with conservative pundits) need to be asked if they agree with his ideas.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh's Racism Toward Obama

2011-03-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

Today, Rush Limbaugh made Barack Obama's race the center of his show and angrily attacked a caller who accused him of racism. In my new book on Rush Limbaugh, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, I devote a lengthy chapter to detailing a few examples of Limbaugh's racism. The evidence is simply overwhelming, but Limbaugh refuses to see anything wrong in his racial language.

Limbaugh said today, “If anybody looks down at black people and has a condescending view of them, it's liberals.” But it's Limbaugh who is patronizing toward blacks through his regular racist insults. Today, Limbaugh asserted that it was blacks, not whites, who were racist in America: “what was the black percentage for Obama, 110%?” It's amazing that Limbaugh could call blacks racist for voting to elect Obama and then an hour later denounce leftists for having a condescending view of black people.

Limbaugh wondered today, “How many people really think of Obama as black?” Certainly, one of those people would be Limbaugh, since he is obsessed with Obama's race. Pointing out that Obama was raised by a white mother and white grandparents, Limbaugh today adopted a fake black accent and declared: “Barry Obama is not from the hood, he's not from the movement.” Yet Limbaugh declared: “I do not make fun of people's skin color.”

Even before Obama decided to run for president, Limbaugh was attacking him on racial grounds, declaring in 2006, “You are not African American, Mr. Obama. You do not share the heritage of this country that African American implies.” In January 2007, Limbaugh continued the racial attack, calling Obama a “Halfrican.” Rush even suggested that Obama, and all blacks, are not real Americans: “Obama is telling us he is a black American first and an American second.”

Limbaugh was fond of using racial insults against Obama, calling him “a Chicago street thug,” “a half-minority,” and even “the little black man-child.” It is difficult to conceive of any situation where a non-racist would call the most admired black man in America, a 47-year-old man serving in the US Senate, “the little black man-child.”

But while Limbaugh repeatedly attacked Obama for being black, he made bizarre accusations about his race. On September 22, 2008, Limbaugh said about Obama: “He's not black. Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood?” Limbaugh became the leading figure in America proclaiming that Obama was an Arab, not black. And a poll after the 2008 election found that more Americans believed Obama was an Arab than thought he was a Muslim.

After Obama became president, Limbaugh called him "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" and accused him of “fooling white people.” Limbaugh called Obama "stupid" and asserted that Obama "probably didn't get outta Harvard without affirmative action." The notion that Barack Obama could not have graduated from Harvard Law School without preferential grading is amazingly racist. No one can possibly imagine that Obama’s success--including selection to the Harvard Law Review, election as its president, graduating Magna Cum Laude in the top 10% of his class, passing the bar, and becoming a top teacher at the University of Chicago Law School--was all somehow granted to him by a conspiracy of Harvard Law professors to raise his grades because he's black. Charles Fried, a Harvard Law Professor who served as Solicitor General during the Reagan Administration, wrote to me, “It’s paranoid nonsense. Grading is anonymous by a randomly generated exam number and it takes a vote of the faculty to change a grade.”

Even Obama's policies were guided purely by race in Limbaugh's eyes. Limbaugh claimed today that Obama has a “chip on his shoulder” about race and asserted, “It is a factor in every policy decision he makes.” It would be difficult to find anyone other than a white supremacist who imagines that race is a factor in every policy decision Obama makes.

Limbaugh has repeatedly attacked Obama's economic policies as “reparations” for slavery. Limbaugh declared, “Obama's entire economic program is reparations!” Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert noted about Limbaugh's comments, “Those guys aren't racist. They're just saying that a program that helps the poor is actually a secret plot by African-Americans to steal white people's money.”

Today, Limbaugh declared, “I just treat black politicians the way I treat white liberal politicians.” But he doesn't. Limbaugh often uses racially demeaning language, such as declaring that “Obama is essentially a primitive indigenous guy.” When Limbaugh describes the man who ran the most technologically sophisticated political campaign in history as “primitive,” race can be the only explanation. And there can be no doubt that Rush would never describe a white liberal politician born in America as “a primitive indigenous guy.”

One of most common racial stereotypes in America is that of the angry black man. Limbaugh called Obama, one of the calmest presidents in history, “an angry black guy." Has Limbaugh ever referred to a white politician, such as the notoriously hot-tempered Bill Clinton or John McCain, as “an angry white guy”?

Limbaugh has wondered: “Can this nation really have an African-American president?...Or does having an African-American president paralyze the process by which people with that kind of power in our representative republic are kept, quote, unquote, honest?” Has Limbaugh ever wondered whether America would be destroyed by having a white president?

When a racist caller declared that Obama was fighting “against white America,” Rush agreed with him wholeheartedly: “you're right down the line” and supported the idea that “Obama hates white people." Responding to a caller in 2009 who wondered “when will Caucasians become the minority,” Limbaugh didn't challenge her racism but instead shared her concerns about the declining power of the white race: “the problem is that you've got people running the show now from Obama all the way down through his administration through the House of Representatives who, regardless of their race, are racists.” In fact, Limbaugh asserted that blacks are already controlling America: “When I say does it really matter when Caucasians become a minority, what I mean by this is we already have a governing majority. He's gonna treat them that way. It's reverse racism.” Only the worst of the white supremacists imagine that America is controlled by non-whites. Sadly, Limbaugh is one of them.

My new book about Limbaugh goes into far more detail about Limbaugh's racism toward Obama, and the vast array of additional racist comments by Limbaugh. The evidence of Limbaugh's racism is simply overwhelming, and I invite Limbaugh and any of his defenders to try to explain how all of these bigoted comments are free from racial prejudice.

Crossposted at LimbaughBook.

Rush Limbaugh's Giant Errors on Health

2011-03-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

After bizarrely denouncing Michelle Obama's campaign for healthier eating, Rush Limbaugh yesterday turned to a familiar old target for his misleading attacks. Rush denounced the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) at length in a rambling, mostly incoherent tirade for criticizing movie popcorn in the 1990s and claimed, “They said it was high in polyunsaturated fat, stuff would clog you up so bad that coconut oil is what they would scrape out of you during a bypass operation.” No, the CSPI said it was high in saturated fat and calories, not “polyunsaturated fat” which is healthier.

Limbaugh claimed that a new New York Times report indicated about coconut oil “how it is one of the healthiest oils out there” in Rush's words. However, the New York Times story noted that there is no scientific proof that coconut oil is healthier. Instead, its presence in health food stores is due to its taste and its popularity among vegans as a substitute for butter.

Rush declared victory, “Once again, I, El Rushbo, ahead of the curve.” The 1994 CSPI report shocked people because it revealed the vast number of calories found in movie popcorn, and the report criticized not just coconut oil, but any kind of hydrogenated oil and the fake butter used in popcorn. Nothing about the CSPI report was inaccurate.

Rush concluded his segment, “The life expectancy is skyrocketing and people are still eating and drinking what they want, still driving SUVs. Giant See, I Told You So here.” No, a giant “Rush Is Wrong Again.” In reality, life expectancy improvement rates in the US are lagging behind other countries, despite the fact that we spend much more on health care than any other nation. A 2010 study in the journal Health Affairs noted that the US ranked 49th in the world in life expectancy, far worse than in the past.

Once again, Rush is wrong on medical issues. As I note in my new book, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason,” Limbaugh believes himself to be an expert on health, medicine, food, and health care, despite making numerous basic errors and spewing all sorts of medical myths from “nicotine isn't addictive” to “death panels.”

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh's Big Fat Lies about Michelle Obama

2011-03-01T09:02:00.000-08:00

Last week, Rush Limbaugh called Michelle Obama fat. In my new book about Limbaugh, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, which is being published today by Thomas Dunne Books, I write about Limbaugh's racism, his sexism, his nutty conspiracy theories, and his propensity for telling lies. The “fat” Obama tale is a perfect example of this.

Limbaugh has a long history of attacking how women look and calling them fat, a reflection of his sexist double standards. For Rush to call any woman fat is a puerile, hypocritical insult; to call Michelle Obama fat is nothing short of baffling because obviously it isn't true. Consider Limbaugh's words: “our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you.” When did swimsuit model become the standard for how a First Lady (or any healthy woman) must look?

But beyond Limbaugh's sexism, his rudeness, and his hypocrisy, this attack on Michelle Obama is noteworthy because it was based entirely on a lie. Limbaugh said, “it doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary dietary advice.”

After falsely declaring that Michelle Obama was “requiring what everybody can and can't eat,” Limbaugh claimed that the First Lady "took the kids out to Vail on a ski vacation and they were spotted eating. And they were feasting on ribs, ribs that were 1,575 calories per serving with 141 grams of fat per serving."

It's not clear how Limbaugh came up with his very precise and yet totally imaginary figure of 1,575 calories, since he offers no evidence.
In reality, according to the restaurant where they ate, the ribs had 600 calories and came with a side of kale.

This isn't the first time Limbaugh has lied about Michelle Obama's eating habits in order to accuse her of hypocrisy. Limbaugh claimed during the 2008 campaign, “Michelle Obama called room service and ordered lobster hors d'oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne" and then repeated the story, declaring “it's hypocrisy.” It was a completely fabricated tale, and the New York Post quickly retracted it and apologized. Two weeks later, Limbaugh briefly mentioned that the story was false, without apologizing or mentioning his role in spreading the lie.

Not satisfied with making up only one story, Limbaugh also claimed there was a video showing Michelle Obama using racial language: “They're waiting to use it in October, of Michelle going nuts in the church, too, talking about ‘whitey’ this and ‘whitey’ that.” The videotape never surfaced because it didn’t exist, and Michelle never went “nuts” in a church talking about “whitey,” despite Limbaugh’s fantastic racial imagination. He never offered an apology or a correction.

Limbaugh hates everything about the Obamas, and expresses it openly, even critiquing Michelle Obama's sweaters and accusing the woman widely admired as the most fashionable First Lady in decades of having a “classless wardrobe”--quite a feat for a man whose sole contribution to fashion consisted of selling loud, overpriced ties designed by his then-wife.

Limbaugh even claims to see troubles in the Obama marriage, whether he's hinting (falsely) that Barack is cheating on his wife, or claiming (falsely) that Barack and Michelle dislike each other. In 2010, Limbaugh recounted his memories of Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention:

RUSH: What I remember about that speech is his wife. Honest. Folks, honestly. I don't remember one thing 'cause I tuned it out, 'cause I knew it was all a lie. It was being delivered by a Democrat at a convention that had nominated John Kerry. For crying out loud, what are we talking about here? But when I saw Michelle come out there and I saw that introduction, Barack Obama told me everything I needed to know about him. She gave one of the most forceful, supportive, upbeat speeches. I have never seen a political wife speak of her husband that way in my life, and he came out and ignored her.
CALLER: I don't see remember that.
RUSH: "Here he is, my man, my baby's daddy, my man! He's the greatest man, Barack Obama," and he came out and ignored her and didn't pay her a bit of attention, and I said this doesn't compute here. You at least give her a kiss. You at least put your arm around her, raise her hand with yours and acknowledge the applause. But he just ignored her. She didn't exist when he came out there. That's what I remember about it.
CALLER: Yeah, I don't remember that.

Rush had made it all up. Michelle didn't introduce her husband at the Democratic National Convention (Dick Durbin did), and after the speech, the Obamas embrace and then leave the stage holding hands.

Limbaugh was apparently referring to a different speech, Obama's November 2, 2004 victory speech after winning the Senate race. Michelle did indeed introduce her husband. But otherwise Limbaugh's summary is completely wrong. Barack immediately gave his wife a long embrace. Back in 2008, Limbaugh recounted his same fictional version of the event (this time correctly placing it as Obama's victory speech) and declared, “I thought, 'How in the world do you not thank your wife after an introduction like that?'"

Limbaugh said all this while looking at a CNN transcript (which he didn't read for his audience) that showed Barack Obama declaring in this speech his greatest thanks for “the biggest star in the Obama family...the love of my life, Michelle Obama, give it up for Michelle.”

Limbaugh usually focuses his attacks about Michelle Obama on her body, her clothes, and her relationship with her husband. But to me the worst insult Limbaugh makes about Michelle Obama is when he attacks her professional career. Limbaugh repeatedly claimed about Obama, “He had to get his wife a no-show job at Chicago hospital.” He asserted over and over again, “Michelle Obama did not have to show up for her hospital job.” Michelle Obama always showed up for her job at the University of Chicago hospitals. There is no evidence, not even an allegation, to support this lie Limbaugh said over and over again.

For Limbaugh, lying about a woman's career, making up stories about her eating habits, insulting her appearance, and doing everything to smear her is just routine behavior for a man committed to denouncing liberals no matter what the facts are.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's "Ching Chong" Racism

2011-01-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

Limbaugh's bizarre anti-Chinese racism on his show yesterday has already drawn criticism from Salon, Media Matters, and State Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco, who asked for Limbaugh to apologize for his "pointless and ugly offense" and called his comments “sadly indicative of the bigotry that has often plagued his commentary and lined his pockets."

The 20 seconds of babbling “ching chong, ching chong cha” that Limbaugh imagines to be Chinese can't really be transcribed, you need to hear it:

There's a powerful irony here. As I note in my forthcoming book, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason (Thomas Dunne Books, March 1), in 1984, Limbaugh was lucky enough to have a friend recommend him to replace Morton Downey, Jr. who was forced out of his job at KFBK in Sacramento, California. Downey had told a joke about a “chinaman” and refusing to apologize. So Limbaugh got his big break in talk radio because of another host's racism. And to be honest, what Downey said wasn't any more racist than Limbaugh's “ching chong” babbling yesterday.

But Limbaugh's rant went beyond just mocking a foreign language for being, well, foreign to him. He also used the occasion to denounce President Obama for the terrible crime of listening to it:

I wonder, to the people that can't speak English, what does it sounds like to them? Because when I hear Chinese or Japanese, it sounds like all the same word, and I can't comprehend of anybody understanding it. Of course that's silly. But he's sitting there, (speaking phonetic Chinese)...and they cut to Obama looking intently as though he understands every word of it (which, what would you expect from the Ruling Class?)

Yes, what else would one expect from the Ruling Class dictator like Obama but for him to listen politely to a foreign leader speaking a foreign language? What, exactly, did Limbaugh expect Obama to do? After all, one of Limbaugh's heroes is Richard Nixon, the man who opened up relations with China.

Beyond racism, it's not clear exactly what Limbaugh has against China. Limbaugh claimed that the Chinese in Africa “are becoming the most vicious colonialists in history,” which once again goes to prove that Limbaugh doesn't understand anything about colonialism or history. According to Limbaugh, “They're buying up -- just as you say, they're buying up -- regional resources. They're letting the locals starve, essentially.” So the Chinese are bad because they're engaging in....capitalism?

It's difficult to make any sense of Rush's incoherent rants. Does he hate Chinese people because of communism, capitalism, colonialism, or just because they speak Chinese? Or is this racism simply a way for Limbaugh to connect with his xenophobic audience?

On his show today, Limbaugh defended himself, claiming that “I did a remarkable job...for someone who doesn't know the language.” Limbaugh complained, “Sid Caesar was called a genius for interpreting foreign languages he didn't speak.”

Of course, Limbaugh's bigotry against the Chinese is minor compared to the anti-black tirades and slurs that he regularly makes. But it's a reminder that Limbaugh's hatred knows no bounds.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh's "I Hope He Fails" Two Years Later

2011-01-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

“I hope he fails”: with these four words uttered by Rush Limbaugh about Barack Obama on January 16, 2009, a political revolution began. Limbaugh's words about Barack Obama were powerful. Hoping for failure eventually became the policy of the Republican Party, which voted in lockstep against virtually every proposal by President Obama and the Democrats to help ease the recession inherited from the previous administration. Two years later, what Limbaugh said about Barack Obama has been established as the dominant Republican position.

Limbaugh got the failure he hoped for: the recovery from the Bush Recession was slow and inadequate to stem the inevitable rise in unemployment. Voters who expected an economic miracle punished the Democrats in the polling booths on November 2, 2010. Jeffrey Lord in the American Spectator declared that because of Limbaugh's “I hope he fails” line, “it is Rush Limbaugh who is the undisputed winner of the 2010 election.” Lord called Limbaugh's comment “exactly the point where the path to the conservative victory of 2010 began.”

Two years ago, Limbaugh's declaration was controversial. Even televangelist Pat Robertson (the man who blamed 9/11 on God's punishment of America for gays and feminists and said the Haiti earthquake was caused by a pact with the devil two centuries ago) denounced Limbaugh as irrational: “That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, he's the president of all the country. If he succeeds, the country succeeds. And if he doesn't, it hurts us all. Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally.”

Limbaugh later recounted how South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford privately told him “it was crazy for me to say I hope Obama fails.” When a politician who flies to Argentina to meet his mistress thinks you're crazy, it shows how far out of the mainstream Limbaugh's “hope he fails” comment was.

By October 2009, Limbaugh was desperately trying to rewrite history. He told the Today Show, “Every one of these ‘critics’ knew and knows exactly what I meant. They are taking this as yet another opportunity to say, ‘Whoa! Limbaugh wants America to fail!’ and that's such BS.”

But Limbaugh was explicit in declaring that he not only wanted Obama’s agenda defeated, he also wanted the country to suffer when Obama’s proposals were enacted. On February 13, 2009, Limbaugh told his listeners about the stimulus plan: “I hope it prolongs the failure. I hope it prolongs the recession. Because people are going to have to figure out here that this is not how economies recover. Government is not the central planner.” Yet Limbaugh's declaration, “I hope it prolongs the recession” as the definition of failure was ignored by a pile-up of apologists trying to defend Limbaugh comments. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), once a nemesis of Limbaugh’s, said: "I'm sure when he's saying he wants the president to fail that he's talking about his policies; he made that clear.”

In fact, Limbaugh had made it clear that he meant much more. Limbaugh said: "Of course I want Obama to fail. And after this stimulus bill package passes, I want it to fail."

Back in 1993, Limbaugh had a very different approach to Democratic failure when writing his second book, See, I Told You So: “I sincerely don’t want Bill Clinton to fail, unless failure is defined as the defeat of his current economic policies.” But by 2009, a media star making more than $50 million a year could wish for his fellow Americans to suffer in poverty and become the hero of the conservative movement.

For Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans, hoping for the failure of America was one of their most successful career moves.

Crossposted at LimbaughBook.

John K. Wilson is the author of The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason (Thomas Dunne Books, March 2011)

Limbaugh's Violent Rhetoric

2011-01-12T09:28:00.001-08:00

Today is Rush Limbaugh's 60th birthday, and I want to give him a birthday gift that he rarely ever gets: the truth.

When Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik called Limbaugh “irresponsible” for using false information to get people angry at the government, Rush denied that there was any evidence of him using violent rhetoric against the government (which wasn't what Dupnik said): “He has not been asked, by the way, to cite any evidence or any examples of partial information, wrong information. This is all cliched.” Limbaugh claimed, “this sheriff has not even made anything up, much less produced a scintilla of evidence that anything I've had would inspire such behavior.”

Limbaugh declared on Monday, “at no time has anybody who does what I do or I ever called for violence. I have never subtly promoted it, have never gone anywhere near it.”

Since I literally wrote the book about Rush (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason, Thomas Dunne Books, March 2011), I would like to provide a few examples of Limbaugh's calls for violence from his website.

Speaking about the 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Limbaugh noted, “the coup was what many of you wish would happen here...”

A few days later, he again endorsed the idea of an American military coup against Obama: “If we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back.”

Of course, Limbaugh will never do more than dream about a military coup against President Obama. But the fact that he does dream about a coup, and constantly refers to Obama as a dictator, reflects how far from reality Limbaugh has strayed and how he is encouraging violence by his listeners.

Limbaugh was endorsing a violent revolution against the Obama Administration: “Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, what we are living through right now is exactly why the Revolutionary War was fought?”

While he calls for violence against the Obama Administration, Limbaugh also imagines vast conspiracies run by Obama to kill people. After reading reports of executives at hedge funds getting death threats, he concluded that it was an Obama-run conspiracy: "probably ACORN people.... I'm sure it's coordinated. Obama has the network to do this."

There is no “network” of Obama minions threatening to kill people. But Limbaugh does not hesitate to falsely accuse the president of ordering death threats. And then Limbaugh has the hubris to cry with outrage when he is accurately described as using violent rhetoric.

Not only did Limbaugh repeatedly invoke the falsehood about “death panels” but he saw in it an Obama conspiracy to murder old people: “This is what dictators do...there's a reason, if you go back to world history, you go back to Cambodia, you go back to Mao Tse-tung in China, you go to Cuba, you go to old Soviet Union, one of the things they did was target -- Hitler, health care -- target the elderly. Target them. Why? Because they vote, they are more likely it [sic] vote, and they're more educated, they have more experience, they know more, they have been alive longer. You get rid of the people who know the past. You get rid of people who know how great the eighties were with a conservative economic policy, get rid of those people....”

It's just crazy to imagine that Obama is planning to murder millions of senior citizens in order to keep the mediocre economic growth of the Reagan Era a secret. But when Limbaugh claimed that Obama was plotting a mass extermination of the elderly in America, not one Republican politician stood up against him.

Limbaugh sees conspiracies everywhere. Limbaugh admitted that his immediate reaction to being criticized by Sheriff Dupnik was to suspect a vast political conspiracy: “My first thought was, "Who has he been talking to the last 12 hours? Who, if anybody in the Democrat apparatus, is coaching this guy?"

Limbaugh made some outrageous and obviously false claims about Dupnik, saying that he “probably wouldn't mind if the shooter is acquitted.” Limbaugh added about Loughner, “he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder.” Democrats are not trying to help the man who tried to assassinate a member of Congress. And no one imagines that a mass killer would be found not guilty of murder because talk show hosts used alarming rhetoric.

Limbaugh also claimed, “Sheriff Dupnik is trying to chill free speech. Isn't that a violation of the law? First Amendment?” No. Not at all. Dupnik was quite clear that he defends the First Amendment but feels that people like Limbaugh should be held morally responsibility for their incendiary words: “They have free speech, but I think with free speech comes some responsibility.” In fact, it's Limbaugh who is guilty of trying to chill free speech by bizarrely suggesting that it might be illegal for a sheriff to criticize Rush Limbaugh.

On Tuesday, Limbaugh compared conservatives criticized for their violent rhetoric to rape victims: “Yeah, that's what they used to tell women who were raped, isn't it? 'Just sit back and enjoy it.'"

Limbaugh often equate conservatives with rape victims. Discussing a man who made death threats to Nancy Pelosi, he declared: “Do you people in the White House, do you people in the media, do you ever stop to consider that you have an intelligent, informed electorate who simply doesn't like being raped, and being raped is what is happening to people in this country by their government. No other way to put this.”

To call America's moderate levels of taxation and regulation the equivalent of rape is an insult both to common sense and to women victimized by rape. To use it to defend death threats against female Democratic leaders is nothing but disgusting.

Limbaugh is not personally responsible for the crazed killer in Arizona. It's quite possible Loughner never heard Limbaugh's show.

But this whole controversy does reveal some important facts about Limbaugh.

Fact #1: Limbaugh uses violent rhetoric to describe Democrats and the Obama Administration.

Fact #2: Limbaugh promotes crazy conspiracy theories, from “death panels” to Obama-coordinated death threats and many more I detail in my book.

Fact #3: Limbaugh spreads lies about his enemies, and lies to cover up his own misconduct.

At any time, Limbaugh's lies and nutty conspiracy theories should be condemned by the political mainstream of Democrats and Republicans alike. But as Loughner and other crazy armed fanatics remind us, considering how obedient and deranged some of Limbaugh's listeners are, Limbaugh's comments about dictators and coups are not just idle chatter. They're dangerously irresponsible at a time when death threats against the first black president skyrocketed.

Two years ago on this date, Limbaugh was watching President George W. Bush bring him a chocolate cake shaped like a microphone and sing him “Happy Birthday.” Republican politicians are afraid to say anything bad about Limbaugh. Steve Benen wondered, “for once in their lives, will Republicans have the guts and decency to say, 'No, I think Rush Limbaugh is wrong'?”

So let's ask Republicans and demand that the media keep asking Republicans about Limbaugh's comments and whether they agree with what he says.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

This Week in Limbaugh Idiocy

2010-11-07T20:37:00.001-08:00

It was a busy week for Rush Limbaugh to display just how stupid he is.

But it was more than just idiocy involved in comments like, "Barack Obama does not like the way this country was founded, he does not like the way it is, he does not like the fact that there is prosperity here, he does not like the fact this country exists."

To say that Barack Obama opposes the existence of the United States of America is both psychotic and vile, but it's typical of how Limbaugh thinks about his enemies.

This week, Limbaugh's idiocy centered on the election.

On Wednesday, Limbaugh denounced the fact that Republican female candidates were being called "the B-word, the W-word, the slur" just a few minutes after saying about Nancy Pelosi, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead." Not satisfied with his hypocrisy, he returned to the subject on Friday: "now the feminazis are clearly supporting witches, as in the case of Pelosi."

Noting several pundits who failed to predict two years ago that Republicans would take the House, Limbaugh proclaimed: "These are perfect examples of how noted elite political pundits put their ideology into their reasoning and therefore become unable to see reality."

According to Limbaugh, "They rely on the fact that nobody's gonna go back and recall what they said. They rely on the fact that nobody's gonna go back and look at what they said and remind anybody of just how off-base they were. And it all is rooted in the bias and arrogance, conceit of liberalism." While Limbaugh denounced liberals for "bias" and "arrogance" because their predictions more than a year ago were wrong, Limbaugh somehow overlooks his own off-base predictions made on election day itself, when he claimed that "Delaware is a close race, Delaware is a race in play, the Senate race, how can that be? How can Delaware be in play? I have been saying from the get-go that that race was competitive, that it never has been a 15-point race. We'll see tonight if I'm right."

Of course, Limbaugh was wrong: O'Donnell lost by 16.6 points, not the 15 points that Limbaugh considered impossible to believe. Limbaugh concluded about these bad predictions by liberals, "The point is they're wrong. Liberalism is a lie." By his logic, this proves that all of conservatism is a lie.

But the election provided an opportunity for Limbaugh to dip into his deep reservoir of conspiracy theories, as when he claimed that "Any Democrat win last night was either the result of fraud or deceit." He blamed "fraud" in Nevada and called it "suspicious" that Harry Reid won.

Everything Limbaugh looked at was part of Democratic conspiracy: "the Democrats have a slush fund of over half a billion dollars. What do you think the stimulus bill really was? Didn't create jobs, did it? It was out there to fund Democrat campaigns."

Limbaugh, of course, had no evidence for his bizarre claim that stimulus money was funnelled into Democratic campaign coffers. Considering that all of the money spent on the stimulus is publicly revealed, as is the source of all the funding for Democratic campaigns, Limbaugh's assertion cannot possibly be true. Only a lunatic would believe it.

Of course, Limbaugh has proven himself to be a lunatic over and over again. On Monday, he declared: "The people who are now in power are willing to destroy the economy, your savings, just to win their elections in 2006 and 2008."

Yes, Rush Limbaugh actually believes that Democrats conspired to destroy the US economy in order to win the elections in 2006 and 2008. He doesn't have any evidence for it. And it makes no sense since the housing and stock market bubbles didn't burst before the 2006 election.

Another conspiracy theory touted by Limbaugh was his belief in a Democratic plot that "would take your 401(k) away from you." Limbaugh claimed, "The unions and their Democrat friends in Congress are still pushing to do away with your 401(k)s. They essentially are doing for a bailout of their pension plans with your money." He cited the idea of guaranteed retirement accounts: "this Ghilarducci babe is a professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research. She's the one that went bat nuts. She's the one when they asked her about this said, 'Oh, Limbaugh, he's nuts! He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. He doesn't have brain power to understand what I'm talk about,' and yet here today, earlier this month, it has now become official with a proposal by Tom Harkin (Democrat-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders ("Democrat"-Vermont) to create the GRA to take your 401(k), take it away from you, replace it with 600 bucks a year at 3%, and give the money to the unions to make their pensions whole. That's what they're proposing."

I emailed Ghilarducci about Limbaugh's comments, and she responded, "Everything about what he said about me is a lie; except the 'babe' part. I am a babe, that's true."

As Media Matters for America noted, Harkins and Sanders didn't propose or mention GRAs. As for Limbaugh's claim that "They want to take the money away from you," the website Factcheck in 2008 examined this claim from the fringe of right-wing nuts like Limbaugh and found that it was completely false.

Basic factual errors are the hallmark of Limbaugh's show. Some, like his claim on Wednesday that Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) lost his re-election, are occasionally corrected because they are so obvious (Limbaugh always blames someone else for his mistakes). But many of Limbaugh's misstatements are never scrutinzed.

On Friday, Limbaugh proclaimed: "When Ronaldus Magnus came into office, the American economic growth rate was 1.7%. That was the GDP: 1.7%. Two years later, by 1983 -- and, remember, we had a very bad, steep recession in 1982. Listen to these numbers. Gross domestic product when Ronaldus Magnus came into office was 1.7%. By 1983 it was 10.9%. That is real economic growth."

That would be real economic growth, except that everything Limbaugh says was a fabrication. When Ronald Reagan came into office, the GDP growth rate wasn't 1.7%. Real annualized GDP growth was 7.6% in the fourth quarter of 1980 and 8.6% in the first quarter of 1981, when Reagan's policies couldn't have had any impact yet. In 1983, the highest GDP growth rate was 9.3% (not 10.9%) in the 2nd quarter. Except for that one quarter, the GDP growth rate during the entire Reagan Administration never reached the growth rate of 8.6% that Reagan inherited.

It's unclear exactly where Limbaugh got his invented numbers. It appears that Limbaugh simply made up the numbers without caring at all what the truth was.

Limbaugh said about the media on Thursday, "They simply lie. And they lie without fear because no one has ever called them on it and if anybody ever does call 'em on it they don't care, 'cause that was yesterday, and they accomplished what they wanted with the lie as far as they're concerned, and they move on."

That summarizes the Rush Limbaugh show very well. He lies without fear, even declaring, "So once again, documented to be almost always right 99.6% of the time."

But my favorite Limbaugh idiocy of the week was his column in the November 2010 issue of the Limbaugh Letter, where he wrote: "Any Republican who puts working with Democrats ahead of working for the American people will suffer the same fate as the Blue Dog Democrats: become an instinct species."(page 3)

Rush is man who doesn't think—he just uses his instincts. Perhaps we could even call him an "instinct species," but not one going extinct anytime soon so long as millions of conservatives delight in being instructed in Limbaugh's peculiar mix of juvenile insult humor, insane conspiracy theories, and a delight in ignoring reality.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

No Compromise: It's the Economy, Stupid

2010-11-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Compromise is not a terrible political strategy under most circumstances. But the current situation in the American economy and American politics makes compromise the worst possible alternative for Obama and the Democrats. The Republican Party has been taken over by the Rush Limbaugh wing, and none of its policies are good for America. And the economy is about to get substantially better, which would give Obama credit for economic success if he doesn't compromise.

The explanation for why the Democrats suffered severe losses in the 2010 midterm election can be summarized in four words: It's the economy, stupid.

Of course, other reasons will be offered in the battleground of punditry seeking to analyze the voting. Left-wingers will argue that Obama refused to pursue sufficiently progressive policies and therefore his centrist approach failed to activate his base of voters. Right-wingers will argue that Obama pushed far left-wing policies and therefore alienated independents while motivating conservative voters. Political experts will point out that the incumbent president often suffers heavy losses in the off-year election, especially when defending a large number of districts in hostile territory where Democratic numbers were inflated from 2006 and 2008. There's a small amount of truth in all of these statements.

But it was fundamentally the lousy economy that proved to be the downfall of Democrats in 2010, just as it was for Republicans in 2008. When the economy is in terrible shape and lots of people are unemployed, the public tends to blame the party in power. Of course, this is unfair. Obama and the Democrats didn't cause the Bush recession, and they accomplished much to offset its terrible impact. The much-maligned Obama stimulus plan was a tremendous boost to the economy, albeit too small to fix the badly weakened economy from the Bush recession. Fairness has nothing to do with politics, however.

Even a popular president can suffer badly when the economy sours. George Herbert Walker Bush had approval ratings near 90% at the start of 1991 after war with Iraq, but by 1992 when the unemployment rate hit 7.8%, his approval plummeted down below 40% and he lost re-election. And an unpopular president can see his fortunes turn thanks to the economy. Ronald Reagan's party suffered a thrashing in the 1982 mid-terms elections, and his approval rating dropped steadily below 40% in 1983 thanks to the recession his policies brought on. But the economy recovered, and so did Reagan's approval ratings, which jumped substantially and allowed him to win re-election in a landslide.

Obama has several advantages going into 2012. His approval ratings have never sunk to Reagan's lows, and unlike with Reagan, it is irrational for voters to blame Obama for a recession that began more than a year before he took office as president. Most polls indicate that Americans tend to blame Bush more than Obama for the recession, although Wall Street and Congress also take the blame.

Much like Reagan, Obama remains personally popular despite the economic mess he inherited. And even the high unemployment rate under Obama never reached the levels it did under Reagan, although the Bush recession was much more severe and long-lasting than Reagan's recession.

It is almost certain that the economy will improve by 2012, and it probably will improve a lot. Although some economists fear that we are in a period of long-term stagnation, the reality is that unemployment has already peaked, the GNP has been growing, albeit too slowly, for a year, and the economy is almost certain to get better. This is a natural consequence of what happens after a recession, but someone will get the credit for it. A compromise with the Republicans will mean that Republicans will be able to claim credit for economic growth. Keeping the course will mean Obama and the Democrats get the credit.

In 1996, Bill Clinton followed the guidance of his Machiavellian advisor Dick Morris and used a strategy of triangulation, shifting hard to the right on many policies and effectively abandoning many Democrats in Congress. But what ultimately succeeded for Clinton was not triangulation, but hardball politics. When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans sought to shut down the federal government, Clinton stood up against them rather than compromising. And what proved to be the most successful thing for Clinton (and is the main reason for Clinton's enduring popularity today despite various scandals) was the incredible growth of the economy in the 1990s.

The 2010 elections were far worse than I had expected a year ago, but that's solely because the Bush recession was worse than almost anyone had imagined. It's all about the economy.

Refusing to compromise on policy doesn't mean Obama should speak out publicly against the concept. Getting rid of earmarks, as Obama suggested in his press conference, is a great example of where Obama can push for progressive reform while appearing to compromise with the Republicans who pretend to oppose earmarks.

The reality is that nothing important will get done in the next two years under a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. Obama needs to get whatever important legislation he wants passed in December, including an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class. And then he needs to focus the next two years on using the power of the executive branch to get progressive reform put in place.

The big winner in the 2010 election was populism, and Obama's greatest failure as president has been his inability to adopt populist rhetoric against the faux-populism of the Tea Party movement. If Republicans want to run in 2012 on expanding the deficit with tax cuts for the very rich, Obama should welcome that as a huge winning issue. Policies like this will enable Obama to take a populist stand on an issue that polls well, establishing the fact that he's the champion of the middle class. Combined with an improving economy, a new populism and a refusal to compromise with the terrible policies of the Republican Party will enable Obama to win a Reagan-style landslide re-election and take back the House in 2012.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh supports "boot on the neck" of liberal women

2010-10-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh is a misogynist. His hatred of women should surprise no one who regularly listens to his show, and I devote a chapter in my forthcoming book, "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason" (Thomas Dunne Books, March 2011) to Limbaugh's sexism. Yet even I was a little shocked today when Rush, facing criticism for his defense of the Rand Paul head-stomper, actually had the audacity to celebrate violence against a female protester.

In response to the physical assault of Lauren Valle by a Rand Paul supporter, Limbaugh immediate rose up to denounce the victim yesterday:

the man put his foot down on her shoulders in what looked to me like an effort to help restrain her, and then the guy was immediately shooed away. Now, nobody's condoning the manhandling of even a radical liberal woman or the rough handling or whatever. But why exaggerate what happened unless you're trying to score a propaganda point?

Limbaugh even repeated his bizarre claim:

Her head was not stepped on, her shoulders were. What would you do? What would you do if a person in disguise carrying a sign for a radical organization tries to push through the crowd to hand a political opponent an unknown object?

Only in the delusional universe of Rush Limbaugh can someone watch a video where a woman's head is stomped on (not stepped on, but stomped on twice) and claim that her head was not stepped on. To make matters worse, Limbaugh tries to attack the character of the victim, falsely claiming that her attackers somehow imagined that she was a threat while lying on the ground.

As Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC last night noted, "Rush inserts the mandatory phrase in there, 'no one is condoning the manhandling,' then every other word he says condones the manhandling, doesn't it?" Yes it does.

Limbaugh played O'Donnell's comment on his show today, but interestingly, Limbaugh never repudiated O'Donnell's critique. Instead, Limbaugh embraced the violence:

I thought it was good to put your "boot on the neck" of your opponent. We had our "boot" on BP's neck, said Obama, and many minions in his administration. But, you see be with there's outrage over the fact that I support this woman being stopped. There's total outrage, and yet when Maude Behar calls Angle a b-i-itch and tells her to go to hell, the media analyzes it and asks, "Will it help Harry Reid?"

Obama never said that. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did use this metaphor about keeping the pressure on a corporation, but obviously he never suggested physical violence against anyone. But Limbaugh did. He advocated violence against a woman even after being called out on the carpet for failing to criticize the violence.

And then he did it again, promising that the Tea Party would bring more violence:

the Tea Party people are just not going to play ball as always. They're not gonna sit around and try, "Hey, we're nice guys. Go ahead. We won't hurt you."

And then Limbaugh had the audacity to compare physical violence, which he supports, to a comment by Joy Behar about Sharron Angle: "I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch! Come to New York and do it." I'm not a fan at all of the B-word, but it takes a lot of chutzpah for a man who himself uses the word to attack Behar for using it in a joke.

Limbaugh's opposition to the use of the term "bitch," equating it with a physical attack on a woman, may seem strange considering Limbaugh's public fondness for the word. In 2008 when a caller said about Nancy Pelosi, "she's a bitch!" Rush's response was, "All right." Not one word of criticism from Limbaugh. He concluded by praising the man and saying, "Bob, I appreciate the call."

Perhaps that's because Limbaugh himself likes to use the word. Limbaugh has referred to Hillary Clinton as "the B-i-itch."(March 31, 2008) When National Action Against Obesity president MeMe Roth said on CNN, "you're supposed to be working out every day," Limbaugh called her a bitch specifically for urging exercise: "Did you catch what this Roth b-i-itch said." And no, Rush, adding an extra "i" to the word "bitch" does not make you less of a sexist.

But Limbaugh's hypocritical attack on the B-word pales in comparison to his hypocritical defense of violence in Kentucky. Limbaugh hyped the hysteria about a few scuffles involving conservative activists, bizarrely claiming that "Obama is dispatching his own community organizer thugs -- AFL-CIO, SEIU people -- to intimidate citizens at these town hall meetings."

But when a left-wing activist was brutally attacked, Limbaugh cheered the violence as an example of how the Tea Party folks won't back down. It's a sickening reminder of what the conservative movement today stands for—and stomps on.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Soros and Limbaugh, the “Foreign” Puppetmaster and the Conspiracy Nut

2010-10-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

On his show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh denounced one of his favorite punching bags, financier George Soros: "So you want to talk a little foreign money in American politics? George Soros has admitted to donating $1 million to Media Matters for America, which is -- they call it a left-wing media watchdog. It's not that. It's just a bunch of propagandists, and Soros, a foreigner, has admitted he donated a million dollars to Media Matters."

Of course, since Media Matters for America regularly exposes Limbaugh's mistakes and bizarre comments, it's no wonder that he hates Soros for funding them and other liberal causes. But why would Limbaugh talk so much about "foreign money" when Soros has been an American citizen since 1961?

As Glenn Greenwald notes,

What is it about Soros exactly that leads right-wing commentators -- including their long-time leader, Rush Limbaugh -- to falsely brand this American citizen a "foreigner"?

It's notable that Rush never complains about the foreign money in American politics of Rupert Murdoch, an Australian who became a US citizen in 1985 only in order to buy American television stations and move the media to the right.

As I note in my forthcoming book, "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason" (Thomas Dunne Books, March 2011), Soros is at the center of a vast array of Limbaugh conspiracy theories that range from Obama to football to the intentional destruction of the US economy.

Limbaugh saw a conspiracy in Obama's rise to the presidency, claiming that he "had to have a sponsor, had to have somebody orchestrating, directing it, so forth and so on." And Limbaugh had an easy answer for who was the puppetmaster, "You know what? It's George Soros. George Soros was in charge of electing Obama! George Soros and his people."

Just a few days after Obama's election in 2008, Limbaugh claimed: "Somebody chose Obama to run and was a secret sponsor....I think Soros is involved."

Such was Limbaugh's paranoia that he imagined a massive conspiracy linking Obama and Soros to the financial collapse that caused the Bush Recession: "Somebody had to tell him what was coming in 2007, meaning the crash in 2008. He didn't have any experience to know. Somebody had to know, somebody had to tell him, for that somebody to know they had to have a hand in it. Can anybody say George Soros? Pulling the marionette strings here of our leader of the regime."

According to Limbaugh, Soros is the puppeteer secretly controlling Obama, who ordered him to run for president and then staged the collapse of the housing bubble in order to help Obama win. Limbaugh said, "George Soros has said that one of his goals in life is to bring about the world financial crisis and profit from it" and added, "Soros may be running Obama." Everything about this conspiracy theory is absolutely untrue. Soros had nothing to do with Obama's decision to run for president. Soros never said what Limbaugh claimed. And Soros could not have possibly caused the housing bubble and the Bush Recession. Yet Limbaugh's website featured an illustration of Soros standing above Obama, holding a manipulator to control the president's actions.

Discussing Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs, Limbaugh declared, "Obama is one of George Soros' boys, and that could be one of the reasons why we're not seeing a whole lot of televised activity on the popular cable channels about this." According to Limbaugh's conspiracy theories, "George Soros continues to destroy the economy and profit from it."

Limbaugh said, "If you look at everything that Obama is doing, it's George Soros" and added about Soros, "his hatred of America is well known." In Limbaugh's mind, everything Republican is American, and anyone critical of conservatives is anti-American.

Soros is featured in a number of other Limbaugh conspiracy theories. When former George W. Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan published a book critical of some members of the Bush Administration, Limbaugh immediately saw a Soros conspiracy with McClellan's publisher, PublicAffairs: "so far six books have been bankrolled by George Soros. So there is a George Soros connection to the Scott McClellan book." Of course, Soros didn't "bankroll" McClellan's book or any other; he had written six books published by PublicAffairs.

Limbaugh even imagined that Soros was secretly made the primary owner in his failed bid to buy the St. Louis Rams: "I was told who it was, but now I'm wondering if it was Soros and I wasn't told."

Limbaugh's hypocritical attack on "foreign" money reflects the bigotry toward immigrants that has come to dominate the conservative movement. But his smear campaign against George Soros is just another insane conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is secretly trying to destroy Amerca.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Rush Limbaugh, Peasant

2010-09-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh declared, "I am as far removed from the ruling class as any peasant." Limbaugh added that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and ought to be anchor of the CBS Evening News.

If he were truly part of the ruling class, Limbaugh claimed, "I would be invited to the White House."

As I note in my forthcoming book, "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason," Limbaugh has been invited to the White House, many times.

In 1992, after Limbaugh endorsed Pat Buchanan over President George Herbert Walker Bush as the Republican nominee, Bush fawned over Limbaugh. On June 3, 1992, Limbaugh was the guest of the president at the Kennedy Center and spent the night at the White House in the Lincoln Bedroom, with the president carrying Limbaugh's bag up to the room. As a result, Limbaugh biographer Paul Colford noticed, "Everything suddenly turned warm and rosy between the president and the commentator." Limbaugh actively campaigned for the man he had previously denounced.

Limbaugh, the peasant, was obsessed with having power in the White House. In January 1993, he arranged to have a note left for producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason in the Lincoln Bedroom after Clinton was inaugurated: "I was here first, and I will be back."

After the 2004 elections, he reported attending a holiday party at the White House: "Got a big hug from the president when I went through the line last night. It was just really cool." In 2009, a few days before Obama's inauguration, George W. Bush celebrated Rush's birthday in the White House: "He brought out a chocolate birthday cake, a microphone, and stood beside me with Ed Gillespie and sang happy birthday." When the president of the United States brings you a cake and personally sings happy birthday to you, it proves you're not a peasant.

Rush Limbaugh is not only part of the ruling class, he's one of its leaders. Limbaugh's agenda is simple: help big corporations, wealthy special interests, and millionaires like himself to get lower taxes and greater control over the government.

Rush often presents himself as a populist representing the regular people. According to Limbaugh, "there are two sets of rules in America: One for elected Democrats. The other, for we the plebes, the peasants, the Great Unwashed, the Victims." This "peasant" "victim" is among the richest people in the world, making $57 million a year and the owner of a vast mansion and a $54 million Gulfstream G550 jet (today, he discussed in great detail his favorite corporate jets with a caller).

Of course, Limbaugh doesn't actually like the "peasants." Just yesterday, Limbaugh was blaming America's "peasant" culture for an FDA decision on a drug to treat breast cancer: "in our peasant society, it has now been assumed that if one person can't have it, nobody should have it."

Limbaugh claimed, falsely, that "the FDA is now threatening to ban this drug Avastin that can help women with breast cancer and shrink the tumor and extend life. And the reason they are doing this is because the drug's too expensive. Pure and simple. The results of this drug have been excellent. Any ban is due to the high cost of the regimen of the treatment."

In reality, the FDA advisory panel noted that the company's own studies found that Avastin did not help patients live any longer, and there was a high rate of side effects such as internal bleeding. The FDA is prohibited from considering cost in making medical decisions, and there is absolutely no evidence to support Limbaugh's lies.

Today, Limbaugh continued lying about this story, again blaming "peasant culture," by declaring that "the FDA is going to ban this because it's too expensive" (there is no ban on the drug or treatment for breast cancer, and money had no role in the decision on whether to recommend it).

Why is Limbaugh claiming to be a "peasant" today just one day after he blamed the "peasant society" for his delusional interpretation of an FDA decision? It's simple: Limbaugh can't keep his story straight because it's all a lie. Limbaugh's "peasant" pose is just another example of faux populism on the right in America that has grown with the rise of the Tea Party Movement.

The "ruling class" is a stock phrase of the left, but it was seized upon by the right-wing and invoked by Limbaugh because of his deep-seated conspiracy theories. Limbaugh thinks that a secret cabal of left-wingers controls science, education, media, and government, and the "ruling class" phrase is meant to convey that psychotic vision of America.

The latest issue of the Limbaugh Letter features a cover image of Limbaugh holding a noose around Barack Obama's upper torso under the trees of the White House with the phrase, "The Ruling Class vs. the Country Class."

(To see the cover image, click here)

It's possible that Limbaugh did not intend to make this disturbing lynching metaphor, and instead wanted to draw a link to the famous media-manipulated image of American soldiers bringing down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq shortly after the invasion. If so, it might be even more disturbing. Limbaugh often calls Obama a dictator, and the analogy seems to indicate that Obama should be overthrown by force and then hanged, as Saddam was.

Limbaugh fantasizes that he's the "peasant" leader of a patriotic mob, lynching our black president to stop him from raping America.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

My Exchange with a Heritage Economist

2010-09-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to figure out how conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh imagine that the stimulus actually caused the unemployment rate to increase and the economy to collapse. My book on Limbaugh will be coming out March 1, and so I wanted to look more in-depth into the craziness that is Limbaugh's belief that "the $787 billion 'stimulus' led to the loss of three million jobs."

So I decided to go to one of Limbaugh's advertisers, the Heritage Foundation, and found a macroeconomist on their staff, Karen Campbell, to ask her my questions:

Dr. Campbell: I'm a writer doing an analysis of the Obama Stimulus Plan, and I read your analysis online about the stimulus plan, and I wanted to get a quick response from you about your argument. Is your claim that the stimulus plan was misguided and largely a waste of money, or do you think it alone had a direct negative effect on the economy? Would you say that due to Obama-Pelosi-Reid's stimulus bill, we are losing millions of jobs?

This was her reply, in full:

Hi Mr. Wilson: My argument would be both; the government borrowed money from other places in the economy (and global economy) to spend it where it thought it might be useful. Borrowed money must be paid back with interest and therefore borrowed money should be invested in assets (or projects to build assets) where the rate of return is greater than the interest. This way the borrowed funds and interest can be paid back from the income created by the investment rather than having to take from existing assets (dis-saving and depleting the capital stock) or in the government’s case charging the taxpayers more. If either of the latter has to happen then the economy is worse off. Further we can use a baseline created by forecasting company (whose business is too make accurate likely forecasts for the economy so businesses can make good decisions going forward) of the likely rate of rate return those borrowed funds would have gotten if lent to the millions of investors throughout the country who saw profitable investment opportunities in their area.

The baseline shows the jobs and goods and services produced by the labor and capital created and employed by these investments. Then we can say "what if" the government borrows the savings instead? How many jobs and goods and services would we have in the economy. This can tell us whether it is likely that the policy will be a net improvement. This is how we can get an estimate of jobs that were foregone (lost).

Not all stimulus spending is created equal again it depends on how the borrowed money is used and some might argue that investors in the private sector were not borrowing money and therefore the government had to borrow and invest for them. Unfortunately what we heard instead of invest was "spend for consumers who weren’t spending." Not only did we not invest, government now took on the role of the credit card happy consumer. This makes businesses and other investors (which is basically everyone who earns income and has savings and mutual funds in pensions, etc.) very nervous because they know that this borrowed money isn’t earning income and therefore they will be required at some point to ante up more of their income to pay off the debt. This causes them to hoard more cash and not take on long term risks (the very risks that are needed to recover and grow the economy.) These expectations triggered by the stimulus spending is a way in which the stimulus is also indirectly impeding jobs by imposing this large opportunity cost of foregone productive investments.

Interestingly we now have current proposals for more spending specifically for long term investments. Unfortunately I fear this is too late and, although theoretically the investments could earn a high rate of return; historical evidence has shown the political incentives for special kick-backs, overly lucrative government contracts, etc. tend to wipe out the efficacy of government "investment." It is better to allow individuals throughout the country to borrow and invest in projects they are willing to take a risk on (and therefore expect to gain a positive rate of return). This diversification of investment helps not only keep the economy overall more stable (we saw what happened when investment got concentrated in one area) and it helps spread the gains throughout the country so growth and development can occur in more even patterns (rather than patterned by, for example, politically important states. This is not cynicism but a reality of the incentives faced by the private and public sector and why it is so important for the public sector to maintain it’s governing role (referee and rule-making) and not create a conflict of interest by playing on a private sector team.)

I hope this helps clarify my argument. I’m sorry if it is a bit long winded. Thank you for taking an interest in my work and taking the time to email me. Please let me know if you any other questions.

Best,
Karen Campbell

I answered back to her:

Thanks for your detailed reply.

I am confused about one issue. There is a long-term critique of whether the stimulus was a good thing, and whether it will have a long-run beneficial effect on jobs and the whole issue of long-term benefits and costs.

But I was interested in the short-term effect, the fundamental question of whether the stimulus could have caused unemployment to rise and millions of jobs to be lost in the short term.

The only explanation you seem to offer is an expectations game. But it doesn't seem very plausible that nervous businesses are laying off millions of people because they expect taxes to be raised years down the road to pay for $800 billion in stimulus spending (which is a small part of the overall government debt). I just don't see how it's rational for a business to hoard money and avoid a profitable investment now because the government spent some money on the stimulus plan that eventually will have to be paid back by the American people.

Karen Campbell responded to me:

Actually the effect is not so much on existing businesses or existing business activity as it is on the potential. In normal times hundreds of thousands of jobs are created and destroyed each month. What we’re seeing now is that job losses are about the same as a normal recovery but jobs are not being created. New businesses are not starting up and existing businesses are not investing and expanding their businesses. My colleague, James Sherk, looked at the numbers here http://www.heritage.org/Research/Rep...

When people are investing in safe government bonds to pay for spending that congress thinks will create jobs, they are not investing in riskier new businesses or financing new business expansions. Expectations play a large role but there is also the direct mechanics of moving financial resources from one sector of the economy to another (banks, as financial intermediaries for savers, lending to government versus lending to private sector individuals and businesses).

Also, just a note, I would not argue that the stimulus spending in and of itself caused millions of jobs to be lost. I think the stimulus spending would have depressed job creation but not to the extent that we are seeing. The continued rise in unemployment that we saw last year was a combination of many factors that increased the level of uncertainty. The government’s decisions to increase that uncertainty by implementing and trying to implement a number of unprecedented changes (which means businesses and individuals have no good method for calculating the likely costs of the policies and therefore are not able to make decisions about investments because of the extreme uncertainty of potential returns, is what is hindering the recovery and private sectors ability to employ underutilized resources in new and profitable ways.

Hope this is a little more clear?

The fundamental mistake Campbell is making, I think, is this assumption that government spending diverts money away from private investment. This is the "crowding out" effect. In the 1990s, it was argued that the Clinton Era's budget surpluses helped the economy by reducing the debt held by the government and allowing the private sector to borrow more. But that idea simply has zero relevance to our current situation. The government is borrowing lots of money, but it's able to print plenty of money and hand it out to banks without serious inflation. Private companies and banks are holding onto tons of cash right now, and it's not the case that government borrowing is depriving any businesses of loans they need. Instead, the problem is the reluctance of banks to loan money due to tighten lending rules and the reluctance of businesses to expand due to the global recession. As for "uncertainty," it's hard to identify any Obama action that increased economic uncertainty in any way that would actually reduce business activity.

But it is notable that Campbell refutes the Limbaugh theory that Obama's stimulus could have caused millions of jobs to be lost. So even the Heritage Foundation, the group that Limbaugh embraces as the experts on the economy, rejects Limbaugh's crazy economic theories.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

Book Review: Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One

2010-05-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Zev Chafets' new biography, Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One, is a shallow portrait of the nation's conservative-in-chief. Chafets gets only one thing fundamentally right about Rush: Limbaugh is an immensely powerful figure within the Republican Party and American politics. Would Republicans have become “the Party of 'No'” without Limbaugh's daily diatribes against compromise and desire for America to fail? Perhaps to some degree. But without two decades of Limbaugh's relentless militance against liberalism, it is unthinkable that the Republican Party would stand where it does today.

Chafets wrote a glowing profile of Limbaugh in 2008 for the New York Times Magazine. Rush would never allow a New York Times reporter such wide access without being completely assured that the article would be written from a sympathetic, conservative approach. Chafets provided exactly that, since he is a prominent critic of Palestinians (and former director of Israel’s government press office), and had written a column on the right-wing website Townhall.com. Limbaugh even referred to Chafets as a “friend” on his show. Chafets shared that friendship, declaring about Limbaugh, “I'm a little bit defensive because I think that the liberal media takes such an unfair view of him.”

Chafets' 2008 profile lavishly praised Limbaugh, comparing him to “the great black singers of his generation” and calling him “the first white, Goldwater Republican soul shouter.” His new book compares Limbaugh to Muhammad Ali and Oprah Winfrey.

Bob Garfield of “On the Media” observed to Chafets in 2008, “Your piece on Limbaugh was very generous, I would say even flattering. You seem to give him a pass for his excesses.” When Garfield confronted him with the infamous Limbaugh quote, “The NAACP should have a riot rehearsal, they should get a liquor store and practice robberies,” Chafets responded, “Not my sense of humor, but it's not a lie.” Really? It's not a lie to link the NAACP to riots and liquor store robberies?

Chafets is a relentless defender of Rush. According to Chafets, “A lot of Limbaugh's critics dismiss him as a buffoon or a fanatic. These are people who don't listen to his show. Limbaugh is not only a brilliant communicator, he is a smart political strategist.” A Columbia Journalism Review blog noted, “it seems Chafets was distracted by all the bling in Rush’s World, so that the piece reads more like an episode of MTV Cribs...”

Janet Maslin's devastating review of Chafets' book in the New York Times reveals some of the flaws in it. Maslin notes that even the mild criticism of Limbaugh found in Chafets' original New York Times Magazine piece was largely purged from the book.

Limbaugh knew from the beginning that Chafets was a fan and a friend, and even told him, “if you think the editors of the New York Times Magazine are going to do a story on me that isn't a hit job, you are naïve.”(115) Chafets pretends to be shocked when Limbaugh refers to him on the air as a “friend,” but it certainly wouldn't shock anyone who reads this book. Chafets is a relentless defender of Limbaugh, even to the point of insulting his ex-wife Marta Fitzgerald as a golddigger. He writes that Rush's first two wives didn't marry him for his money, but “The third Mrs. Limbaugh is a different matter.”(130)

Chafets dutifully reports what Limbaugh said years ago on his show about his drug use: “Limbaugh concluded by saying that he would like to go into more detail but couldn't, because he was under criminal investigation.”(95) One would imagine that Chafets could have gone into more detail years after the criminal matter was resolved and the statute of limitations applies. But for some reason, Chafets reveals nothing more about Limbaugh's drug addiction. He reports that Limbaugh now thinks drug use should not usually be a crime, although he omits Limbaugh's earlier hypocrisy on the issue or the fact that Limbaugh never expresses this view on the air.(98)

On race, Chafets dares to be slightly critical of Limbaugh. Chafets recounts that he suggests to Limbaugh that he has a “blind spot” on race, that he doesn't understand “why American blacks didn't share his narrative of America as a uniquely virtuous nation.”(173) Chafets admits, “It was cringe inducing to hear Limbaugh defend his lack of bias by mentioning his housekeeper.”(176) But he lets Limbaugh claim, “the Constitution set up a process to gradually end slavery,” even though that's not true.

Chafets mentions the two fake quotes spread about Limbaugh on slavery and James Earl Ray (although he gets their origin wrong, falsely blaming writer Jack Huberman for creating them), but he never discusses the real racist quotes from Limbaugh's mouth, such as calling Obama “Halfrican-American” or “the little black man-child.”(183) Chafets even defends Limbaugh's bizarre claim that the media want black quarterbacks to succeed as “perfectly true,” apparently not caring if there's any evidence to support Limbaugh's claim (there's not).(184) Chafets depicts Limbaugh, a man who regularly occupies luxury boxes and even the sidelines at NFL games, as a victim who “found himself excommunicated”(185) merely because he was dropped from one ownership group's attempts to buy a team.

Chafets projects his own moderate conservative views onto Limbaugh: “Rush and I were both raised at a time of racial optimism and naivete, when the goal of decent white people was an integrated society. We were taught that skin color shouldn't matter, that we were all basically the same, that we should judge others not by their color but the content of their character.”(172) However, Chafets revealed that when Limbaugh was growing up, his public school responded to Brown v. Board of Education with de facto segregation of black students in low-level classes. Did Chafets ever ask Limbaugh about his segregated school, or growing up in a former slave state during the midst of the Civil Rights Movement? Did he ever ask Limbaugh if his notoriously foul-mouthed father or other friends and family used the N-word? Chafets had a tremendous opportunity, as the only journalist who has ever had the opportunity for in-depth conversation with Limbaugh.

When giving his own opinion, Chafets has many disturbing racial views. Chafets writes that GOP head Michael Steele was “intimidated” by comedian D.L. Hughley, a “former gang banger,” into criticizing Limbaugh.(147) Chafets claims that after 9/11, “total war was justified until the Arabs cried uncle.”(101) It's not clear if Chafets or Limbaugh or both believe this, but it's certainly a disturbing viewpoint to call for “total war” against a group of people that includes some of America's strongest allies.

Chafets got attention for his book by trying to arrange a golf outing between Obama and Limbaugh: “I spoke to a very senior Democratic activist with whom I'm very friendly, and he said he would convey the message. A day or two later he got back to me with the answer: 'Limbaugh can play with himself.'”(192) It's a funny line. The problem is that we don't know who said it, if anyone. Was this Obama's personal response to Limbaugh, as some in the media reported (and Chafets did not seek to correct)? Was it the response of some aide? Or was it Chafets' source simply commenting on the failure to get any response from the White House? We don't know, and Chafets seems more interested in using it to generate publicity for his book rather than clarifying what was actually said. It's noteworthy that when Chafets wrote a pointless op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about his dream Limbaugh-Obama golf outing, the “play with himself” quote was nowhere to be found. Perhaps that's because Chafets' lightly-sourced claim didn't meet a newspaper's standards for facts. Fortunately, Sentinel Books has no such standards.

In fact, Chafets' book has no endnotes or sources. After all, his primary audience is Dittoheads, and they certainly don't expect evidence after years of listening to Limbaugh. There's very little new information uncovered by Chafets, and much of the biographical parts of the books closely follow Paul Colford's 1995 book, The Rush Limbaugh Story.

From a literary point of view, Chafets' book is a mess. The final chapter is followed by an epilogue summarizing some events in 2010. The final line, a product placement urging people turn in weekdays at noon, is almost embarrassingly bad. That's followed by the acknowledgments where Chafets whines about the difficulty of finding a “New York publisher” for a pro-Limbaugh book and praises Limbaugh for being “cooperative and candid,” which if true means that Chafets simply failed to ask any important questions in what Limbaugh claims were 16 hours of interviews. That's followed by an appendix where Chafets denounces “the liberal consensus” in the media and academia, and claims that Limbaugh listeners are smart because they know basic information such as the majority party in Congress.

The book is also piled high with filler. He reprints Limbaugh's list of “35 Undeniable Truths of Life” with his own “unofficial and personal commentary” that reveals Chafets' agreement with nearly everything Rush says (“except for maybe the one about the Steelers”).(74) Whole pages of his book are devoted to the lyrics of the lame parody songs by Paul Shanklin that Limbaugh plays on his show.

There's not one word in the book about Limbaugh's inept misunderstandings about the Constitution (such as quoting, with the wrong words, the Declaration of Independence and and claiming it was in the Constitution). Instead, Chafets writes: “Big Rush would have been proud to hear his son expounding with such passion on issues of constitutional law.”(168) This is the kind of fluff that Chafets uses, words that would humiliate a real journalist to write.

Chafets' book has shoddy editing, too. There are several typos, including “the a great” (130) and “Limbaugh had set his sites on Congress....”(77) As Janey Maslin noted in her New York Times review, “Even the name of one of Mr. Limbaugh’s wives is misspelled here, as are Hugh Hefner’s and Phyllis Schlafly’s.” I found even more misspellings, including Senator “Clair” McCaskill (103) and even John Forbes “Kennedy” rather than Kerry.(159)

The book is poorly researched, and misses many important facts. According to Chafets, “There was never a doubt that Limbaugh would support the reelection of George H.W. Bush in 1992...”(81) Chafets somehow never realized that Limbaugh supported Pat Buchanan's primary campaign against Bush in 1992. Rush wrote that Buchanan accomplished “great things” by moving Bush to the right.

According to Chafets, “After Obama accidentally read the speech of his guest, the Irish prime minister, instead of his own, Limbaugh developed the conceit that the teleprompter, not Obama, was in charge.”(163) Obama never accidentally read the speech of the Irish prime minister; it was the opposite.

Chafets refers to the Sullivan Group as a “fictitious entity.”(44) In reality, the Sullivan Group was founded in 1980, long before Tom Sullivan became a talk show host and met Rush Limbaugh, and it continues to exist. What's fictitious is the idea that the Sullivan Group “audits” the accuracy of Limbaugh's opinions, which Rush often cites as proof of his truth-telling, and many of his listeners actually believe it.

Media Matters for America points out several errors in Chafets' book, including his propensity to give Fox News Channel credit for breaking stories that other mainstream media outlets actually reported first. Media Matters, which has become Limbaugh's chief nemesis by writing daily about his errors and distortions, merits only a couple of mentions in Chafets' book, although Limbaugh often refers to them on his show in a clearly irritated manner. Chafets notes that Media Matters “reported that Rush had referred to military personnel who objected to the war as 'phony soldiers,”(108) which is exactly what Limbaugh had declared. Chafets denies this reality, and then compounds his mistake in defending Limbaugh by falsely claiming that “Media Matters tried to correct its initial mistake” on the phony soldiers issue.(108) As Media Matters noted, Limbaugh referred to John Murtha as a “phony soldier,” providing all the evidence anyone could have needed to prove that Limbaugh's use of term “phony soldiers” applied to real soldiers who criticized the war in Iraq, not fake stories. If a man who served for 38 years in the Marines and the Marine Corps Reserves, winning the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, is a “phony soldier,” then Limbaugh's use of the term has nothing to do with fake soldiers.

I should note that Chafets quotes me at length, accurately, writing about the impact of Limbaugh's Operation Chaos in Mississippi, where Limbaugh fans helped Hillary Clinton pick up some delegates. According to Chafets, “the media reacted with alarm,” and then he quotes my words.(117) It's a strange world we live in, where my little blog makes me a member of the “media,” but the vast media empires of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the New York Freaking Times Magazine don't count as part of the “media” in Chafets' estimation.

The book is full of odd claims about the press, such as saying that “the media” “reflexively squawk at any politically incorrect use of racial language.”(157) That's a favorite term of Chafets', who claims that in 1988 when Limbaugh began nationally, Time and Newsweek were “politically correct” and PBS was “unmistakably liberal,” which may surprise those of us who were watching Firing Line, the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour, Wall Street Week, and the McLaughlin Group.(138)

Chafets complains that Limbaugh didn't get the same approval in New York City received by other “outsiders” like Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings. According to Chafets, “the price of admission is accepting and, in some small way propagating, the group ethos.”(50) It's nothing short of bizarre for Chafets to join in with Limbaugh's pathetic crying about how he wasn't embraced as one of the leading journalists in the country because he had a syndicated talk show.

Is Rush Limbaugh a serious political force, or just a hammy jokester? Chafets denounces media critic Todd Gitlin: “He also doesn't listen to Limbaugh. Rush, like any satirist, engages in hyperbole, sarcasm, and ridicule, none of which is meant to be taken literally.”(139) Whenever Chafets wants to excuse or ignore some offensive, ignorant, or downright stupid remark by Limbaugh, Rush transforms from the leader of the conservative movement into a silly DJ having a laugh to tweak the liberals.
And while he refuses to take Limbaugh's own words seriously, Chafets condemns others for things they've never believed: "Some, like Professor Todd Gitlin of the Columbia School of Journalism, think the government should take Rush off the air."(139) I emailed Gitlin and he wrote back to me, “I do not think the government should take RL off the air. I never have thought that.”

On occasion, almost by accident, Chafets offers us an insight about Limbaugh: “This lack of partisan engagement is a recurring theme in the recollections of Limbaugh's old friends and colleagues in his early radio career. He was in his midthirties before he began giving strong, consistent voice to his conservative beliefs.”(17) The day after the White House Correspondents Dinner, where Wanda Sykes insulted him, Limbaugh was silent on the air but sent an email to Chafets: “I know I am a target and I know I will be destroyed eventually.”(166) Limbaugh normally has enough sense to keep his self-indulgent paranoid ravings off the air. But Chafets treats this absurd statement as if it were a justified response to unfair attacks, rather than evidence of Limbaugh's unbalanced mind. (Notably, Townhall.com is offering free copies of Chafets' book in exchange for a subscription to their magazine, under the headline, “Obama's master plan: Take out Rush Limbaugh.”)

On his show, Limbaugh admitted that he hadn't read Chafets' book: “If they get it right, I already know it, if they get it wrong, it's par for the course.”(May 26, 2010) Nevertheless, Limbaugh gave it his endorsement and prominently promoted it: “everybody who's read it has said it was pretty good.”

Chafets' book, and its admiring attention to Limbaugh's massive estate full of tacky decor, his $54 million jet, his fleet of $450,000 black Maybachs, shows that the author learned one essential lesson from studying Limbaugh: you can make a big pile of money by giving a conservative audience exactly what it wants to hear, as long as you're willing to sell out your integrity in the process.

John K. Wilson is the author of seven books, including the forthcoming “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason” (January 2011, Thomas Dunne Books), www.limbaughbook.com. Crossposted at Daily Kos.

Limbaugh Lies on Goldman Sachs

2010-04-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

When the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs, Rush Limbaugh saw a conspiracy: "this whole thing was organized, with Goldman probably involved in it." He claimed it was all agreed to "in exchange for being in bed with the Obama administration." According to Limbaugh, "There aren't any coincidences in politics."

Limbaugh has spewed a lot of insane conspiracy theories, but this one is over the top even for him. Limbaugh actually believes that Goldman Sachs wanted to be sued by the SEC to help make Obama look good. There's no evidence that Obama had any influence on the SEC decision, and there's certainly no evidence that Goldman Sachs persuaded the SEC to go after them.

Today, Limbaugh declared about Goldman Sachs that "Republicans don't get any donations from these guys." Oh really? According to OpenSecrets.org, in the 2010 cycle so far, Democrats received $332,375 in donations from Goldman Sachs employees, while Republicans received $190,200.

That means Democrats received 63.6% of the Goldman Sachs donations. Democrats hold 303 out of 521 positions in the House and the Senate, or 58.2%. This is a marginal difference. In fact, based on geography (most Goldman Sachs workers are in the overwhelmingly Democratic area of New York City), the Goldman Sachs donations are probably unusually pro-Republican compared to fellow New Yorkers.

One example of this is Republican Congressman (and candidate for the US Senate) Mark Kirk of Illinois, who ranked 3rd in the House (behind two New York Democrats) in Goldman Sachs donations. Kirk announced that he would return his donations. And the top Senate recipient of Goldman Sachs money? Alabama Republican Richard Shelby.

Yes, the majority of money from Goldman Sachs workers has gone to Democrats. And the influence of the financial elite on American politics is a bipartisan problem to worry about. But at this moment, the differences between the two parties are clear: the Democratic Administration is going after these financial crooks, and proposing substantial financial reforms. And the Republican opposition is resisting all regulation of Wall Street. All of the faux-populism in the world can't change these basic facts.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

2010-04-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

Limbaugh Lies, Smears DailyKos

On today’s show, Rush Limbaugh was in top form, declaring that he had never compared Barack Obama to Hitler. In fact, Limbaugh said that DailyKos “or whatever it’s called” was guilty of this. According to Limbaugh, “They call everybody on the right Nazis over there.”

That’s absolutely untrue. In fact, I'd bet that Rush Limbaugh has compared liberals to Nazis more often than any individual on DailyKos has compared conservatives to Nazis. After all, Limbaugh is the man who invented the term "feminazi."

Take a look at the diaries tagged Nazi or Nazis and you’ll find it’s not used very often on DailyKos, and typically refers to the conservatives who bizarrely accuse Obama and Democrats of being Nazis. In the rare cases where someone compares a conservative to a Nazi (such as “MICHELLE MALKIN IS A NAZI” the diary is mostly ignored apart from some comments objecting to the term.

Of course, DailyKos is a very open site where anybody can call anybody else almost anything. By contrast, Rush Limbaugh’s own words compare Obama to Hitler on a regular basis even while he denies the fact.

Let’s look at the record.

Limbaugh claimed, “the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo” and “Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook.” Limbaugh proclaimed, “It is liberalism that's the closest you can get to Nazism.” Limbaugh claimed that Obama is “sending out his brownshirts to head up opposition to genuine American citizens” and said that "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate."

Limbaugh called one of his callers “crazy” for objecting to the comparisons of Obama to Hitler. Limbaugh said, “Why can we not use Hitler, who was the architect of National Socialism in Germany?” Limbaugh said, “when you're dealing with a guy like Obama and the Democrat party, who are going to impose Nazi-like socialism policies on this country, you've got to say it!” He claimed, “Look who is acting Nazi-like anyway? Who is it that's sending out thugs to beat people up at these meetings?...It's the Obama White House.”

But you don’t need to trust me. Listen to all of the conservatives who have said that Limbaugh compared Obama to Hitler and Nazis. The Anti-Defamation League, certainly not part of the liberal establishment, issued a statement about Limbaugh from national director Abraham Foxman: “Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate. Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler. This is not where the debate should be at all....It’s off-center, off-issue and completely inappropriate.”

The National Review's Cliff May noted, “It is wrong, outrageous and damaging for Rush Limbaugh to compare Obama to Hitler.” Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean and Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called Limbaugh's comments "shameful," "beyond the pale," and "unworthy of Americans."

It takes some chutzpah for the man who compares Obama to Nazis to falsely accuse DailyKos of constantly comparing all conservatives to Nazis.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Harvard Law: Limbaugh’s Lying about Obama

2010-02-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in an interview taped on Jan. 29, 2010 with Gretchen Carlson for Fox and Friends,
Rush Limbaugh made up another smear about Barack Obama:

I think this is the first time in his life that there's not a professor around to turn his C into an A, or to write the law review article for him he can't write. He is totally exposed. There is nobody to make it better. I think he's been covered for, all his life.

I asked some Harvard law professors about this charge. Laurence Tribe responded to me, "The allegation is absurd. Obama earned every one of his enormously high grades. ‘Affirmative action’ had nothing to do with his success there. He was the most impressive student and research assistant I have taught in my 40 years at Harvard."

Charles Fried, a Harvard Law Professor who served as Solicitor General during the Reagan Administration, wrote to me, "It’s paranoid nonsense. Grading is anonymous by a randomly generated exam number and it takes a vote of the faculty to change a grade."

This isn’t the first time Limbaugh has made the false allegation that Obama gained from favorable grading. In 2008, Limbaugh declared that Obama "probably didn’t get out of Harvard without affirmative action."

In reality, Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law, which meant that there would have needed to be a vast conspiracy to raise the grades of this unknown student. Limbaugh’s attack on Obama is particularly ironic coming from a man who flunked out of college and had his two books (and an earlier newspaper column) ghostwritten for him.

Limbaugh did not respond to my request for any evidence to support his accusation. Unfortunately, there’s no sign that the mainstream media will follow up. The Politico quoted Limbaugh’s claims without bothering to point out that they’re completely false, or asking him for any basis to support his allegation. Nor did Fox News Channel bother to ask Limbaugh about how he knows such things. It’s time for the media to follow up on Limbaugh’s lies, and also ask Republican officials if they embrace these ridiculous claims.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Limbaugh Interviews Dick Cheney

2010-02-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

In the February issue of the Limbaugh Letter (not available online; I subscribe because I'm writing a book about Limbaugh), Limbaugh interviews Dick Cheney. It's hard to say which right-winger is more delusional.

Cheney declared,

...in my travels around the country, as I get out there and speak to groups, support for our counterterrorism policy is overwhelming. They may not have agreed with other things, but they certainly supported that.

That's a stunning statement, and it reflects the kind of groupthink bubble on the right occupied by Cheney.

A CBS News/New York Times Poll on Jan. 11-15, 2009 asked Americans, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush has handled the campaign against terrorism during the last eight years?" Only 47% approved, while 48% disapproved. That's what Cheney regards as "overwhelming" support. And it's a number inflated by the media's lack of coverage of Bush and Cheney's disastrous approach to counterterrorism from start to finish.

Cheney opposes any trial for terrorism suspects:

If Obama is worried that Guantanamo was some kind of a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, you can imagine what's going to happen when you put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is a very articulate, clearly very bright individual, on the platform they're going to give him in New York City in the federal courthouse. He's had years to prepare his remarks, so to speak, and he's going to just have a field day.

This is a very odd bit of reasoning. Guantanamo served as a recruiting tool because it besmirched the American system of justice. There won't be terrorism recruiting speeches in a court of law, and this notion that Mohammed's words would magically recruit terrorists completely misunderstands what promotes terrorism.

Cheney was also very defensive:

We did not torture anybody, Rush.

Considering that there are numerous cases where people died from torture, it's hard to believe how anybody could possibly make such a claim.

Yet Cheney dismissed the possibility that there was any torture:

There isn't a thing we did to al Qaeda that had not previously been done to our own people in training them in the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape] program. So the whole notion that somehow this is torture is just wrong. It's a lie.

Of course, we train our soldiers to experience torture by using some torture techniques on them voluntarily. The fact that we use limited torture techniques on our soldiers to help them deal with torture does not make them cease to be torture. There's no doubt that it's torture if an enemy did it to American soldier.

Cheney also made his usual claims about the effectiveness of waterboarding:

our enhanced interrogation techniques, and especially working with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, people like that, provided us with vast amounts of first-rate intelligence. It worked.

This isn't true. The intelligence came before the torture was used, according to a New York Times investigation.

On domestic issues, Cheney declared:

...we've got an awful lot of people in the country who are hurting. But this Administration doesn't appear to have a clue as to how to turn that around and get the private sector up and running again.

It takes some kind of chutzpah for the Bush Administration officials who caused this recession to make lectures about being clueless.

Cheney, who revealed that his book will be out in spring 2011, said about Liz Cheney: "I'd love to see her run for office someday."

Cheney also had this to say about his former VP opponent, John Edwards:

I have always been surprised that a number of responsible people out there held him in high regard. And he obviously didn't deserve it.

Damn right. Of course, exactly the same thing needs to be said about Cheney. When will Republicans realize what an embarrassing, incompetent disaster Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration were?

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

Rush Limbaugh: The Musical

2010-01-31T21:15:00.000-08:00

On January 30, 2010, Rush Limbaugh was vigorously dancing to the music of Lady Gaga during the Miss America pageant. The next day, Mark Sutton was dancing in the role of Limbaugh during the final preview of Rush Limbaugh! The Musical, which opens February 3 at Second City's Etc. stage in Chicago. There's always that difficulty of making good satire when reality is more bizarre than any fiction.

But this musical comes from the creators of Rod Blagojevich Superstar!, so they're accustomed to making musicals about celebrities with a penchant for oddity.

Rush Limbaugh! The Musical is a sometimes entertaining show, but ultimately the performance is flawed by its inability to grapple with who Limbaugh is and why he is so popular. (The show is in still in previews, so some of what I criticize be fixed in last-minute adjustments.)

The musical begins with gentle mockery of Limbaugh as a man “with a friendly voice, if by friendly you mean crazy.” And although the attacks get nastier, and sometimes unfair, they never really pierce Limbaugh’s essence. Ed Furman and TJ Shanoff, the writers of Rush Limbaugh! The Musical, go to great lengths in pursuit of crude humor, and one can’t help but admire a show that makes a 30-year-old reference to George Brett’s hemorrhoids which inspire Limbaugh’s decision to pursue a career as an “unbearable pain in the ass.”

As the author of a forthcoming book about Limbaugh, I may have too much attachment to the basic facts of Limbaugh’s life, and a comic musical obviously is not a biography. Still, some of the fact-fudging choices are odd. A sock hop number depicts Limbaugh as someone stuck in the 1950s; in reality, Limbaugh liked rock and roll, and got fired from one job for playing the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” too many times. The musical claims that the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1984 and led to Limbaugh’s big break in Sacramento. In reality, the never-enforced Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987, and it had nothing to do with Limbaugh’s success. Limbaugh’s national syndication in 1988 is mysteriously moved to 1993 here as a response to Bill Clinton.

The show makes up a lead preacher character, Reverend Rightwing, who advises and guides Limbaugh in his life, and it depicts Limbaugh as a rabid fundamentalist in songs such as, “They Can’t Argue With Jesus.” In reality, Limbaugh almost never talks about faith on his show, doesn’t attend church, and didn’t have any contact with the religious right. Money explains why Limbaugh became who he is where he is, but God makes for better satire than capitalism.

The show could have built entire songs out of Limbaugh’s own words, which are often more shocking than what the creators could ever make up. But aside from a short reading of Limbaugh quotes in the middle of one song, it’s remarkable how little of Limbaugh’s actual words and verbal tics make it into the show. Even the minor details—like Limbaugh on the air declaring that the ninth caller will be a winner—reveal a lack of authenticity.

It’s clear that the show’s creators struggle to understand Limbaugh’s appeal. At one point, a frustrated Hillary Clinton character cries out, “you don’t make any sense, I don’t why people listen to you.”

There’s a certain kind of bipartisanship in the show, with Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton singing their anthem of the Democratic Party, “We’re fucked and we’re losers.” Still, no one can miss the point of view here.

There are funny lines about Limbaugh’s addiction to Oxycontin (“it’s only when you’re super-high that my show makes sense”), and his hearing loss (“When you never listen to anything anybody else says, you can be deaf for years and not know it”). And there’s a kind of pleasure to be had when the hostile narrator compares Limbaugh with John McCain: “he’s a hero, not a draft-dodging pussy like you.”
But too often the show strays from a focus on Limbaugh to standard conservative-bashing or song-and-dance routines that aren’t clever enough to justify the distraction.

One of the worst aspects of the show is the running joke of having Barney Frank deliver a double entendre about being gay. The problem with all these gay jokes is that they’re juvenile and delivered without any sense of irony about the fact that Limbaugh regularly makes similarly hateful Uranus jokes about Barney Frank. It would have been easy for the show to have Limbaugh deliver the anti-gay jokes and still get the cheap laughs, albeit with more discomfort from the audience. Instead, we’re left wondering why a musical that obviously despises Limbaugh shares a similar taste in mocking gay men.

At the end, Rush Limbaugh! The Musical hits its stride again. It’s 2014, and after President Obama defeated Ted Nugent in the 2012 election, Limbaugh has gone crazy. He accidentally reads the Bible one night, and decides “Jesus has shifted too far to the left.” Declaring himself divine, he calls upon his Dittoheads to lead a revolution to overthrow Obama, something that’s actually believable considering Limbaugh’s own statements.

The last scene provides a clever ending to help explain exactly why a black woman named Shasta is the narrator throughout the show (beyond Karla Beard’s obvious singing talents), since it doesn’t fit with anything in Limbaugh’s life.
There are so many ways, though, that Second City could have made this a great comic musical. Imagine putting Al Gore in the show (full of droning and powerpoints) to debate Limbaugh in song on Global Warming (as they did on Nightline in 1992). Instead, they resort to the lowest common denominator for their humor. Admittedly, musical comedy isn’t easy, and political comedy that plays to an audience that doesn’t listen to Rush is even harder.

Rush Limbaugh! The Musical is an entertaining spectacle for Limbaugh haters, but it’s also a missed opportunity to make a tough—and hilarious—critique of his ideas.

Rush Limbaugh! The Musical plays Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8:30pm and Sundays at 2pm at Second City's Etc. Stage, 1616 N. Wells in Chicago, from February 3 to March 24, 2010. Tickets are $25.

John K. Wilson is the author of a forthcoming book about Rush Limbaugh. Crossposted at DailyKos.