Limbaugh responds to Clinton with torrent of incendiary rhetoric

April 20, 2010 6:40 am ET

SUMMARY: In recent days, President Bill Clinton has warned that incendiary rhetoric and "demonizing the government" incited domestic terrorism during his presidency and threatened to do so again. On his April 19 broadcast, Rush Limbaugh responded by unleashing a torrent of incendiary rhetoric, claiming that the Obama administration is "ripp[ing] apart" and "overthrow[ing]" the country and blaming Clinton for the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Clinton: "Demonizing" gov't, public servants can lead to domestic terror

In an April 16 speech, Clinton said of the 1995 bomb attack on an Oklahoma City federal building:

The second lesson we have to learn is that we can't let the debate veer so far into hatred that we lose focus of our common humanity. It's really important. We can't ever fudge the fact that there is a basic line dividing criticism from violence or its advocacy. And the closer you get to the line, and the more responsibility you have, the more you have to think about the echo chamber in which your words resonate.

Look, criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. Nobody's right all the time. But Oklahoma City proved once again that, beyond the law, there is no freedom. And there is a difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedom and the public servants who implement them. And the more prominence you have in politics or media or some other pillar of life, the more you have to keep that in mind.
[...]

But what we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or that we should reduce our passion for the positions we hold, but that the words we use really do matter because there are -- there's this vast echo chamber. And they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious, alike; they fall on the connected and the unhinged, alike. And I am not trying to muzzle anybody.

But one of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have, and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have. Look, I'm glad they're fighting over health care and everything else; let them have at it.

But I think that all you have to do is read the paper every day to see how many people there are who are deeply, deeply troubled. We know, now, that there are people involved in groups -- these "hatriot" groups, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the others -- 99 percent of them will never do anything they shouldn't do. But there are people who advocate violence and anticipate violence.
[...]

When George Washington served his two terms and went home to Mount Vernon to retire and John Adams became president, he was called out of retirement one time. You know what it was? He was called out of retirement to command the Armed Forces sent to Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, because good Americans who had fought for this country crossed the line from advocating a different policy and opposing the current one to taking the law into their own hands in a violent manner.

Once in a while, over the last 200 years, we've crossed the line again. But by and large, that bright line has held, and that's why this is the longest-lasting democracy in human history. That's why there is so much free speech. That's why people can organize their groups. It may seem like fringe groups that advocate whatever the livin' Sam Hill they want to advocate. That's why. But we have to keep the bright line alive. So that's the second lesson.

Clinton offered similar comments in an interview aired on the April 18 edition of ABC's This Week and in an April 19 New York Times op-ed.

Limbaugh says Obama administration is "authoritarian," "overthrow[ing]" the country

Limbaugh: "The country is being overthrown," "ripped apart, transformed, right before our very eyes." Limbaugh responded by arguing that Clinton's comments were part of an effort to smear the tea party movement. He stated: "The reality is that it's the Obama crowd that doesn't like government, that doesn't like the country. It's the Obama crowd and all of their related groups that have been protesting for as long as I've been alive that don't like the country; the tea party people love this country." He added that the tea party people are just angry because the "country is being overthrown. The country is being ripped apart, transformed, right before our very eyes, and in a fraudulent manner."

Limbaugh: " 'Regime' implies and defines authoritarian governments, which this one clearly is." Responding to a critique of his use of the word "regime" to describe the Obama administration, Limbaugh explained that " 'regime' implies and defines authoritarian governments, which this one clearly is."

Limbaugh: "I am treated as an enemy of the state." Limbaugh stated: "I, a guy on the radio who can't raise anybody's taxes, can't send anybody off to war, I cannot do one thing -- I can't harm you economically, I can't do a damn -- I am treated as an enemy of the state."

Limbaugh: "Obama urges more opposition to us than he does Islamic terrorists." Limbaugh stated: "I'm not saying that if we weren't around they'd be beating Obama up. Don't misunderstand. They would be full-throated supporters of Obama. But if we weren't around it wouldn't be this slavish, in the tank, sycophantic coverage. Because they now feel it necessary to defend themselves -- and him -- against us. Look at -- Obama urges more opposition to us than he does Islamic terrorists."

 

Limbaugh blames Clinton for the Oklahoma City bombing, 9-11

Limbaugh asks Clinton, "What words caused Timothy McVeigh to act," says McVeigh was "outraged over the government invasion" in Waco. Responding to Clinton's statement that "the words we use do really matter," Limbaugh asked of Clinton: "What words caused Timothy McVeigh to act? Name one. I want to know what words and who spoke them. What are the words that Timothy McVeigh heard? What are the words he admitted that he heard that prompted him to act?" Limbaugh went on to say: "All I've ever heard is that Timothy McVeigh was outraged over the government invasion led by Janet Reno of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. And the Murrah building was blown up on that exact date two years later. ... Somebody show me the words, Mr. President, that McVeigh heard and caused him to act."

Limbaugh: "McVeigh was not inspired by anybody's words, he was inspired by Mr. Clinton's deeds." Limbaugh said that "McVeigh was not inspired by anybody's words, he was inspired by Mr. Clinton's deeds. And this is what they're trying to wash over; this is what they're trying to erase from the historical record."

Limbaugh: Clinton has "ties to the domestic terrorism of Oklahoma City." Limbaugh said that Clinton, the Obama administration, and the press can "try to make Oklahoma City the result of a modern tea party movement," but "President Clinton's ties to the domestic terrorism of Oklahoma City are tangible; talk radio's ties are nonexistent. We had nothing to do with it."

Limbaugh: Because Clinton "ignored terrorism throughout the '90s," "the country was attacked on 9-11." Limbaugh stated: "Let us not forget Bill Clinton ignored terrorism throughout the '90s. As a result, the country was attacked on 9-11. Debra Burlingame with a great column in The Wall Street Journal today. It's just not 9-11. How about the World Trade Center bombing in '93 on Clinton's watch; the Khobar Towers on Clinton's watch? There were so many acts of terrorism in this country and around the world on Clinton's watch. He didn't care about it. He didn't fight -- he wanted to take on hard issues -- he loved that 65 percent approval number."

Limbaugh attacks Clinton for his role in "domestic violence," "Waco invasion"

Limbaugh says children at Waco "really got abused by the U.S. government."
Discussing the standoff at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Limbaugh said: "Sixty-seven people died in the fire -- we remember watching it -- 20 children. Janet Reno said we have to go in there because children are being abused. Yep. They really got abused by the U.S. government."

Limbaugh: "President Clinton ... has had a direct and indirect role in so much pain and domestic violence." Limbaugh stated: "So, throughout the '90s, we are the victims of terrorism acts by people who Obama will not even call terrorists now. Bill Clinton and Janet Reno didn't just threaten violence at Waco -- they delivered it. As a result, American citizens -- children, women, mothers -- were killed. And what followed was a domestic terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City. And President Clinton, who has had a direct and indirect role in so much pain and domestic violence, lectures us about threats and acts of violence?"

Limbaugh: OKC bombing was "about the U.S. military invading a religious compound." Limbaugh told listeners, "Don't forget that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred two years to the day after the Waco invasion -- two years to the day -- and Tim McVeigh as much as said so." Continuing, Limbaugh said that Clinton was involved in "an attempt to rewrite the history of the Oklahoma City bombing and the president's role in it. ... They know this is about Waco. They know this is about the U.S. military invading a religious compound."

Limbaugh: "You have President Clinton here simply lying about a terrible tragedy." Limbaugh said: "You have President Clinton here simply lying about a terrible tragedy to try to chill free speech and libeling me and the tea party at the same time. It does not get more despicable than this."

Limbaugh: Tea party is "the first time" that "everyday citizens" have "risen up" "since the Civil War"

Limbaugh stated: "What is it that's remarkable about the tea party is that it's the first time an uprising of common, ordinary, average everyday citizens since the Civil War has risen up like this."

— C.S. & O.W.
Copyright © 2009 Media Matters for America. All rights reserved.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Progressives: Think Fast

A federal judge ruled yesterday that "the National Security Agency's program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration's effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush." Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance.

Top Republicans are starting to worry that their rallying cry to "repeal" the health care reform bill "just might singe GOP candidates in November's elections…if voters begin to see benefits from the new law." Some Republicans, like Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), a GOP Senate candidate in Illinois, are easing back from their earlier "adamant repeal-the-law stance."

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) and Attorney General John Kroger (D) are not only refusing to join states fighting to repeal health reform, but they have announced that they will take legal action to defend the constitutionality of the new health care law. "The health care reform cases present some of the most important constitutional issues facing this generation," said Kroger.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) canceled a health care town hall meeting on Tuesday due to security concerns. "We just thought it best to cancel it for safety concerns. This was not meant to be a place where we're going to talk partisan politics," a Ryan spokesperson said.
At least 30 survivors of the earthquake in Haiti who were brought to the United States in the disaster's aftermath are now being held in a Florida prison because they lack visas. They "were taken into custody by immigration authorities and held for deportation," and legal advocates "have tried for weeks to persuade government officials to release them."

After resisting the idea of new Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, the Chinese government has agreed "to enter negotiations over the language of a new resolution to intensify international pressure on Iran." "They have agreed to start," said French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. "Talking about the substance is a new step forward."

Three Republicans have decided to skirt their party's self-imposed one-year ban on congressional earmarks: Reps. Joseph Cao (LA), Ron Paul (TX), and Don Young (AK). Paul argued that earmarking is actually more transparent than the regular budget process, and Cao called the GOP's stance "shortsighted."

Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, urged his supporters "to stop donating to the Republican National Committee and instead contribute to its own coffers or to candidates with like-minded goals." "I've hinted at this before, but now I am saying it -- don't give money to the RNC," Perkins wrote in his column on the organization's website.

"Top hedge fund managers rode the 2009 stock market rally to record gains, with the highest-paid 25 earning a collective $25.3 billion," reports the New York Times. One such manager, for example, made $4 billion last year because he "wagered that the government would not let the big banks fail."

And finally: Turtles nest near Rush Limbaugh's pool after he bought ads protesting laws that protect them.
 


Let The Sun Shine In......

TeagBaggers, awesome Americans?

  I'M still threatening to leave if one hair is harmed on Obama's head!

by Meg White

Ordinarily, angry people threatening to leave the U.S. over political matters rethink their dramatic plans. I know; I was one of them.

I was disappointed by the first nation-wide electoral "victory" handed to George W. Bush. But, especially after his first year or two in office, I knew he couldn't get reelected. I was so certain of this that I vowed to leave the country if he did.

Guess what? I'm still here!

Being in the midst of writing my thesis was a sufficient excuse to remain. But deep down I knew that I wouldn't abandon my country in its hour of need, no matter how dumb it looked. My parents taught me that "love it or leave it" is as stupidly intolerant as it sounds.
"Oh, honey. I was around your age when Reagan was reelected, and we thought it was the end of the world too," my mom told me at the time. "But if all the people like you leave, this country will never be like you want it to be."

Little did she know, my mother planted the seed for the tumultuous times we're experiencing today. I was convinced that the only way to save my country was to elect a president that would drive out the crazy, racist conservatives. And I'm proud to report it's working.

Of course, my sinister plan finally took root in the only place it rightfully could: the Lone Star State.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been positioning himself as the new president of the secessionist state, which I like to call "Merica," ever since Barack Obama was elected president. Just calling him a founding father, thanks! Considering the fact that Texas isn't legally allowed to secede from the union (contrary to the beliefs of one-third of Texans), looks like Perry and his band of rebels will be taking off for Merica any day now.

Then came blowhard extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh who announced he'd be leaving (for Costa Rica..?) if healthcare passed. Buh bye, Rushie. We'll miss you. And hey, if all that socialism in Costa Rica gets to you, maybe Merica will have a nice fat time slot for you to put all your hot air in.

Of course, Rush isn't the first conservative making rebellious threats in advance of President Obama signing healthcare into law. In fact, there's been a fair amount of race baiting from the right on healthcare reform. Somehow by granting more citizens access to healthcare, doctors will all be slaves to Overload Obama. Oh, and those subsidies for low-income people to buy health insurance? Those are totally reparations for slavery. Now, the fact that those two arguments contradict each other in your mind is just evidence that you're an Obamatron.

Anyway, it's certainly not shocking that all this talk of healthcare slavery would eventually lead the right to compare our current political discourse with that of the Civil War. Or, as Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) called it on the House floor, "the Great War of Yankee Aggression" (emphasis mine):

If Obamacare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the war between the states -- the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

(Side note: When Broun referenced "that free insurance card," he must be talking about life in Merica, because I have never seen such a thing in ye olde U.S. of A.)

Of course, this Civil War comparison only works because the tea party movement is steeped in a colorful re-imagining of our founding fathers as God-fearing men who hated Obamacare. The many references to the Revolutionary War -- from "Don't Tread on Me" to lovingly misreading the Constitution to the ill-fated naming of the movement in the first place -- are clear attempts to align themselves simultaneously with patriotism and revolt. 

Without such a willingness to blend history with fantasy, they'd have to admit they're the losers advocating for slavery in their bizarre Civil War reenactment, or that they have more in common with British loyalists than Paul Revere.

No matter what chapter of twisted history you subscribe to, rebellion is the constant narrative. I mean really; these people embrace the term "angry mob" as a potent descriptor of their movement. It was only a matter of time before the secessionists latched on.

Broun and others invoking the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the legally specious states' rights argument to "opt out of" the federal government's healthcare plan are simply making poorly-veiled references to their imminent departure. I was hoping by now they'd be gutsy enough to abandon their false sense of historicity and get down to actually planning their exodus. Finally, it looks like that's happening, thanks to the Aryan representing Iowa.

At a tea party rally against healthcare reform this past Sunday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) suggested teabaggers are the "best" stock with which to make a new nation, if it, uh, should come to that. And he was sure to throw a whole mess of coded violence into his speech, so that we would all be aware that this will be no bloodless revolution (emphasis mine):

KING: I just came down here so I could say to you, God bless you. … You are the awesome American people. [...]

If I could start a country with a bunch of people, they’d be the folks who were standing with us the last few days. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that! Let’s beat that other side to a pulp! Let’s take them out. Let’s chase them down. 

There’s going to be a reckoning!

So if Perry's the future president of Merica, will the Iowa congressman be the eventual King?
There's one part where I agree with King (other than the overarching notion that these people should just get the hell out of the U.S.): I also hope it doesn't have to come down to violence. I bet King and his self-styled "angry mob" fight dirty, and I have no doubt they could "beat" my wimpy liberal ass "to a pulp," as threatened.

So what if we just reminded these conservative rebels of what they've been telling us liberals for years? This country ain't no prison. You can leave any time you damn well please.
In fact, we'll even give 'em a few parting gifts as a reward for leaving quietly (that's more than they offered Eddie Vedder, after all). I'm sure we could cobble something together with stuff we've got lying around...

Ah, here we are! These intellectually-mangled Texas text books ought to be mighty handy in teaching the young citizens of Merica the "real" version of history, science and the one, true religion. Heck, Merica can even have that war-mongering national anthem of ours. We have plenty of other options. America the Beautiful has been suggested many times as a suitable replacement. Or how about this classic?

Na na na na,
Na na na na,
Hey hey hey,
Goodbye!

Let The Sun Shine In......

Limbaugh's Dirty Little Secret of Radio "Success"

Interesting Facts About Boss Hog......

Developing:

TEA PARTY DAY: UPDATES FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Your request is being processed...

This is the print preview: Back to normal view »

Bill Mann

TV-Radio critic, www.dcweasels.com

Posted April 12, 2009 | 04:22 PM (EST)

digg Huffpost - stumble reddit del.ico.us ShareThis

Read More: Ksfo, Limbaugh, Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, Talk Radio, Talkers Magazine, Media News

Ever wonder why Rush "Boss" Limbaugh's syndicated radio show is all over the place like the proverbial cheap suit?

If you do much driving in rural areas -- e.g. between cities -- "Boss" Limbaugh's bloviations are often the only thing you can pick up on a car radio. Hey, that's what CD players are for.
Did Rush accrue hundreds of local radio affiliates across the country because his political views are mainstream? That's obviously not it. OK, so why IS his show so "popular?" Why do hundreds of stations around the country carry his show, the most widely syndicated talkfest in the country?

Glad you asked.

The real story is not generally well-known. The only reason I know is through my covering the business of radio for years for several major daily newspapers and also, for industry trade magazines like Radio World.

It's because -- ready for this? -- Rush's show was, and presumably still is, given away for free to many local radio stations.

This shocker is because of a little-known practice in broadcast syndication called a "barter deal." (Barter deals were briefly mentioned in Michael Wolff's first-rate recent piece on Rush in Vanity Fair).

Here's how a barter deal works: To launch the show, Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks -- the same folks who syndicate wingnut du jour Glen Beck -- gave Limbaugh's three hours away -- that's right, no cash -- to local radio stations, mostly in medium and smaller markets, back in the early 1990's.

So, a local talk station got Rush's show for zilch. In exchange, Premiere took for itself much of the local station's available advertising time (roughly 15 minutes an hour) and packed the show with national ads it had already pre-sold.

Think Gold Bond Medicated Powder.

It's a very sweet deal for local radio station owners, explained Bill Exline a respected radio broker (he helped people buy and sell local stations). "Not only does the local station get three hours of free programming," Exline explained, "but that's one less local talk-show host on staff they need. It makes small- and medium-market radio properties more profitable and attractive by cutting down staff expenses."

Shocking, isn't it, that Limbaugh would allow jobs to be cut to advance his dubious career?

Not to mention helping to make small radio stations far less local?

Major-market right-wing talk stations, like San Francisco's KSFO-AM ("Reichstag Radio") have to pay actual money, of course, to carry Boss Limbaugh's daily proclamation-a-thon. (Note: KSFO, which I referred to as "Sieg Heil on Your Dial" in my column when it first switched to righty talk, is the same station that gave hatemonger Michael Savage his first radio megaphone).

Radio sources say that small- and medium-market stations still get Limbaugh's show for free, or pay only a token amount of cash for it. I asked Michael Harrison, editor of radio-syndicator-friendly Talkers magazine about this, and he claimed he didn't know how many Limbaugh affiliates still barter. .

So, when you hear Rush bellowing as you're passing through Birdseed Junction, Beanblossom, or Pyrite, just remember: The radio station's getting what it paid for. Or, more accurately, DIDN'T pay for.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Some of us have gone mad

Immigrants, women, minorities, autistic children: Conservative radio's vitriol not reserved for Obama

These same radio hosts were by no means discerning in their vitriol and did not save their ire solely for Obama. The smears ran the gamut, both in the context of the 2008 election and beyond. Immigrants, female politicians (and women in general), the LGBT community, the poor and homeless, minorities, progressives, unions, college students, and even autistic children were targets of these radio personalities' invective. Read more

It's not just Limbaugh and Hannity

Beyond the echelon of widely known conservative radio hosts with national audiences lies a vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have become key components of an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods. Like their better-known counterparts, these syndicated and regional radio hosts have played active roles this election season in promoting falsehoods and smears in an all-out effort to foment hate and distrust among their listeners for the senator who is now president-elect. Read more

Let The Sun Shine In......

CPAC: Is This What The GOP Has Come to?

My God in heaven!

I've just been watching the last and, possibly, the most clinically insane of the speakers at CPAC; Rush "Hill-billy Heroin" Limbaugh.

Limbaugh and people like him are surely doing their best to start an insurrection, cause another Oklahoma City or another assassination.

If this is what the GOP has come to, I don't know whether to feel sorry for them or start making plans to take them out, label the Rethugs illegal, as Germany did with the Nazi party.

What in God's name is the matter with these people?

Their hatred for Obama and every person who voted for him is more than palpable. What they haven't considered, I guess, is that Americans of all stripes are wising up and know who to blame for the horrendous state of our nation. and it's not Barack Obama.

Ifwhen the shooting starts, as they are all calling for, they will have the biggest targets on their backs.

One of the many pleasant aftereffects of ultra-conservatism's crackup is the retirement of a civic need for appalled spectators to demonize its out-patient disciples -- or whacko-ize them, if you will -- because they're doing such a marvelous job of it all by themselves.

I mean, what additional diagnosis or prognosis is required when, for instance, the far right gathers with such convenient tidiness at events like CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and puts on pitiable display not only a wholesale absence of serious public policy, but a virtual 24/7 unraveling of whatever slim dignity it once strove to possess.

When even goddess-of-the-right Sarah Palin declines an appearance -- she suspects her old pals now have the cooties, I guess, plus she's too busy cramming for her 2012 finals, uncomprehendingly digesting copious past issues of Foreign Policy and Time for Kids -- then one knows the heavy black curtains are being lugubriously drawn.

"Man, this CPAC thing is crazy," observed Mr. Samuel Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, to fellow attendee Mike Huckabee -- and that's probably the sanest thing we'll ever hear Sam/Joe utter. With concise but tragically fleeting lucidity, he captured the moment, the spirit, the zeitgeisty degeneration of his semi-philosophical compadres.

Sam/Joe Wurzelbacher/Plumber was, as the Politico reported, "a headliner at a Thursday panel titled 'Conservatism 2.0.' " A headliner, mind you: an itinerant, breathtakingly clueless bullshitter was a CPAC-Chosen One to enlighten the multitudes on the fundamentals of conservatism. Breathtaking indeed.

Also on Thursday there were book signings by the still-unnetted Ann Coulter -- just the name chills for itself -- and the vastly disingenuous David Horowitz. (I once heard David say in an interview that college professors lead a carefree, easy life of leisure with phenomenal pay; oh, they give occasional lectures, but that's pretty much the burden of their existence. A few months later, in another interview that touched on why there are so few female professors in the sciences, I heard him say it's because women don't care to suffer the grueling schedules and demands of a college professorship. This is a man who makes his living by deriding the intellectual honesty of higher-education sorts.)

So that was Thursday but today, of course, is Saturday, which brings us -- or, rather, just them, thankfully -- to CPAC's bookended finale of ... Rush Limbaugh, scheduled to bellow and bray at 5:00pm EST, then -- get this -- receive at 5:30 the "Defender of the Constitution Award." (America's Constitution?)

Just now I ventured over to rushlimbaugh.com to take an intrepid peek at how this deep Conscience of Conservatism might be previewing his upcoming performance. Here's what I found, here's what is on Rush's Web site, here's what is weighing on the profound mind of Mr. Limbaugh in these profoundest of deeply troubled times:

You know, Clint Eastwood had it right, Clint Eastwood said he's fed up with political correctness. He's fed up with everybody trying to be politically correct. He's fed up with nobody being able to laugh anymore. He's fed up with not being able to tell race jokes and ethnic jokes. When he was growing up, everybody did. Nobody took offense at it. Every race tells jokes about the other race. Every country tells jokes about people in other countries. We can't do it anymore.

I gather, however, that Rush will this evening. But pause just a moment and consider what topic -- from all the topics available to choose from in these, as noted, horrifically troubled times -- Mr. Limbaugh chose with which to preview his speech: race jokes.

That kind of says it all, doesn't it? It pinpoints and broadcasts just how utterly adrift and altogether irrelevant movement conservatism has become.

But don't take my word for it, commie-pinko unAmerican rabble-rouser that I surely am in the seething, delirious, Rush-possessed eyes of the far right. You might, however, try on for size, say, John Derbyshire, a National Review contributing editor writing this (suspiciously) for The American Conservative:

Why have we allowed carny barkers to run away with the Right?...

Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs? They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly....

In place of the permanent things, we get Happy Meal conservatism: cheap, childish, familiar. Gone are the internal tensions, the thought-provoking paradoxes, the ideological uneasiness that marked the early Right.

But however much this dumbing down has damaged the conservative brand, it appeals to millions of Americans....

If conservatism is to have a future ... it will need to listen to more than the looped tape of lowbrow talk radio.

As spotlighted this evening before the huddled, fawning and lowbrow masses of CPAC.

A Mr. Derbyshire I can respect, I can debate, I can even empathize with, in many a Burkean way. A Mr. Limbaugh I can only laugh at -- and marvel at the irrelevantly silly depths to which he and his fellow carny barkers have dragged modern conservatism. 'Tis a pity, because modern liberalism needs a worthy opponent if it's to maintain its own mental health.

For personal questions or comments you can contact him at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Let The Sun Shine In......

Good Odds that Rupert Murdoch Will be Responsible for the Next Timothy McVeigh or Assassination Attempt

The Constitution guarantees free speech. It does not guarantee huge megaphones to people who incite hatred and/violence against elected officials, judges or ordinary citizens.

If terrorist events or assassinations occur as a result of their blabbering on our airwaves, these people should be held responsible and, trust me, they will be.

by Mark Karlin (Buzzflash)

Yes, with the civil war talk on the program of the recently acquired FOX News demagogue, Glenn Beck, inflammatory talk by Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh's nativist rants that equate Obama to something akin to an amalgamation of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler, the right-wing media is stirring up the dangerous angry white male resentment to a dangerous frenzied pitch.

And we all know where that ended up with Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement of the '90s, which was enabled by the right-wing media barons -- such as Rupert Murdoch -- to create a literal armed militia movement against the government of the United States.

Call it treasonous, call it demagoguery, call it treachery: it is what comes down the pike when the wealthy Democratic elites are more content to fund organizations that criticize the apocalyptic, brown-shirted Murdoch media barons rather than buying up media and delivering an alternative message that emphasizes loyalty to the truth, Constitution and democracy.

Sure, we love Media Matters, but they are just a fly on a donkey's butt as far as Rupert Murdoch and the gang are concerned. Media Matters will get an occasional correction of factual errors -- if they pull out all their guns for one, but it's too little a compensation for the energy put into the effort. And the people who take in the corporate media remember the misleading assertion, not the rare convoluted retraction.

The reality is that the only thing that matters in media is owning it. Murdoch knows that and couldn't give a horse's fart for what Media Matters has to say, nor does CBS which just hired a Democratic-hating Republican stalwart as their senior communications executive.

Nor do any of the mainstream corporate media: including radio, television and print. They will just keep on doing what they are doing because they own it and they know what they want: an oligarchy.

The troops for this formidable army of images, mistruths, and emotional manipulation are the angry white males, the guys who have felt displaced by minorities and women and immigrants ever since the Civil Rights and Feminist upheaval began in the '60s.

And these displaced white guys are armed to the teeth, courtesy of the NRA and the senators and representatives who lie down like doormats for the gun lobby in Congress.

And bristling with guns -- including the .50 caliber sniper rifle that is legal in all but California -- they feel enabled and patriotic in rising up against the legitimate Constitutional government of the United States.

As rabid as Hannity and Beck and Limbaugh may seem, their ratings have actually gone up since Obama's election. The white male who has been shafted by the wealthy elite, pick-pocketed and left in humiliation, falls prey yet again to the siren song of the Murdoch/Ailes stable of Goebbels disciples and their cohorts such as Limbaugh and Savage.

This is no exaggeration. Glenn Greenwald discusses it as do the superlative FOX trackers at FOX Newshounds.

And its impact is seen drilling down to discussions on Sean Hannity's website of armed rebellion, military coup, and secession.

Those Obama supporters who think I am being hyperbolic have a short sense of history. This is what we saw in the Clinton administration that led to the domestic terrorist Oklahoma bombing and trumped up impeachment.

And before the right-wing media was as consolidated as it is today, we saw our liberal leaders gunned down one by one in the '60s, resutling in the election of Richard Nixon -- and the beginning of the well-funded corporate mainstream media consolidation owned by people beholden only to the oligarchy, not the American public.

Yes, there are exceptions, but they are few in number, far too few.

And Murdoch may do his own non-apology about his New York Post's thinly veiled racist incitement cartoon of two white police officers shooting a chimp representing -- in full bigoted Murdoch fashion -- Obama.

But when the armed angry white males decide to act because of the Murdoch/Limbaugh et al. incitement to rise up ringing in their ears, the blood will be on the hands of Rupert and his fellow right-wing corporate media barons -- and he won't be sorry for it.

He'll only feel one thing: Mission accomplished.

Let The Sun Shine In......

The Darkness of Movement Conservatism

These people may seem like clowns and idiots to most of us. Adolph Hitler seemed a silly little man to the Germans before he became der Furher. These people are, quite frankly dangerous with their hate speech and out-right lies. While they may not do much but run their hateful, idiotic mouths, quite a few of their listeners are active psychotics, not just blabbers.

If the sclerotic humbug I heard come out of the voluble mouth of Rush Limbaugh yesterday was an authentic reflection of movement conservatism's determined pathology, then Barack Obama could be in for a grievous four years from which this country will emerge more polarized, more tribally hostile and poorer in spirit than ever.

Or not. I don't know, it's hard to say. I'm not a regular Limbaugh listener -- it had been roughly a year since I last heard him -- or group psychopathology. For all I know, what he was preaching yesterday could have been an aberration of the extreme -- or the familiar; plus a good number of his listeners may chuckle and guffaw or just sit in stunned stupefaction at his bottomless drivel, as I did.

I kid you not, Limbaugh's rants were, at times, so childishly vacuous or borderline psychotic, I couldn't quite tell if he was kidding. There were moments when I was sure he was -- moments when I figured, Oh, this must be that Rush Limbaugh I've read about; Limbaugh the Entertainer, Limbaugh the Clown, Limbaugh the Court Jester who makes no pretensions at Limbaugh the Conservative Intellectual, an epithet which, I have also read, the unenumerated genuine Dittoheads accept unquestioningly.

But each time I suspected this, each time he cranked up the deafening irrationalities to the point at which a professional clown would yell "Gotcha! -- you didn't really believe that tommyrot, did you?" then he would go all quiet and somber, then repeat said irrationality with a grave and sorry solemnity, and then slide to a commercial break, during which, I gathered, we were all supposed to sadly absorb his gallant disgust.

To the particulars.

There was of course the matter of race, the matter of Limbaugh the color-blind equal opportunist who only wants us to get along, which naturally we would, if it weren't for, say, the Eric Holders of this otherwise fairest of lands always talking about race, which Limbaugh proceeded to do for at least one uninterrupted programming block.

Here, we were treated to Limbaugh the Fearless. He'll take 'em on one at a time -- all those liberally intimidating totalitarians who wish to crush your color-blind spirit and have, indeed, already managed to do so by and large. But they'll never, never break Rush's. He shall overcome.

Was this tinted by the comedic? The suggestively self-parodic? I thought so. And as I was thinking this I was also wondering how many others among us reported 20 or even 30 million listeners were thinking the very same thing; thinking, Rush, you knowing windbag you, you sure know how to tweak the absurd.

It is statistically, demographically impossible that I could be laughing at all this, while 19,999,999 others, to a man and woman, were swallowing it wholesale.

Yet, other segments were even better than that; better, that is, if Colbertlike entertainment was the goal, which it may have been. I don't know. Because I also can't read the mind of psychotics, if earnest he was.

For instance he opened his show by frothing that Barack Obama isn't bailing anyone out, that his stimulus and banking plans are all an immense hoax, designed, in cahoots with Nancy Pelosi, to "destroy this economy," which, Limbaugh added, they had already accomplished "in only 30 days." (Please don't ask me to explain why, in Limbaugh's opinion, Obama & Pelosi Inc. wished to assassinate our economic well-being. He never quite got around to that.)

By the second hour, however, Limbaugh was frothing that Mr. Obama is bailing everyone out, although true Americans -- the ones not being bailed out, despite everyone being bailed out (again, don't ask, it was all rather confusing) -- won't stand for it. Still, these noble many are, for now, staying quiet, silently, ominously "keeping score."

Whatever the hell did that mean? Ah, here was the best part -- that peculiar intersection at which the psychotic, hyperbolic right meets the psychotic, hyperbolic left. Bellowed Rush: A revolution is coming! -- a People's Revolution, a boiling over of simmering rage at Obama's unspecified crimes and sinister plots.

Yes, that's what he said, and he said it again, and again.

The subtlest of parody? Pure entertainment? An easy way to kill three hours and boost the next day's ratings? Or ... conviction? You got me.

But, to repeat, I was less meditative about Limbaugh's eccentricities than their vast reception, which perhaps isn't that vast after all. We have in our history suffered through the ravings of many a political Elmer Gantry only to find that, when push came to shove, their congregations weren't really that large or similarly motivated. Many were only hanging around for a good chuckle, or to marvel at the glibness, or to ponder that rare well-made point, and then move on.

If that's not the case with Limbaugh's wireless auditors, and far worse, if increasingly troubled economic times were to cause his seeming psychosis to metastasize, then things could get exceptionally ugly. But I have my doubts. I suspect the lop-sided mother lode of Americans will always see Rush Limbaugh as the three-ring circus clown he is, alongside the hysterical Rick Santelli and his "loser"-barking in ring two, and Alan Keyes and his "radical communist" derangements in ring three.

Please respond to P.M.'s commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact him at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Let The Sun Shine In......