What's so funny about Rush Limbaugh?

By Ramona

As I write this, my sense of humor is intact and waiting, as always, for something funny to happen. I can get tickled at the least little thing -- adorable babies and clumsy dogs and tripping on sidewalk cracks -- and I can howl at even the worst, god-awful jokes. I can't explain them and I've never been able to repeat them with any kind of comedic skill, but I know funny when I hear it.

I can say without even having to think about it that I've never laughed at a thing Rush Limbaugh has said or done. I don't get him. His performances are like those of a mean, out-of-control drunk who thinks everything coming out of his mouth is either hilarious or golden. He begins every riff quietly, taking his time, pausing, letting his words sink in, and builds to an awesome, wiggly, crazed crescendo. Oh, my God. Electrifying to dittoheads and the uninitiated. Wow! But to those of us who have been exposed to his antics for decades, they're nothing more than the usual carefully calculated theatrics. Ho hum.

That's what makes his latest rantings against a Georgetown University law student fighting her college's policies on insuring birth control aids so mystifying. His initial comments about this young female student were so breathtaking in their vile putridity, the reactions against them were, at last,  refreshingly awesome and swift. Hundreds of thousands of people protested his words. Even his usual defenders could be seen slinking away from the ten-foot pole they wouldn't use to touch them. Yes! Limbaugh is a pariah!

So did he finally stop and think about what he had said and realize he'd overstepped? The woman he so viciously word-raped was a young college student and not a politician or a public figure. She was not fair game and she was not a joke. But no, he didn't. He was so sure of his base, so sure of the politicians in his thrall, so sure that his advertisers would be too busy counting their money to notice, he came back the next day and attacked this same young woman again. This time he demanded videos of her sex acts.

His politicians, true to form, gave out some half-hearted hand smacks, reminding us that he's an entertainer, not a Republican spokesman -- as if he's only pretending to be one because he'd slept at a Holiday Inn once.

At last count, seven of Rush's sponsors have dropped him, at least for the moment, until all the fuss dies down. Dozens of petitions are still making the rounds, working to gain enough signatures to pressure all of his backers to leave him helpless and wiggling on his own. It took all of that for Rush to give an inch and release an odd written statement that, considering who it is from and how rare those things are coming from him, some might take to be an apology.

A Statement from Rush

March 03, 2012

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.  In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?  In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

"I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke." Really? How would you go about attacking someone if you DID mean it?

In Rush Limbaugh's 24 years on the air, he has apologized six times for the things he's said that backfired. BuzzFeed has put them all together here. For example:

-- In 1988, he called Amy Carter "[t]he most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country," and "apologized."

-- In 1992, he called Chelsea Clinton "the White House dog" and "apologized," blaming his crew for confusing him by mixing up pictures of Chelsea and the Clintons' dog.

-- In 1996, he made fun of Michael J. Fox, saying he either didn't take his medication on purpose or he was faking it when he appeared in a commercial for Claire McCaskill. In his "apology," he said, "[a]ll I'm saying is I've never seen him as he appears in that commercial."

-- In 2008, he compared then-Senator Obama to Curious George and in his "apology" threatened to fire the caller who brought it up, ha ha, saying he never knew Curious George was -- gosh! -- a monkey.

This is not to say that Rush has otherwise never said stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic things. Oh, he has, and plenty. That's apparently part of his appeal, God help us.

So think of it. One of the wealthiest, most famous entertainers in America right now is a stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic radio personality who broadcasts a show three hours a day, five days a week highlighting his own peculiar, insulting, disrespectful brand of humor. Millions of seemingly sane listeners adore him and are honored to align themselves with him.

In many dark parts of our nation, he is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to deliver a one-hour speech to friendly packed houses, mirroring the stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic rantings direct from his incredibly popular radio show.

He is so successful, grown politicians fear him more than they loathe him and cannot bring themselves to denounce a man who, underneath all that bluster, is a weak-kneed coward.

He will not debate or answer to anyone. His radio callers are screened so no one can ever dispute anything he says. He won't make public appearances in places where people who disagree with him might be in attendance. He has never appeared on a program where he might be asked hard questions. He attacks women and children and the handicapped with impunity and laughs along with his audience at the outraged responses.

He is a monster in the eyes of most normal human beings, and so I ask this question in all seriousness:

What is so goddamned funny about Rush Limbaugh?

There's a reason I call him "Dear Leader Rush"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Oh, by the way, did you see our recent post by Kathryn Rogers, Rush's fourth wife? If not, check it out. It's a must-read.)

George Will expressed it well on This Week yesterday to George Stephanopoulos:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been inundated with criticism after calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student who testified before a House committee about contraception, a "slut" and a "prostitute." But while Democrats have fiercely condemned the comments, Republicans' ire has been significantly more muted.

ABC's George Will told me Sunday on "This Week" that GOP leaders have steered clear of harshly denouncing Limbaugh's comments because "Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh."

"[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush's language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that's inappropriate. Not this stuff," Will said. "And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they're afraid of Rush Limbaugh."

ABC's Matthew Dowd suggested that Rush's influence is largely a "myth," but there's really no denying his lofty place on the right. And while some Republicans may indeed think of him as a "buffoon" and a "clown" whom "nobody takes... seriously," and while members of the Republican media elite like Will may scoff at him, he wields enormous influence not just because of his huge audiences of "dittoheads" but because, much like with anti-tax maniac Grover Norquist, Republicans are pretty much required to kowtow to him in order to prove their right-wing bona fides and receive his blessing. Sure, it's been possible to get ahead in the GOP without his blessing, but as the party has moved further to the right and more and more heretics have been purged, his position has only solidified.

And, too, it's pretty rich of commentators like Will to scoff and leaders like Boehner to use euphemisms like "inappropriate" in response to Rush's latest awfulness. Not to take anything away from his horrible remarks about Ms. Fluke, but he has a long, long history of sexist (like this) and racist (like this) and generally bigoted comments, and he's been able to get away with it without suffering much in the way of consequences from within the Republican Party or movement conservatism. Sure, he's had his detractors, and no doubt many have rolled their eyes at his various "inappropriate" comments over the years, but the fact that he's still so influential, still such a force on the right, says a lot about what is appropriate and what isn't for Republicans.

Santorum compares homosexuality to polygamy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Nothing new here. This is Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum, after all.

But it nonetheless deserves repeating, now that he's a big-time Republican gobbling up media attention after a surge that led him to a tie (if not a win) this past Tuesday in Iowa, that this strident theocrat is an unabashed bigot opposed not just to same-sex marriage but to homsexuality generally.

He recently compared romantic same-sex love to the love he has for his mother-in-law, brother, and friends. Since those relationships aren't marriage, gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry. (Huh? Yes, this is what passes for logic, it seems, in Santorum's mind.)

Now he's comparing same-sex marriage to polygamy:

So if you're not happy unless you're married to five other people, is that OK?" Santorum asked one student [yesterday in Concord, New Hampshire]. "Reason says that if you think it's okay for two [individuals to marry], then you have to differentiate for me why it's not okay for three," he argued later.

Perhaps an argument can be made for the marriage (or civil unions) of three or more people, but that would be separate from the issue of same-sex marriage, which isn't some "gateway" relationship that, if sanctioned, would require the legalization of polygamy or, say, human-canine marriage. 

In any event, at ThinkProgress rightly points out:

To be clear, Santorum's offensive and circuitous responses are all meant to reject the natural desire of two same-sex individuals to join in a union and enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples.

He's not actually making an argument about human relationships broadly and about what should and should not be permitted, he's just tying same-sex relationships to illegal (and extreme) relationships so as to discredit them.

"What, you're gay? So you must like to fuck sheep." That's basically the, er, "argument" he's making.

Like I said, he's a bigot. That's abundantly clear.

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Oh, and he might just be taking a swipe at Romney, the Mormon with the family history of... yup, polygamy.

(photo)

Homophobe Rick Santorum admits to weird sexual relationship with mother-in-law, brother

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

"I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?" -- Rick Santorum

-- ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress)

He may have done very well in Iowa yesterday, but make no mistake about it, Santorum's still a bigot and a moron.

The ugly truth about Ron Paul

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One of the good things about the craziness that has been, and remains, the race to be the Republican nominee for president is the fact that with each new surging anti-Romney, and with each new "frontrunner," the media have finally been required to do their jobs and look into what these leading Republicans, and indeed much of their party, are actually all about.

For example, while many of us knew full well (and had known for a long time) that Michele Bachmann was insane, her high-profile opposition to the HPV vaccine, wrapped up in her usual conspiracy-theorizing, pushed her insanity further into public view. Similarly, her (and her "cure 'em" husband's) anti-gay views revealed her to be an unabashed bigot. And because she was, for a time, the hottest Republican candidate going, the media could not help but do some probing.

The same has been true of the others, and we're seeing this now with Ron Paul, who has long been seen as a principled libertarian who speaks truth to power in the GOP (and who even has his admirers on the left) but who, while certainly a sort of libertarian, has throughout his long political career held and advanced despicable views and revealed himself to be an ugly racist. Put on the spot, Paul has responded with denials and general "no comment"s. But again, and to their credit, the media are doing what they ought to be doing and digging a little deeper than usual (in this case encouraged and cheered on by Republicans appalled with Paul and fearful of the damage he's doing to their party). And more and more ugliness is coming out:

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has distanced himself from a series of controversial newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s that bore his name and included inflammatory and racially charged language.

As the newsletters burst into view, first during his 2008 presidential bid and again in recent weeks after he climbed to the front of the Republican race in Iowa, Paul has blamed the writings on ghostwriters. He said he was not aware of the "bad stuff," as he described it.

But one of Paul's own books, published solely under his name, contains several passages that could be problematic as he attempts to push his libertarian message into the political mainstream.

In his 1987 manifesto "Freedom Under Siege: The U.S. Constitution after 200-Plus Years," Paul wrote that AIDS patients were victims of their own lifestyle, questioned the rights of minorities and argued that people who are sexually harassed at work should quit their jobs.

The slim, 157-page volume was published ahead of Paul's 1988 Libertarian Party presidential bid and touches on many of the themes he continues to hammer on the stump.

Returning again and again to the of concept of "liberty," he hails the virtues of the gold standard, attacks the Federal Reserve and defends the rights of gun-owners.

But the book, re-issued in 2007 during Paul's last presidential bid with a cover photograph of an ominous SWAT Team, has so far escaped scrutiny amid the latest furor over his newsletters.

Well, now that he's doing so well in Iowa, with a strong showing expected, that scrutiny is happening. Now. And not a moment too soon.

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What's interesting is that Romney has, for the most part, escaped such scrutiny. Sure, his opponents have brought up his various inconsistencies and tried to focus (the media's and Republican voters') attention on Romneycare, but no one has been able to stay on top long enough to keep up a sustained attack -- in part because the pro-Romney Republican elites have been knocking them off one by one. And so we've basically spent most of our time tracking the dramatic rises and falls of these anti-Romneys while Romney himself has been able to skate by largely untarnished.

That will change if and when Romney really does solidify himself as the frontrunner and likely winner. Then, one hopes, the media will do to him what they've done to his Republican competitors (helped along by those Republican elites, of course) and what they always do to Democrats (with Republicans driving the dominant media narratives, as always).

So is Ron Paul a racist, or what?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If his long history of bigotry doesn't sway you, including those racist newsletters, how about the fact that white supremacists thought he was "one of us":

Ron Paul was a hot topic this week on the talk radio show hosted by prominent white supremacist Don Black and his son Derek. Mr. Black said he received Mr. Paul's controversial newsletters when they were first published about two decades ago and described how the publications were perceived by members of the white supremacist movement. Former KKK Grand Wizard and Louisiana Congressman David Duke also phoned in to explain why he’s voting for Mr. Paul.

"Everybody, all of us back in the 80's and 90's, felt Ron Paul was, you know, unusual in that he had actually been a Congressman, that he was one of us and now, of course, that he has this broad demographic -- broad base of support," Mr. Black said on his broadcast yesterday.

Mr. Black is a former Klansman and member of the American Nazi Party who founded the "white nationalist" website Stormfront in 1995. He donated to Mr. Paul in 2007 and has been photographed with the candidate. Mr. Paul has vocal supporters in Stormfront's online forum. Mr. Black has repeatedly said he doesn't currently think Mr. Paul is a "white nationalist."

Mr. Paul's newsletters contained threats of a "coming race war," worries about America's "disappearing white majority" and warning [sic] against "the federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS." He has since denied writing the newsletters, which appeared under his own name.

"I didn't write them, I disavow them, that's it," Mr. Paul said in a tense CNN interview.

On Monday, Mr. Black said he originally believed the newsletters were written by Mr. Paul.

"They went out under his name in the first person and most people receiving these newsletters, including me, thought he really did write them," Mr. Black said.

Ba-zoom. (Or, as they say in the tennis world: game... set... match.)

**********

Lesson for today:

Not all bigots come dancing around a burning cross wearing silly white hoods or marching down the Champs-Elysees waving swastika flags. Some of them are leading figures in the Republican Party, enjoying long and successful political careers, poised to do extremely well in Iowa (whether the GOP "mainstream" likes it or not).

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For more on Paul's bigotry and conspiracy-theorizing craziness, see this piece by James Kirchick (who wrote the first piece linked above) at the Times.

Newt Gingrich loves monogamy, hates gays

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The headline at Think Progress says it all: "Gingrich Pledges Not To Commit Infidelity A Third Time, Reaffirms Opposition To Marriage Equality."

He may be faking his anti-gay bigotry to win right-wing votes, but it's his fidelity pledge that's particularly amusing:

I also pledge to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.

It's not so much his past infidelity that matters, it's his massive hypocrisy. As Melissa McEwan puts it, also responding to the TP headline:

Which just underlines what bullshit the unholy marriage between political conservatives (small government! no taxes!) and social conservatives (big Jesus! no homo!) really is. There's nothing politically conservative about forcing people to sign pledges about private consensual sex acts, or about arguing that the government should be in the business of telling people they can't marry a consenting partner of legal age.

Gingrich doesn't give a flying flunderton about this horseshit, except insomuch as it will help him win the GOP nomination. (Or impeach a president.) He's got the sexual ethics of a Republican with no sexual ethics.

It's embarrassing to watch these sad, socially stunted failosaurs bray about getting Gingrich to sign their morality yearbooks as if it matters, as if he cares. What fools. 

Newt is playing them, to be sure. While he'll say he's found "God," or some such nonsense, what he's really found is how to sucker morons to give him money... and, he's hoping, their vote.

Is Newt Gingrich really an anti-gay bigot?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

His sister thinks he may be faking it:

Newt Gingrich's openly lesbian half-sister, Candace Gingrich-Jones, says her brother is stuck in a '90s time warp. And she's not sure if he even believes all the anti-gay rhetoric or not.

*****

Gingrich-Jones, an activist with the Human Rights Campaign Foundation who has clashed with her brother since the '90s and is backing President Obama for re-election, slammed the caustic remarks Gingrich has made about gays, including his comments earlier in the year that gay marriage is a "temporary aberration."

"An interesting choice of words -- 'temporary aberration' -- I don't think I consider my own marriage an aberration, or that anyone who is in a relationship considers their families to be an aberration," she said. "It might be wishful thinking on his part. Certainly he's seen how the country has moved on the issue. Maybe what really is an aberration is people's opposition to marriage equality."

She's also not sure if Gingrich is faking it all, pandering to the evangelical base in the Republican Party, or if he really believes the claims he makes on homosexuality and LGBT rights.

Because apparently he treats her and her wife well. How nice of him.

Look, it would hardly be surprising to learn that Newt is just pandering to the right, particularly at a time when pandering to the right is the only way to get ahead in the GOP. (Just ask Mitt.) What is abundantly clear, after all, to anyone who has paid Newt even the slightest attention over the years, is that he doesn't really seem to believe in anything other than himself, and more specifically "Newt," the Gingrich brand, which pulls in millions for him. He is a man with extreme ambition, and with the ability to self-promote and self-aggrandize, but also a man largely without principle, a conservative, to be sure, but a conservative willing to do and say whatever it takes to enhance "Newt" and maximize profits.

And so it hardly matters that he may not be a bigot in private, with his family, and may not actually be one. In public, where he promotes a political agenda, however opportunistic, and seeks election, he has proven himself to be a bigot, and that's all that really counts in his case. Not really being a bigot is no excuse, and neither is having to say certain things to get ahead in the GOP. No one is forcing him to present himself as a bigot, and if he's willing to present himself as one just to win some votes, well, that shows just how pathetic, and just how truly unprincipled, he really is.

Iowa high school students debate Michele Bachmann over same-sex marriage

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Two Iowa high school students, Jane Schmidt and Ella Newell, admirably challenged Michele Bachmann on same-sex marriage (and her opposition to it) at a campaign event yesterday:

BACHMANN: Well, No. 1, all of us as Americans have the same rights. The same civil rights. And so that's really what government's role is, to protect our civil rights. There shouldn't be any special rights or special set of criteria based upon people's preferences. We all have the same civil rights.

JANE SCHMIDT: Then, why can't same-sex couples get married?

BACHMANN: They can get married, but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they're a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they're a man.

JANE SCHMIDT: Why can't a man marry a man?

BACHMANN: Because that's not the law of the land.

Bachmann's legalistic opposition to same-sex marriage is silly. Is the law always right? What if the law says, for example, that Jews are not allowed to own property. Would Jews not being allowed to own property be right just because that's what the law is? Of course not. Law is convention. It is made by human beings and is therefore imperfect, and often wrong.

Now, same-sex marriage is actually legal in some states now, including Iowa. Does this mean that Bachmann is fine with it in Iowa but not in a state that forbids it? Of course not. She was being either ignorant, dishonest, or some combination of the two. In truth, she opposes it everywhere. Because she's a bigot. And all her talk of "tolerance," by which of course she means tolerance for "religious-based values" (i.e., bigotry), is bullshit.