Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
by Al Franken
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Book Summary Information
Author: Al FrankenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-01-12
ISBN: 0440508649
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
Book Review: Rush-why?
Summary: 5 Stars
Surely with past intellects like William F. Buckley and venerable political leaders like Barry Goldwater to compare him to, shouldn't Rush have been dismissed years ago. Where are the compassionate conservatives we were told about who could still remain true to their cause while still being reasonable and rational and occasionally even bi-partisan?
Instead we're treated to this egotistical, pill-popping hypocrite holding forth nationally on a daily basis mostly to a crowd of sycophantic "ditto-heads" who are apparently utterly incapable of any independent thinking about any significant issue that he opposes.
Just how did this draft-ducking college drop- out wind up becoming the spokesman for the conservative movement in the U.S. anyway?
Since Obama's self-disclosed youthful indiscretions were fair game for Rush's ire I wondered why for instance in his youth, Rush (this future keeper of the flame of "American values"), wasn't himself fighting heroically in the front lines in Viet Nam? What could have possibly impeded this "Uber-American" from doing his patriotic duty and serving his country in uniform (instead of meekly accepting a deferment for some embarrassingly minor medical problem) like some draft card burning leftie during America's greatest time of need?
For such an unapologetic Hawk his own glaring lack of personal military experience does not however deter him at all from denigrating the military records of other's he opposed like John Kerry or John Murtha who had chosen to fight rather than stay safely out of harms way like he did.
It's ironic that John McCain was the only Republican in recent memory that has actually seen any combat and they don't even regard him as a true conservative!
Rush remains adamantly bullish on America's right to prosecute a war to protect her vital national interests (as he defines them) as long as he himself doesn't actually have to fight in it!
However Put Rush in front of a live microphone now w/ four hours to kill and you then have a real pit bull on your hands! He's prepared to be to make sadistic fun of veterans who now oppose the war as well as the disabled who favor stem cell research and foreigners who offer any thing less than enthusiastic support for our foreign policy. He'll rail for hours against minorities and woman who still claim that racism or sexism still exists or anyone else who dares to disagree with him.
Not that he really likes to debate in close combat mind you! No, it seems Rush prefers the wide-open spaces of an empty studio, unencumbered by annoying guests with contrary points of view possibly armed with facts and figures that would tend to undermine his oversimplified assessments and sweeping allegations. Yes apparently despite any formal education in these field's he firmly believes in his own intuitive knowledge of the economy, history and western civilization. It is simply his destiny to weigh in on almost any topic with an abiding confidence of the rightness of his cause and without any need for further discussion of his own qualifications. He is really only half-joking when he refers to his talent to as being "On loan from God"
Funny however regardless of the topic, it always gets back to a showdown with those damn "liberals"!
More recently we're also now reminded on a regular basis that he isn't even Republican (He's a Conservative and independent) so he can't possibly bear any direct responsibility for this miserable showing in the election. According to him they just didn't heed his advice well enough!
Now it seems the laser-beam like acuity of Rush's post election analysis seems to be focusing the blame for the Republican's abysmal showing squarely on John McCain's shoulders. Apparently he just wasn't "conservative" enough!
According to the combined wisdom of the right -winged radio brain trust led in lock step by Rush, McCain should've just kept hammering away on the duel points of Obama's connection to his ex-pastor's anti-Americanism and Bill Ayers unrepentant radical past, regardless of there being any evidence that these issues ever gained any traction with the voter's.
The facts were that most voters were understandably pre-occupied with the economy and John McCain's flat-footed stunt to "suspend" his campaign and fly back to Washington to then do next to nothing, did little to further impress the voters.
Don't Diss Governor Palin, however or you're libel get an earful from Rush, regardless of what most exit polls seem to indicate about the voter's skepticism about her readiness to be Commander-in-chief. He simply brushes aside her negative exit polling numbers as the work of the left-leaning "drive by" media. According to Rush the always center-right leaning American people are also apparently very easily duped by the left. Thank God for Rush-the one true voice of truth crying out in the wilderness!
Rush must also fancy himself as some sort of political wit with such notable characterizations as the misogynistic "Fema-Nazi's". However once he's coined such a term, he'll also usually beat it to death w/ constant repetition. He's now snidely characterizing President-elect Obama as a "Chicago street thug" and flatly rejects any appeal for unity or even giving the new President a chance to prove himself. Why wait, he's apparently already geared up to oppose him at every turn.
Rush & Co. recent inept attempt's to use Obama's off-handed remark to Joe the plumber to "share the wealth" as proof that Obama is really a card-carrying socialist would simply be laughable until you realize most of his devoted listener's require no further evidence either! They would probably still love to smear him w/ the term "Communist" if they didn't fear being laughed off the national stage entirely.
The fact that the up until two years ago the Republican Party had both the Presidency for the last eight years and a majority in both houses of Congress for the preceding six years and therefore must bare most the responsibility for our current mess is also completely lost on them.
Sadly in the end it's all probably just going to help his ratings. This is because most people tune in his daily rants precisely because they are more like a rowdy sports call-in radio show than a thoughtful (i.e. dull) political analysis like the centrist-left NPR.
It's never been about finding solutions to complex problems. It's always really been about finding enemies, traitors and scapegoats.
Like most traditional demagogy, Rush's real strength lies in his ability to make oversimplified assessments of complex issues for his audience requiring of them little in the way of critical thought and even less in terms of direct action on their part. They then can see themselves as the overburdened and underappreciated "victims" of the elitist leftist do-gooders attempting to assist the un-deserving poor at their expense. Apparently this mostly white beleaguered lower middle class demographic are really in need of their own economic revival plan that could easily be accomplished by just ending most of the "welfare state" sponsored social services for the poor not higher taxes on the wealthy.
Even his most vehement opponents however must give the devil his due in his sustained ability to entice most of his listener's with modest incomes to regularly vote against their own best interests in favor of an illusory vision of the US economy that in their eyes is only being held back by Federal over- regulation and excessive corporate taxation.
Likewise other scandals during the Bush administration like Enron, Katrina, Abu Ghruib and the resignation of the Attorney General to name a few, are in no way emblematic of any deeply rooted problems according to the gospel of Rush but rather isolated incidents perpetrated by a few individuals w/o the President's knowledge or consent.
Rush's enemy's lists are populated by cartoonish, two dimensional characterizations of evil, without any redeeming genuine human traits or values in common with decent Americans. They are therefore that much easier to utterly despise and ridicule and there is clearly no rational point in trying to negotiate with them either. It's just a sign of weakness to even consider it.
The "conservative" agenda Rush champions has also opposed every progressive and enlightened idea put forth in the last 100 years. It has no new ideas of it's own to champion. It is a philosophy based entirely on its opposition to fundamental change in any area. It is a belief system that only grudgingly adapts to those changes once they become generally accepted. It is a system that also conveniently forgets to remind it's followers that it ever opposed these changes in the first place. Claiming for instance that it's opposition to the civil rights movement was really a legitimate defense of "States Rights".
Some of the ideas strenuously opposed in the past by the likes of Rush included Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Child labor laws, Civil rights, Integration, Woman's rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, environmentalism, Medicare, Medicaid, conservation, alternative energy, anti-trust legislation, the UN, peace-keeping, consumer rights and now individual privacy rights.(perhaps w/ the notable exception of a patient's right to confidentiality regarding medical records and the medications prescribed)
Summary of Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot
Move over P.J. O'Rourke! From Al Franken, America's premier liberal satirist, comes a hilarious homage to the wonderful, awful, and always absurd American political process that skewers a whole new crop of presidential hopefuls--just in time for the 1996 presidential election. "(Franken is) responsible in part for some of the most brilliant political satire of our time".--John Podhoretz, New York Post.Rush Limbaugh claims his talent is on loan. With this book, Franken demonstrates that he owns. The frankly Democratic author's shtick reminds us how much of a free ride conservatives have gotten in the mainstream media. For instance, he really drives home the weirdness of the conservatives' preachiness about "family values" in light of Newt Gingrich's and Bob Dole's first marriages, and Rush Limbaugh's first, second and third marriages. And he has great fun with Rush's and Newt's miraculous draft deferments in a chapter where he imagines all of the great conservative "chicken-hawks" out on a Vietnam war patrol under the leadership of Ollie North.
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