Robt. Reich's response to Limbaugh, et al

• Robt. Reich's response to Limbaugh, et al - Truthseeker
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hero of the great unwashed said SP was a "babe", "could wear a skirt", had "definable ankles."   I thought sexism was sexism whether complementary or derogatory.  I'll know more after my bath.

I've heard Al Franken say this on a television interview.  He repeated it in an interview with Geov Parrish at WorkingforChange.com (05/02/05) to which we can conveniently link:

GP: What do you think the differences are between you and Limbaugh?

AF: I'm glad you asked me that. I use this example a lot. A few months ago, Rush was talking about the minimum wage. Conservatives like to portray it that no one has to raise a family on the minimum wage, the only people who get the minimum wage are teenagers who want to buy an i-Pod. So Rush says, "75 percent of all Americans on the minimum wage, my friends, are teenagers on their first job." And one of the researchers brings this to me, with a smile, and I say, "Well, can you look it up?" And they look it up, the researcher goes to something called the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 60.1 percent of Americans on minimum wage are twenty and above. 39.9 percent, then, are either teenagers or below twelve (laughs). I had several jobs as a teenager, so you figure, what, 13 percent might be teenagers in their first job. Not 75 percent. So where did Rush get his statistic? Well, he got it directly from his butt. It went out his butt, into his mouth, out the microphone, into the air, into the brains of dittoheads. And they believe this stuff.

So we get our labor statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He gets his from the Bureau of Rush's Butt. And that's the difference. We don't do that. That's one of the main differences.

Limbaugh runs away from Limbaugh (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - There is nothing wrong with an unpopular opinion.

Nor is there anything wrong with a subversive one, nor a crazy one. This country was founded on opinions that were deemed by the powers-that-were to be unpopular, subversive, and crazy. Dissent - even when that dissent strays from logic or humanity - is our life’s blood. But if you have one of those opinions, and you express it in public, honesty and self-respect require you to own up to it.

Unless you’re Rush Limbaugh.

On his daily radio soap opera, on August 15, Limbaugh said “Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real…” The complete transcript of the 860 words that surround those quotes can be found at the bottom of this entry.

Yet, apparently there was something so unpopular, so subversive, and so crazy about those remarks that he has found it necessary to deny he said them - even when there are recordings and transcripts of them - and to brand those who’ve claimed he said them as crackpots and distorters. More over, that amazing temple to himself, his website, has been scrubbed clean of all evidence of these particular remarks, and to ‘prove’ his claim that he never made the remarks in question on August 15, he has misdirected visitors to that site to transcripts and recordings of remarks he made on August 12.

Limbaugh is terrified. And he has reason to be.

Understand this about Limbaugh. He doesn’t believe half the junk he spouts. I’ve met him, and had pleasant enough conversations with him, twice - at the 1980 World Series when he was still a mid-level baseball flunky with a funny name, and once in the mid ‘90s at ESPN when he was just beginning his campaign to get a toehold there. He is a quiet, almost colorless man who, if he could be guaranteed similar success in sportscasting, would sell out the sheep who follow his every word - and would do it before close of business today.

But with that ESPN bid having gone up in flames just under two years ago, and sports forever closed off to him, he’s gotten into what the novelist Robert Graves called a “Golden Predicament” - overwhelming success in a field he really had no intention of pursuing - and he has to keep churning this stuff out every day. And when you’re just free associating to kill time and keep the ditto-heads happy, you sometimes drive right off the end of the pier.

Like on August 15^th.

Since we declared Limbaugh “The Worst Person In The World” two nights later for the remarks about Sheehan, he has had the transcript of his pier-drive expunged (even though he initially thought so much of it, that it was posted as a “featured quote” for paying subscribers to his website). Simultaneously, the hapless Brent Bozell, who runs that scam called The Media Research Center, declared that I was guilty of “distortion” in quoting the Sheehan remarks.

Well, as you’ll see below, the only distortion here, is that which lingers in Limbaugh’s ears. His remarks about Sheehan were so embraced by at least one of his fans that they were preserved on another website, and we can present them in full here. You will notice that nothing has been taken out of context, nothing in the minutes before nor the minutes afterwards mitigates against the utter callousness and infamy of his comments about Sheehan.

A reminder that that’s Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother, who when I asked her bluntly if President Bush wasn’t serving her purposes more by not seeing her, was honest enough to answer “yes” without hesitation. And it’s Rush Limbaugh, who so believes in his case against her that he’s too afraid to admit he said this (and who, by the way, has since said of her that, "I'm weary of even having to express sympathy... we all lose things” - as if her son had been a misplaced, er, prescription).

The long preface concluded, here is what Rush Limbaugh said, crazily weaving in and out of the topic of Cindy Sheehan, in his broadcast of August 15. He even wanders back into football, and the very topic that proved his end at ESPN, Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles (honestly, if he ever wanted to be analyzed, he would be such a juicy case that psychiatrists would bid for Limbaugh’s rights). So, as you get deeper into the thicket, you can find the relevant portions about Sheehan, I’ve italicized them. Limbaugh had wandered into this via the news of the withdrawal of the anti-John Roberts advertisement from NARAL:

“They pulled this ad because it wasn't working. They didn't pull this ad because of a bite of conscience or, ooh, this is wrong. And their mistake was they're telling themselves they came out of the barn too soon with it. If they'd have come out of this say a week before September 6th. Well, stop and think about it. If they would have run this ad, if this would have started a week before September 6th, CNN carrying it, and none of the Democrats denouncing it, and without a whole lot of time to gin up, it would have probably had more effect. So I think they're going to learn from this that they didn't keep their powder dry, they just were too eager.

“But the fact that they are too eager -- I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it, it's not real. It's nothing more than an attempt, it's the latest effort made by the coordinated left. And all of these efforts are bombing; they're all failing miserably, in and of themselves.

“Now, this is not to say that all is rosy. I don't want you to misunderstand. But I don't get that worked up about it. I have an attitude about it. I've been sharing this with you for the longest time. So I think we're in a new era. The left doesn't get away with this stuff anymore. They're not getting away with it now. I know it's irritating, I know it's frustrating, I know it makes you mad, does me, too, but it's not helpful to the people who are doing this, it is not assisting them.

“They are going to try to claim that Cindy Sheehan is responsible for the Bush poll numbers on Iraq being down, but those numbers were falling before Cindy Sheehan did this. I'm not saying the mainstream press isn't effective in certain areas anymore, I'm not saying the mainstream press doesn't have the ability to shape opinion. Just saying on this, this is not the thing everybody should be worried about. I don't have one in my mind that is, something everybody ought to be worried about, but if you're going to be angry at this, and I understand the anger, and I share some of it, too, the anger here, to me, is how the left and the media are trying to make this bigger than it is.

“But that still takes me back to the fact that they know they're losing, they know they're losing big time. These people are throwing it up against the wall. It's the fourth quarter and all they're doing is throwing long bombs and their quarterback's gotten too tired to finish the game and their wide receiver is out there making all kinds of disparaging comments about the quarterback and getting kicked out of camp.

“The situation with the Philadelphia Eagles pretty much dovetails what's going on with the Democratic Party right now if you ask me. It does. I don't think that we're looking at people who have a posture of confidence. This is not the kind of thing that winners do. It's all done in total desperation, as is the mainstream press's ability to prop it up.

“What's she got? A hundred stragglers have showed up down there, a hundred peaceniks, a hundred long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM types, essentially, are down there joining her. And if this were genuine, if this were like it was back in Vietnam -- remember, that's what they're trying to turn this into. They're just reliving the old halcyon days of the anti-war movement in the sixties. They would have had hundreds of thousands of people down there. They would have had mass marches. There would have been the need for riot cops outside Bush's ranch down there. This is so obviously a desperation move.

“Now, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the woman. I think she's taken the grieving process here to lengths that most people don't, and she's being fueled by all of this attention. But this is just a long way of saying I'm not -- you can call about it and you can talk about it but I just am not that worked up about it because, to me, it's sort of like -- I got an e-mail today from a guy said, "Rush, why aren't you talking about that radio scandal going on?" Why should I talk about it? Why should I talk about that, folks? There's a cardinal rule, when your enemy is destroying themselves, you shut up and you get out of the way and let them do it. And it's happening in countless areas and times on the left. Certain things you do need to give a little nudge, other things you just get out of the way.

“But the longer the Sheehan thing goes on and the longer she's treated as some sort of super-celebrity by the press and the more outrageous things she says, trust me on this, the more people are going to get fed up with it. She's going to become the next Natalee Holloway before it's all said and done.”

E-mail:



KOlbermann@msnbc.com KOlbermann@msnbc.co

I don't think I have wait for the liberal analysis of what Rush said.  I was actually listening on the days he said all the things you referred to above,  Of course, the so-called impoverished in this country are not the only ones with an obesity problem.  Anyone who eats more calories than their body can burn on a daily basis will end up with an obesity problem it's not exclusive to race or class. 

The UNICEF remarks were making fun of a U.N. charity program which, I believe, just last year was documented to be funneling money to Kofi Anan and his cohorts, but of course it was nicely swept under the rug.  Actually, Rush was making fun of Sally Struthers for standing around truly starving people making us feel guilty for not sending money to UNICEF while she's standing there weighing all of 300 pounds herself, and I would bet my life she didn't miss a meal while doing that shoot.

That's not the point.  I know what Rush said, because I heard what Rush said when he said it.  It was satire whether you believe or not.  Again, Rush does it, because he knows it will inflame liberals, and the PC crowd.  He didn't talk about the bloated bellies of the starving people in the context you and the article want to spin it to be. 

You don't get it, and I don't expect you to.  I politely suggest you stick to Air America (for however long it remains on the air), and don't bother yourself with what Rush has to say, because when you call him or anyone else bloated or fat you are seriously defeating your own cause in being outraged that he called someone else fat.

The liberal double standards just don't fly anymore.

Flashback: Carville Wanted Bush to Fail

The press never reported that Democratic strategist James Carville said he wanted President Bush to fail before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But a feeding frenzy ensued when radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wanted President Obama to fail.

By Bill Sammon

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: "I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed."

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

"We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him," Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: "They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails."

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

The press followed Carville’s orders, never reporting his or Greenberg’s desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party’s top strategists, that Bush should fail.

That omission stands in stark contrast to the feeding frenzy that ensued when radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wanted President Obama to fail. The press devoted wall-to-wall coverage to the remark, suggesting that Limbaugh and, by extension, conservative Republicans, were unpatriotic.

We are not supposed to cross post, so I am respecting the administrator's request. 

So you are saying all other media outlets except Fox are liberal and therefore cannot be trusted to provide accurate information.  Therefore, you can only get true information from their network, because they tell you that is so.  I see where you are coming from.

All the examples you use about being make to hate, if the individuals mentioned being indoctrinated resisted by using their minds to seek broader or alternative information could simply resist the information being forced on them and resist hating.  Poor sentence structure, I admit.

McCain did the same thing when he was defeated in N. Caroline because Rove used dirty tactics like push polls calling people and asking if they would vote for McCain if they knew he had a biracial baby.  McCain had to suck it up and stand next to Bush and announce that he would support him.  I thought he was ethical enough to resist using such tactics when he the chance to campaign. but I was wrong.

Of course I believe they can.  Luckily you tacked on white supremacists right there at the end or I would have been appalled at the assumption that non-caucasian, non-christian people are incapable of thinking for themselves.

Let the oil companies bail them out since they directly benefited from some of the bad management decisions.

This would never happen.  I doubt the oil companies care if the US auto industry goes down.  If it does go down, then we will have imports, for which we will also have to buy gas (which would actually be a better alternative for the oil companies as opposed to us building vehicles that would not be dependent on oil).

Don't bail out the companies.  Give the money to the workers for re-education, etc., while the auto companies restructure.

Re-education takes time.  If these workers are already or soon to be out of work, they need jobs yesterday.  They have families to feed, and that can't wait for a new career. 

I think the best approach is to go ahead and bail them out (as much as that stinks), but set criteria they have to meet that would show re-tooling and progression to non-gas vehicles.  I like the Pickens plan myself.

Move to Russia----that's the problem.  If you guys are confronted with any sort of ideas that are not part of your belief your first instict seems to be to just remove it.  That's not tolerance -- that's segregation.

As far as kids go, I would challenge you to show me 1 child 4th grade and up (probably lower than that) that does not know what *gay* means, and homosexuality is not being taught in schools now.  As far as the TV, mine came with a remote with little buttons for changing the channel and a handy dandy on/off switch.  Toy dispensers in gas station bathrooms:  Yes, there are some of those out there.  However, they are no where near as common as you would make them out to be.

Marriage -- what is it to you if they call it marriage?  You do realize there are christian gays and lesbians?  The problem is that on this issue christians seem to think that everyone should live by their rules when everyone else has a different set of rules.  What about Muslims who are married?  Is thier marriage worth anything in your eyes?  They didn't get married with God as a witness as you would discribe Him.  I'm married and yet I'm and athiest.  Is my marriage worthless?

Christianity is an all or nothing proposition.  When it comes to laying down legislation for a nation as diverse as ours, that all or nothing mentality does nothing but divide the nation.

to any discussion is just one-line BS?  Do you have any evidence to show that the people being held at Gitmo are what you say they are?  Can you show where this defense attorney is incorrect?  Do you perhaps have inside info on exactly what will happen to the prisoners?  Or better yet, do you even have any kind of rationale for your opinion other than your obvious paranoia concerning bringing the prisoners here?  There is the concept of us having to pay for their upkeep, but hey, guess what?  We're already paying for that.  In addition to that, how much do you think it costs just to keep Gitmo open, not only financially but in political capital as well?

Helpful hint:  If when responding to a post if you click inside the big white box underneath the subject line, it will allow you to type in a more detailed note, thereby, possibly (and I use that term loosely), giving more credibility to your posts. 

I wrote to them, as well, and didn't receive a reply at all (not that I was expecting one of any substance).

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who wrote to them.