QandO

Umm..and you DON'T think the Clintons had Vince Foster killed? I am not a Rush fan, myself but I thought that was pretty common knowledge.

Posted by: LauraN at April 16, 2004 04:02 PM

Not much difference at all..

He's been an albatross ever since he dogged Mcnabb... pain med feasting doesn't help him.. So hooked was he that he gladly gave his own ears up for the high..

He has lost something.. I used to love the guy, but its over for me..

Often whilst I'm debating moonbats, they throw the ol' "I bet you listen to Rush" line at me, and it sickens me cuz nothing could be further, and I resent having to dis-entangle myself from him before proceeding with my argument..

We gotta put him out much like the moderate Shia need to put out Sadr..

Posted by: Arvin at April 16, 2004 04:08 PM

"Now, do tell me about how much more serious than Al Franken this Rush Limbaugh fellow is"

Ok, I will! ;)

Hey, this amounts to little more than a nit-pick. I heard that particular section you cite, and it was more a tack on joke at the end than anything else.

Even setting aside things like this, they only make up maybe 10% MAX of his show. The rest of the time, he's backing up his attempts at punditry with some facts, background or sound bites. There is always a logically-arrived at conclusion to his assertions- even if they're wrong.

Franken and crew comes nowhere near this method of operations.

You think Limbaugh spins? Sure, but at least he's spinning substance while Franken is spinning his standard "liar liar" scthick.

Posted by: shark at April 16, 2004 04:38 PM

"Umm..and you DON'T think the Clintons had Vince Foster killed?"

- - -No, of course not. Nor do I think the CIA killed Kennedy. Or that a UFO landed in Roswell.

Just clearing up the other major conspiracy theories, in case.

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 16, 2004 05:20 PM

No kidding. I'm no "dittohead" but I've listened enough to know that Rush often injects little sarcastic quips between chuckles that pokes just as much fun at VRWC theories as they do to the left. This Vince Foster jab is just another example of that double-edged barb.

When seen in print without the context of discerning the "nuance" of tone or mirthful intent, it does come across as another manifestation of extreme demagougery to discredit the entire sphere of conservative thought.

Contrast this with Franken et al, of which a considerable amount of the discussion is devoted to taking similar conspiracy theories as gospel truth. (The war in Iraq is for the oil, Halliburton is a war profiteer, Bush lied about uranium in Africa, etc.)

There is a big difference.

Posted by: Supernaut at April 16, 2004 05:26 PM

Shark, we'll have to agree to disagree. That's not to say that I don't think Limbaugh is right sometimes. I do. I also have a great deal of professional respect for the fellow. He's perhaps the best radio broadcaster ever.

But he's not really doing anything very different than, for example, James Carville on Crossfire. He's picking and choosing facts to make his case...and sometimes it's just spin.

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 16, 2004 05:41 PM

Jon,
This is a great blog btw. One of the first I visit in me tedious days on the job.

Here is my take:

I don't listen much to Rush anymore. I think he's a windbag. But I have this arguement with my very liberal mother all the time.
She cites him as the great satan of right wing hate.
But she loves Bill Maher. I'm sure she'd get a kick out of Franken (She loves how he can tweak Bill O'Reilly).
I think that the major difference is who takes themselves seriously--and this goes for anyone you meet in any walk of life.
Bill O'Reilly has lost it. He used to have *some* humility and his "no spin" was in the beginning a fresh change. Then he got mean. Bill Maher got mean. Even David Lettermen got mean (more like bitter and not in a political vein mind you).
Franken, Moore, Garafolo, Tim Robins--Mean. Bitter and mean. Howard Stern-- recently got very bitter and mean.
All these people have in common a bitterness that makes them very hard to listen to.
The NPR radio announcers have it when talking politics. Even the queen of cute, Katie Couric, when swallowing anything Bush has a sneer--it may even be an inner sneer.
Like Porn, you just know it when you see it.

Contrast this with James Carville, Jon Stewart, Rush, and.... Ann Coulter (GASP!!!)
These people "get it"
I see all these types say the most marvelously ridiculous (In stewart's case-- just plain funny) things and I absolutely believe when the cameras are turned off and the show is over, they slap each other on the back and go to the bar for a cold one to laugh about how outrageous they were.

It's just a sense you get about a person. Hillary (and yes, I'm biased here) she's just blinkin' mean. She seethes at night.
Bill? Man, I think he has a big old chuckle over some partisan things.

Really, overall, Rush crosses the line, but to be on the air all that time? You will eventually. Was it hateful? Nah. The psychos in Florida with the "trigger pull Rumsfeld" THAT is bitter hatred.

Rush is pompous and he KNOWS it.

I don't listen often but I'll cut him slack on that one.

Posted by: Ed at April 16, 2004 10:21 PM

The sickest joke I have laid my eyes on in the past ten years is people who crack wise about "conspiracy theories" of which they remain starkly ignorant.

It is its very own auto da fe.

Miquel Rodriguez: phone home.

Posted by: Billy Beck at April 17, 2004 05:24 AM

Well put, Billy. Indeed...
I suppose some people refuse to look deeper. It's a cesspool, sure, and one must hold their nose and blink often to cope with it but...THAT business atop so much else? Nothing frightens me as much as that "woman". You know The Husband is a fool who just nods while fiddling with his winkie.

Sorry, Jon - we're going to have to disagree on that whole matter.

Posted by: LauraN at April 17, 2004 06:10 AM

Ed: I have to separate my evaluation of Rush into two areas. As a broadcasting professional, I have to give him a great deal of credit, and I'll acknowledge the points you make. He does use humor, satire, sarcasm, etc. And he's one of the best. Ever.

As a serioius political analyst, though, those things just get in the way. If I want to understand a position, it really doesn't help to have the word "feminazi" as a part of the lesson, for example.

Billy: as a general rule, I don't believe in conspiracy theories, because I find most of them simply implausible from a "secrecy" standpoint. The odds, to pick one example, that JFK could be killed by the CIA...and nobody would ever find out, nothing would leak, and no evidence would be left....that defies probability.

Leaving aside the question of "suicide/murder", do you have any specific evidence indicating Foster was killed by the Clintons? I find the whole idea highly improbable.

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 17, 2004 06:55 AM

Everyone knows the Clintons didn't kill Foster. He killed himself...because he had seen Hillary naked and couldn't get the image out of his mind.

The poor blighter.

Posted by: Steverino at April 17, 2004 10:30 AM

"I don't believe in conspiracy theories..."

Of course you do. You believe in them as a matter of diagnosing other peoples' delusions even before you know what they're concerned with. Like: the facts of any given case.

Posted by: Billy Beck at April 17, 2004 02:59 PM

I've read over the details of the Foster case, and I've seen that quite a bit of the "details" - as reported by Ruddy, for example - have been fudged. Ken Starr said there was "no there there", and I'm hard pressed to conclude that he's a part of the Democratic cover-up.

I should be more precise. Yes, I believe that people have theories, which involve conspiracies. I am just very skeptical of what we generally call "conspiracy theories".

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 17, 2004 03:12 PM

Jon-

Hey, that's cool. Reasonable people can disagree (of course, I'm not really reasonable but lets leave that aside for now)

I'm not saying Limbaugh is the end all be all, but I feel he wins the comparison with Franken. For what it's worth, Laura Ingrham (sp?) is my favorite

Posted by: shark at April 17, 2004 03:27 PM

Well, Jon - I could tell you a long tale about papers that showed a snr shrubbily named person and a picnic about a 15 yrs ago hosting someone who wanted very much to express their dismay over their untimely augering of a certain jet and how it impacted their desire to own a fair chunk of Dallas property?

Yeah - pretty damned far fetched. But with it, a grand jury was held and a very close friend was involved. Not much happened of course, and dear Clinton saw fit to give her - oh, about 3k for her "duty" to her country. No mention of how she ought to behave after infuriating a number of powerful people in very sandy countries.

Now, all that from just a few pieces of papers mislaid in a law office. When one looks at the wealth of...improbable instances surrounding the Foster case, I find it easily believable and highly likely. But hey - that's just me.

Posted by: LauraN at April 17, 2004 07:29 PM

Improbable. Such as?

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 17, 2004 07:41 PM

I could suspend the entire thing on the tenter hook that no honest thing has ever happened on the Clinton watch. However, http://www.allanfavish.com/foster.htm has done a lot of the work already. I can assure you that his queries would never have made it to the 9th circuit if they had no merit.

A comment section is certainly not a place to delineate the many aspects of evidence and opinion on this matter. Indeed, they are delineated elsewhere in-depth.Hell, just look for INSLAW, Ron Brown, Mena...trust me, no one has as long a trail of bodies as they do. Amazing that people simply refuse to See. But it is not up to me to convince you. I have read what I need to in order to come to my stance. I was simply rather surprised to see someone I considered to be rather learned to be so...flippant about the subject.

Believe what you like - it is *your* reality, after all.

Posted by: LauraN at April 17, 2004 09:44 PM

It was a joke, as told by one Julia Gorin - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/185055p-160395c.html

Posted by: HH at April 19, 2004 07:48 PM

Ms Gorin may have told the joke, Henry, but that's got very little to do with what Rush said.

Again, I'm well aware that Rush often speaks in subtle satire. He may even have been doing so in this case...but it wasn't obvious.

And you can NOT tell me that you would cut a liberal that kind of slack for making a straight-faced allegation that Bush would have somebody killed to attain office.

And if you do, I'm probably not going to buy it. I know exactly how much slack has been cut for Michael Moore, and his ilk, for their half-truths, lies and allegations. Hell, Moore was castigated for confusing deserter with AWOL.

This was simply an irresponsible "joke"...one which Limbuagh should not have spread.

Posted by: Jon Henke at April 19, 2004 07:59 PM

Except it is not straight faced. And Moore stood by, quite seriously, his claim that Bush was a deserter after commentators pointed out what that meant. Yes he was speaking in satire, it's clear to anyone who has listened for any amount of time.

Over and over I've seen and heard lefties joke about "don't get on an airplane" in reference to Paul Wellstone, remarking on the conspiracy theories about Bush and his death, among others. I'm not going to go after them for that joke either. Some jokes cross the line, for example, Baldwin's "stone Henry Hyde" to death because that came across more as an incitement to violence. Ann Coulter's "McVeigh" joke, which she immediately took back, could be seen as an incitement, especially if she had stood by the comment. To joke that "he/she might have them killed" is a stupid joke, but hardly worthy of outrage to the level of those comments or the Moore comments, and as Limbaugh apologized personally to Hillary Clinton for remarks he had made about her daughter, I'm sure if he were to be reminded of this statement and that people were upset over it, he'd apologize for them or clarify them, at minimum. As we've seen, Michael Moore is not that kind of person. When he runs into those he criticizes, it's because he's stalked them so he can pepper them with questions and harass them.

Posted by: HH at April 19, 2004 10:30 PM

Here, Limbaugh established that "Marcy Park" meant "political death." His "lexicon" (originally printed in his first book and since expanded exponentially) requires long-term listening to understand what he means... The reference is tasteless but he's not talking about anyone being killed.

Posted by: HH at April 19, 2004 10:57 PM