Limbaugh – the Terrible

In the New York Time magazine, the fount of all wisdom, of July 6, 2008 was an article by Zev Chafetz about Rush Limbaugh. It was based on extensive interviews that Limbaugh had granted him, including visits to Limbaugh’s lavish estate in Florida.

To begin with Limbaugh does not appeal to me on any level, politically, intellectually, morally, aesthetically, emotionally or, least of all, entertainingly. To avoid responsibility for anything he expounds about he smugly states “I’m an entertainer”.

In indeed he falls into the same category as P.T. Barnum, a showman who opined that “there was a sucker born every minute”. Just as P.T. Barnum was immensely successful with his exploitation of oddities and miscreants through his understanding of the weaknesses of human nature and its perversities, so too does Limbaugh strike a similar chord in some, and like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, lead them unquestioningly along.

The article is the only one I have read about Limbaugh and I found it extremely interesting and informative. It explains a lot about who he is and how he came to be the personality and character he is today.

From early on he eschewed formal learning and relied mostly on his own intuition. Being inherently independent he arrived at his own conclusions based on his own limited understanding.

Rush Limbaugh is a menace to the nation. At this critical time, when the need for unity is paramount, he is a polemicist, a divider of the most virulent type.

As a tactician his Rovian resort to mischief is a destructive influence that creates animosity where amity is called for. His demonic glee at (what Rove considered) the success of Operation Chaos is a most recent manifestation of his strategies. His commentaries were designed to accentuate differences and complicate the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Orack Obama. He attempted to sow distrust and confusion, in a word, create chaos.

Limbaugh considers himself now to be the absolute leader of the “conservative movement”, with the demise of Bill Buckley. He characterizes Bill O’Reilly as “Ted Baxter”, the overbearing and comically stentorian newscaster on the Mary Tyler Moore show. He likewise dismisses Sean Hannity as a bush leaguer, and not even in his rearview mirror. Limbaugh claims to be the intellectual engine of the conservative movement. The question is what is intellectual about Limbaugh? He rails against the Eastern intellectual elite that overwhelmingly support Obama.

What is particularly egregious, to my sense of conservatism, is his definition of it as akin to “greed is good”. He’s unalterably opposed to human welfare but a strong cheerleader for corporate welfare. His support of the plan to privatize Social Security is right in line with the Prescription Drug Act. Both are designed to allow the siphoning off by private interests vast profits for which no benefit accrues to the consumer. Limbaugh criticized John McCain for using Ronald Reagan’s name. He says “McCain and Reagan should not be used in the same sentence”. Reagan’s conservative slogan was “get the government off are your back”. That meant deregulation of nearly everything in order to allow corporate greed to flourish and run roughshod over the market place. Non regulation over the past several years has endangered our environment, our healthcare, and our educational system. The present sub-prime debacle is a direct result of non oversight of our financial institutions. Let’s revive the other Reagan mantra “are you better off now than you were eight years ago?” Indeed a striking contrast!

Perhaps the prima facie evidence of Limbaugh’s resistance to facts is his rejection of the global warming thesis. It has been amply demonstrated that the oil and gas industry has spent many millions of dollars in their effort to discredit sound science by attempting to imply that there is a question to be debated. The facts have been established, the rest is obfuscation.

Finally, what is conservative about a program that never mentions conservation?. Instead the simplistic notion of “drilling” all over the place is given as a solution to our problems of energy deficit. Ignored is the fact that it would take ten years to get additional gas to the pump. The obvious fact is that drilling and continued gross consumption of petroleum products is obscenely profitable to Exxon, et al. Just recently T. Boone Pickens has begun a campaign that he spent $50 million on to promote wind energy. He has purchased millions of acres of land in the mid U.S. continent to establish the wind farms that he feels are the answer to getting us off the petroleum kick. “You cannot drill your way out of this mess”, Pickens states. “You’ve got to find alternative sources of energy”. Now here is the oilman, the owner of British Petroleum,(BP) espousing alternative fuels because it is the right thing to do, it is best for America.

What is the solution to the Limbaugh menace? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuming he is a good man and really does have the desire to benefit the country as a whole, not just the corporations. Also recognizing his singular talent for persuading many people of his ideas, he must be reformed. It is necessary to enlighten his benighted understanding of the true cnservative ideals. Those are: 1. Responsible management of the government.2. Protection of the nation against all enemies both foreign and domestic. 3. Promotion of a true free enterprise system, one with a level playing field, free from undue (unseemly) influence of one interest over another. 4. Keeping universal well-being as the criteria of acceptability. 5. Sufficient regulation to ensure honesty and efficiency in all agencies without undue or excessive overburden. 5. Taxation commensurate with the necessary agencies and programs for the universal welfare. (Theodore Roosevelt said “The purpose of government is the welfare of the people”.

It seems the “conservative movement” as Limbaugh mimics from Buckley, is a vestige of the old fear of communism. Communism was anathema to capitalism and vice versa. For a period, the Cold War confrontation was the cause celebre of our nation. The conservative movement was at a loss for a demon when Communism in Europe collapsed. Needing some focus the next best target of opportunity was the “liberal menace” as Buckley conceived it. “We stand athwart the tide of history and say Stop” to liberalism; was Buckley’s mantra. That was, in my estimation, a good thing at the time. After the Roosevelt era the liberals had become too entrenched and needed to be stop. It is the neo-cons that need stopping at this point.

Now that Limbaugh has accumulated his wealth and no longer has a need to prove himself it would be well for him, and the country, if, like Bill Gates, he turned altruistic and gave back to the country that has been so good to him. To do this he can become a uniter instead of a divider. Join forces with the “change” generation and mitigate the likely leftish shift. Adopt the true conservative stance rather than a fascistic one of tyrannical rule, ala Cheney, and his dark secretive Darth Vader imposture. Thus spake Swampslogger , the seeker of truth and rightness.