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Rush Limbaugh, the man who wants Obama to fail
The right wing King of Talk Radio is in danger of martyring himself at the altar of America's new hero, says Charles Laurence
It looks like Rush Limbaugh can teach us all a thing or two about re-branding to survive a slump. The growling voice of diehard conservatism, the King of Talk Radio, sang the only sour note on America's day of euphoria when Barack Obama was sworn in as President and Dubya Bush packed off to Texas. "I hope he fails," he said. "Somebody's gotta say it," he added.
For once it looked as if the blowhard of the airwaves, the fat man with the cigar who is credited with single-handedly reviving the dying medium of AM talk radio, once as American as apple pie, had overstepped the mark.
The nation was in love with its new barrier-busting First Family, and had giddily pinned its hopes of surviving its credit card bills on his calm, cool presence in the Oval Office. And this overpaid buffoon wants Obama to fail? The putz wants millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, health care and futures? Just to make things clear, Limbaugh went on: "What is unfair about my saying I hope Liberalism fails? Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here."
It is possible, given the scandal over Limbaugh's addiction to prescription opiates, scored through bent doctors, that the Bush years of illiberalism passed him by. But even so, it looked for a day or two that the Limbaugh rant might finally die of its own irrelevance.
The newly installed President himself could not resist a coup-de-grace: inviting Republican leaders to the White House for one of his cross-party sessions, he said: "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." Touche!
He says Obama meets the old American fantasy of ‘the Magic Negro’
Or maybe not. Limbaugh is a very odd man, as all three of his wives seem to have discovered before hasty departures. He has been mono-maniacally obsessed with radio since he was a boy, and began working at a radio station when he was 16. His mother noted that he couldn't be bothered with school, failed at university, and even flunked a class called Modern Ballroom Dance.
He has written a couple of opinionated bestsellers on the back of his celebrity, and once tried TV, but it is only in his little glass box with a microphone that he comes alive. He was a DJ and a sports commentator before President Reagan repealed the Fairness Act in broadcasting, allowing partisan spite to flow unchecked over the airwaves, and Limbaugh found his form. He got away, for instance, with saying that Obama's strength as a presidential candidate was no more than his meeting the old American fantasy of "the Magic Negro".
In his own way, Limbaugh has a genius for the form. That, at bottom, is why he has 13.4 million daily listeners, and beats even the TV anchors in terms of earnings, having signed a $50m a year contract for the next eight years.
It might be no coincidence that by his own admission he is "100 per cent totally deaf": it helps not to hear too much rational discourse. It is certainly no coincidence that he was born to a long line of lawyers and judges in small-town Missouri. He began in Jim Crow segregation, and grew up amid white fury at the progress of the Civil Rights era.
He is only 58, although he has always looked older. While his audience imagines him hobnobbing with the high and mighty, he actually lives an almost entirely isolated existence. He works most of his waking hours, shuttling between his Florida mansion, where he lives alone but for the help, to his own studio building, with occasional forays to the golf course.
The conservative magazine the National Review anointed him 'The Leader of Conservative Principles' in a cover story in 1993. That was the year Bill Clinton took office, already tarred with extra-marital dalliances, and indeed it was Limbaugh's moment. However, that was then and this is now, and all but the cranks and the nitwits are rallying behind the new administration.
But it might not quite be the end of Rush Limbaugh. While he faces a slump in national demand for right-wing rant, the wily showman has come up with a ploy. He is complaining that President 'O' is trying to "marginalise" him so that he can shore up his dangerous regime of liberals and faint-heart conservatives.
Limbaugh pictures himself cast into the wilderness, a martyred prophet leading his dwindling band of faithful, who will one day say, to quote his own book-title: "I told you so." ·
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You can't hush Rush. He is so right. This will be a new era of Depression for the USA, socialism with covert racist get-our-own-back garnish. The US will get into Federal pork-barrel overspend like never before. Businesses will fail, banks will fail. Obama will say, "I told you it would get worse before it got better, we need more stimulus package." More of a porkulus package I say. There will be strikes, union unrest, house repo, car repo, tyre retreads, you name it. Wal-Mart will do well tho. I look forward to looking at the back of Obamawan-kenobi. He is the One to Avoid. This is hope we can change in. Or a room we change in, or at least a foot looker we can put our change in. "Nobama, keep the change."
Nice try, Matt. You make some good, isolated points but to extrapolate those examples into national policy will be a disaster. Yes, the health care industry is a debacle but putting it in under the control of government will be a fiasco. I prefer to have the option of determining my own care and not have somebody dictate when and where I can get treated. While Germany may have a more successful program than the USA, it is also a much smaller country which makes it easier to administer the programs. (For a country with a horrendous socialist health care system, take a look at Britain.) I still contend that "socialism" is bad for America. After 40 years and trillions of dollars on welfare programs as part of the war on poverty, the poor are just as numerous. Take a look at the movie, "The Lives of Others" if you want to see a closeup of what a socialist country turns into. For myself, I prefer freedom even if it is riskier than the security of government running everything. One last comment. If you look at cities/states like New Orleans, New York, California, etc., almost all are run by liberals and all are facing financial crises because they are promising more than they can deliver. Of course, the people get what they deserve because they keep voting them in.
P.S. I'm glad your dad had a successful operation in Germany.
No dice, Jim Angel. The old idea that 'socialism' is bad for America just doesn't hold up. The state-funded and federal-funded public education system, for all of its flaws, is one of the crossbeams of American democracy. If, one day, we opt to have a nationally funded health insurance system, then you will no longer need to fear that if you get mugged while you are searching for a new job, you will wake up the next morning in a hospital bed with $50,000 worth of debt, as happened recently to a fellow Californian. And the Tenessee Valley Authority alone would suggest your criticisms of FDR's legacy are misguided. While it is certainly necessary that the federal government spend our tax money wisely and prudently, there is no shortage of places where the government can step in to help caulk when the roof starts to leak over our heads. And if you call that socialism, I say bring it on.
P.S. my dad was recently travelling in Germany, needed a root canal, and got it done the same day with utmost professionalism by a German dentist and he paid about 1/5 of what he would have paid in the 'states. Is that socialism? because it sure seemed to work well for my dad. and the dentist was driving a Mercedes, and was not overworked ... maybe we could learn a thing or two from the Germans ...
Rush Limbaugh and his opinion are part of the American Show Biz. But audiences are listening. America is still divided but not as black and white as we used to see and listeners are not necessarily feeling the same racism the Limbaugh talks about. However, conservatism will exist for a long time; we should learn to live with that.
What I'm really worried about is the provocation Limbaugh is propagating may create a killer to go after Obama like it happened for Malcolm X and JFK and many other racially motivated killing we have seen in the past.
Rush Limbaugh for all his bloviating and diehard "conservatism, is nothing more than a loudmouth comedian, who has made millions on the backs of the "working poor," who believing his care and concern for the people, have anointed him to almost "G-d like" status.
Mr. Limbaugh, trumpets a cause which in truth is not conservatism, but the neo-conservatism of the Bush Era. He has chosen money over principle and lives for the idea that he can earn more than anyone. Greed and avariciousness, do not a conservative make. One must also take into account the ideal of philanthropy and caring for their neighbours. Poor as well as rich.
I could continue with the narrative that I have started but suffice it to say, Rush Limbaugh is not and never has been the conservative that he purports to be. Should he one day wake and find himself a real conservative, then I would listen to him and give his point of view a listen to.
I find it fascinating that the author of this article has never listened to Rush - based on his very uninformed comments. He obviously is a bitter, angry, and vitriolic liberal (as most tend to be) and unable to discuss in a rational manner what Rush was getting at. He is only spouting lines that the hate-mongers on the left have for Rush. Long before Rush ever mentioned it, I hoped that Obama's policies fail because socialism never works in the long run. It failed in FDR's time and it will fail again only this time instead of being in a depression, it will drive us into one.
As for being racist, anyone who looks at the past election will see that it is not the right that is racist but the left. Only the Dems brought up the issue. Those of us on the right look at the person, not the color of the skin. If Obama were white, I would still hope his policies fail because they will destroy this country in the long run.
Hey, even the rightwingnut lardarses have to have something to listen to and look up to. Hopefully he'll die alone and abandoned as America becomes a decent, responsible, inclusive, caring country.
Who cares what Rush Limbaugh says? Any racist can draw a crowd in the white world, Britain included. Remember how Enoch Powell was hailed as the prophet who lived in rivers of blood?