Rush Limbaugh

In the past couple of weeks or so I have noticed an up tick in attacks on comedian Rush Limbaugh, especially coming from the White House and Democratic associated groups. I just don’t get it.

Rush is the voice of the Republicans? When has he not been? Did Democrats wake up one day, click on their radio, and say “What the fuc*???? Who is this person?”

But then again I don’t care. Democrats need a different plan.

Maybe it’s pay back for the attacks on the group Move On during their ad controversy in 2007. Or maybe the storm caused by the misuse of comments by General Wesley Clark about John McCain. It could even be a counter to the Swift boating of John Kerry in 2004.

It gets a lot of press because the villagers are looking for ways to give more press coverage to the GOP plus they have thousands of hours to fill on their cable channels and talk radio shows and not enough white young women go missing to keep fill that time. Besides Shark Week is in July.

Rush lies. The guy cherry picks his call ins. He is a bigot. He called Obama and Hillary pretty much every name in the book without losing his job. Probably 90% of his listeners are sheep and will never be reasoned with and they agree with all he says. Rush loves the attention and press coverage because he loves to play the victim. There is nothing new about Rush.

Using the power of the White House and the Democrats to attack the windbag is really like shooting fish in a barrel. And it has the same effect like sending another “strongly worded letter” from the Congress that we often saw during the final years of W’s term instead of Congress growing a pair and exerting some legislative power than comes from being in the majority.

The fact remains that the public voted and the GOP has nothing to offer. Rush has nothing to offer but cries of victim hood.

We have some serious issues to take care of and right now Rush and the GOP are irrelevant. They are a waste of time.

Here is an agenda I would like to see:

1. Ignore Rush Limbaugh – turn off the radio or enforce the Fairness Doctrine and a return to owner responsibility to the local community to provide a wide range of voices. Both items are still in the FCC rules.
2. Smack the GOP upside the head – have the Dem leadership explain “we gave them a chance and now we WILL do it our way…” Every time a Dem gets on a Sunday or Cable talk show and asked why they haven’t been “bi-partisan” they have to say “we gave them a chance and they refused to go along. If they want to participate our door is open but we won’t ask them any more because we don’t have to…” They need to say this EVERY FRICKING TIME when a microphone is shoved in their face. That’s how you frame a discussion.
3. If one of those Sunday or cable shows keep giving all the air time to the GOP refuse to accept an invite to one program as an example. Then hold a press conference outside the studio of that program and point out how one sided the talk shows are considering the reality outside the DC beltway.
4. Replace Senator Harry Reid with someone who will act like a majority leader in the Senate of the party with the majority. Maybe Reid just has a lot of lube left over from 2008?

I know it is hard to adapt to a new power structure but we need the Dems to learn fast and get on the stick or they will lose the chance the 2008 elections gave them.

You should have heard by now about the parody song called “Barack the Magic Negro” sent to Republican National Committee members by Chip Saltsman, who is running for the RNC chair. The backlash from normal people was loud and the defense of Saltsman, by racist Republicans was also loud. None of it surprised me really as I have enough common sense to know that “negro” is not a word one uses in public and defending its use as a “joke” is just plain mentally challenged.

Here are some of the “lyrics” of the song:

Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
‘Cause he’s not authentic like me.
Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper
Said he makes guilty whites feel good
They’ll vote for him, and not for me
‘Cause he’s not from the hood.
See, real black men, like Snoop Dog,
Or me, or Farrakhan
Have talked the talk, and walked the walk.
Lyrics

Now a standard understanding of english and US History should see these words as not funny but racist to the core. It shouldn’t have to be said why “negro” is not a good word to be throwing around in public in the 21st Century.

Defenders of the song when it was first heard on Rush Limbaugh’s show back in 2007 (wow, imagine that..) including Saltsman himself now say:

“liberal Democrats and their allies in the media didn’t utter a word about David Ehrenstein’s irresponsible column in the Los Angeles Times last March. But now, of course, they’re shocked and appalled by its parody on ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show.”
Chip Saltsman’s ‘Magic Negro’ mistake

The column Saltsman refers to was about comparing Obama’s candidacy to characters in film and literature of a nonthreatening black man whites could embrace – which played on the racist idea that whites “normally” fear blacks.

As Tim Rutten says in his column:

The point is, when it comes to discussions of race in America — and particularly racial or ethnic humor — context is everything. In fact, racial and ethnic humor are probably the most contextually sensitive of all forms of satire. They work only when everyone is clear that the person making the joke regards the differences and foibles of another group affectionately and as something that makes everybody’s life more interesting. Lots of traditional Jewish and Irish humor falls into that category, though even there, it depends on who is telling the joke, and to whom.
The right contextual conditions, however, never exist in politics, which is why ethnic or racial references in that venue nearly always offend — or, at best, fall flat.

The reason there was little to no complaints about David Ehrenstein is that he was discussing cultural history and he is part black. There is just a basic taboo against a white person using racist terms about blacks just as there is a taboo about Jewish people using slurs against Irish Catholics in public etc….

This has been a staple tactic of the Republican party for more than 50 years. Using fear of minorities to rile up their white base with first outright racist terms but usually now they use codes. Saltsman seemed to have left his code book at home.

Now if it has to be explained why a white guy sending out a parody song which uses racially charged words about a black man isn’t funny then there is no hope for you and you will simply be a burden on society for the rest of my life and yours.

Since I don’t believe Saltsman went to a special school during his education days, I have to assume he is a racist idiot and so is anyone trying to defend his bone head decision to send out the song.

Tag: Rush Limbaugh

What is the deal with attacking Rush Limbaugh?

Not surprised “Magic Negro” song came from Republicans