Posted on 03/04/2009 12:46:52 PM PST by neverdem
All these highbrow conservative attacks on Limbaugh keep missing the point.
1) There is a certain sort of genius there that can do 15 hours of talk per week, ad hoc, and hold an audience of 20 million plus for over 20 years. There are about one or two others out of some 300 million who can do it. It may not be the same as digesting Reinhold Niebuhr or rereading the Federalist papers, but it is an uncanny talent and for over twenty years it has energized conservatives and reflected a certain populism that was lacking in its Wall Street/silk-stocking past. One could give Air America 1 trillion dollars in subsidy and it still could not match Limbaugh's audience.
2) Unlike many of his critics, Limbaugh is consistent, and that's why he maintains his audience. He is not going to wake up in the morning with vero possumus infatuation. Long before Barack Obama came along, he was warning his listeners about another populist maverick (from the Right) Ross Perot, and why they should not jump ship for him. For millions of conservatives the problem is not Limbaugh's occasional over-the-top riffs that are part of the talk-show genre, but NY-DC trimmers and triangulators who get caught up in fads and waves of popularity and adjust accordingly — as if they do not have the innate common sense to see that borrowing another trillion and more dollars to cure the problems brought on by borrowing annually a half-trillion dollars is, well, insanity.
3) When commentators bring up Limbaugh's private life in contrast to Obama's picture-perfect image, they only emphasize the superficial. I don't think Limbaugh would sit for 20 years listening to a white-supremacist preacher G-D-ing America. I don't think, like a Moyers, he would care all that much to learn who on his staff is gay. As is not the case with a Bill Maher or Michael Moore, those around Limbaugh like him, because they sense he is, for lack of a better word, a regular guy. That's why he can go on about his mansion and plane since his audience senses it is more caricature than snootiness. And if you did not actually hear conservative elites tsk-tsking Limbaugh's weight, marriages, and past addiction, then you would have to invent them doing so. We saw all that with Palin and the demonization of her multiple pregnancies, blue-collar husband, twangy speech, and Idaho B.A. Yet the reason why a Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush was elected twice — and not George Bush primus — was precisely because they could resonate with the middle classes in both a cultural and social sense, an ability that transcends money but has everything to do with attitude. What scares many is not the sometimes slobby but authentic image of a blunt-talking Rush Limbaugh, but the polo-shirted pre-packaged personas of an Obama, John Edwards, or John Kerry.
I didn’t really get that he thinks Rush is a slob but that the DC elites think Rush is a slob.
The Latin phrase was the one Obama was using last summer during one of his fits of self-adulation, before it was ridiculed so much they dropped it.
Supposedly the Latin for "yes, we can!" but I prefer the alternate translation, "truly, a possum!"
I recall the "yes we can" or "Sí se puede" nonsense, which was the motto of the United Farm Workers under Cesar Chavez in the 1970s and then was adopted by the illegal immigrant marches in 2006. Like everyting else, Obama steals something from someone else and makes it his own.
Good article. The country club conservatives are just as afraid of Rush as the liberals are. Maybe more so. And it’s hard to figure out which of those groups is more pathetic.
GO RUSH!
In Candide, Candide discusses literature with the Venetian nobleman Pococurante, who is bored with it all. He does admit that the 2nd, 4th, and 6th books of the Aeneid are excellent, "but as for his pious Aeneas, and valiant Cloanthus, and faithful Achates, and little Ascanius, not to mention half-witted King Latinus, and parochial Amata, and insipid Lavinia, I can think of nothing more disagreeable or more likely to leave one absolutely cold."
A bit later Pococurante says of Cicero, "What does it matter to me whether he defended Rabirius or Cluentius?"
What a fool.
Don’t throw the nearly imperceptible baby out with Lake Superior, okay?
Pity that the white-trash Republicans cannot seem to comprehend this.
What scares many is not the sometimes slobby but authentic image of a blunt-talking Rush Limbaugh, but the polo-shirted pre-packaged personas of an Obama, John Edwards, or John Kerry.
And this is one reason why Sarah Palin will catapult to the nomination. Especially after the American people finally realize how intelligent she is.
VD baby, you had me at Reagan.
You should have stopped there.
It wasn't so much that GW Bush had some instinctive rapport with the middle classes, as that his opponents s*ck*d.
But why "a Ronald Reagan"?
It's not like there have been any others.
I’m not sure about this, but Mr. Steele might be reluctant to take advice from one who uses “loose” when he means “lose.” Just a thought.
I have my own wish list for Rush. I think his shtick - with self-aggrandizing humor - keeps many potential listeners away. I don't have ability to listen him as much as I would wish (that would be always), but I was lucky enough to catch recently his conversation with a woman that was expressing the same reservations to him. He gave her plenty of opportunity to say it, acknowledged that he's got it, but ultimately decided to stick to his guns. To unfamiliar ear he can sound arrogant and obnoxious. I wish he'd drop this shtick, he is undisputed #1 for so many reasons, that he should need no self-promotion anymore. Conservatism would benefit if his voice reached more people. IMHO, of course.
Let me know if you want in or out.
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I want in! Thanks again!
Sorry but I’ve never once seen Rush slobby and it was stupid to say so. I’m a woman and I prefer Rush just the way he is. I don’t find him the least bit arrogant. I find him secure in who he is and that’s what makes me like him.
Thanks. But you are already on the VDH ping list. I don’t drop anybody without a request.
Between you, me, neverdem, and Hanson (good company!) - if in our positive assessment of Rush we agree on 95%, and agree 100% on scorning Rush’s Dems attackers - I think its a good correlation.
I never liked to pursue 5-10% disagreements with the fellow conservatives that results in harming our 90-95% agreement.
You missed the point. “Sometimes slobby” is your average, everyday guy.
Well, Rush looked too fat, and he was atrociously dressed when he gave the speech last week at CPAC. I was very disappointed at what IMO was a “slobby” (or sloppy) appearance.
But in spite of his obeisity and his careless attire, Rush is still a great man, no doubt about it!
“I think you are missing the forest for the trees”
He’s missing the forest for a single weed...
What forest?/ lolol
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