I haven't commented on the current brouhaha over Rush Limbaugh, mostly because it seems like a continuation of the last brouhaha (I love that word...), but the left's comments on Limbaugh are just so damn funny, or insane--I never quite know which.
Limbaugh and his cohorts (Coulter, Hannity, Beck, Savage, and so on), are largely responsible for our toxic political environment. Given major media platforms to launch crude and brutal political and cultural attacks, to demonize liberals, and to use rage as a means of lining their own pockets, these 'entertainers' have poisoned our national discourse.
Once again--the five year old's view of fairness. I feel bad for being amused at the antics of this pathetic man. Anything the left says about Republicans is completely justified--any criticism of the left is an outrage. Yet in his conniption, he does make some good points.
The myth of a technological, grassroots revolution, of prodigious strategic and tactical brilliance, of a do-no-wrong campaign, perhaps the greatest ever run, that myth sounds good, but it's not what happened. The reality was that the 2008 election was the age-old battle of character-building and character-destruction. Obama's team won that battle against Hillary Clinton not just because of Obama's abundant positive traits but because people like Rush Limbaugh gave him a 15-year head start against her. He won it against John McCain because McCain squandered years of character-building by enabling the excesses of George W. Bush and by running an erratic, unfocused campaign that served to highlight the best of Obama's character and the worst of his. Character versus character.
Democratic strategists, busy sparring with Rush Limbaugh, should keep that in mind. The seeds of Democratic defeat are planted not by Republican elected officials, who, like McCain, will carry the Bush albatross for years to come, but by those who can freely fan the flames of outrage, who can fight dirty, who can bend and break the rules with impunity, who can tear down their opponents' integrity and character, and whose apparent reward (as in the case of Ann Coulter) is to be given yet a larger platform.
Ignoring the Herculean efforts to avoid taking any responsibility for left-wing character assassination, the central point is a truism--one campaign, or one side, tries to characterize the other as loathsome creatures of the fetid swamp, while handing out halos and angel's wings to its own side. More importantly--it works. George W. Bush went from one of the most popular Presidents in history to one of the most reviled, largely as a result of an orchestrated campaign of unbalanced reporting and sheer, unadulterated hate speech (miserable failure, George Bush doesn't like black people, etc...) Yet it would be disingenuous not to point out that Bush gave his political enemies the openings, and failed to respond effectively. Define yourself or others will gladly do it for you.
Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh; he who hopes for Obama's failure with all the fervor of Peter Daou's similar hope that Barry would fail in the primaries.
If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? Billy Shakes
Limbaugh of course does something I've never heard any lefty milquetoast do--he elucidates political and economic principles. He explains <em>why</em> Obama is destroying the country. The left just tells you something is morally wrong and then demands we bow our heads in shame.
And therein lies the problem.
Its easy to do the rageboy thing when you're in opposition, but the Democrats have to defend actual policies now and attempt to explain their rationale. They are effectively on Rush's playing field and find they can't bend it like Beckham.
Daou tacitly contradicts his own observation--that one has to respond to the opposition's attempts to define you with your own more positive characterizations. Since there is no effective response to Limbaugh, Coulter, etal, he goes all Amish on us--shut out the Satanic forces of the outside world and let us join hands in prayer to the black Jesus.
Siege mentality.
I've always believed that the most effective response is to go after those in the media and the political establishment who give them a platform and who legitimize their radical words but not to engage them in a head-to-head (which gives them credence they don't deserve). So by no means am I advocating ignoring them, as some have interpreted from my post.
Well, yes he is--advocating ignoring them. He just doesn't want to look like he's ignoring them by forbidding all radios, televisions and the internet in the Barack Davidian compound.
Good luck with that. I don't think we need Rush Limbaugh to point out that no one has any confidence in the Obama financial "rescue" plan and that the Dow is at its lowest point since 1992.
There is a point to this post, and its this--the Fairness Doctrine hasn't gone away--it is in effect the last best hope for Democrats to hold on to political power. It is no longer a matter of debate but a survival necessity. The first amendment must die so that Democrat political power may live.
