Much has been made about Rush Limbaugh’s comments, and how it’s just beyond the pale to suggest that Rush was doing anything other then criticizing anti-war troops, and not the phony troops the left seems to drag out every so often. It’s not like there are examples out there of troops the Left has paraded around for their “speaking truth to authority” who turned out to have exaggerated either their service record or the claims they were making.
So, are the Democrats playing this out on principle, or politics?? Well, many were certainly principled in not joining efforts to criticize the move-on.org ad. Efforts which were a misuse of Congress’s time.
There are competing theories about why Rush, and why now, with some Democratic apologists going so far as to say that beating up on Rush wont have an impact on the elections.
Well, someone thinks Rush is important enough to knock down a few pegs…
On June 15, 2004, Brock appeared at a Washington bookstore, Politics & Prose, to discuss his just-published book, The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy. Media Matters was still in its early stages at that point, and Brock explained to the audience what he hoped to accomplish. It was an unquestionably political plan.
The conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Brock told the small group, had “poison[ed]” the minds of swing voters, who are key to any election victory. The problem was not just people who listened to Limbaugh, Brock argued, but people who talked to people who listened to Limbaugh. “There is a viral effect of this noise machine that is difficult to quantify,” he said. “But the bottom line is that if you’ve got an office, and you’ve got ten people in an office, and just one of those people is listening to Rush Limbaugh and repeating false stories at the water cooler, you are corrupting and poisoning that entire office.”
Sooner or later, Brock said, that has an effect at the polls. “Although I think many liberals are in denial about the effect of all this,” he explained, “there are moderate, persuadable, independent and swing voters who are being systematically lied to every day.” The beneficiary was the Republican party.
And, someone else thinks the effort to muzzle right wing talk radio is important enough…
Late last week, DNC Chair Howard Dean, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin and Senatorial Committee chair, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi all signed off in some form or another direct mail fundraising plans that will feature Limbaugh for their national party.
“‘Don’t let Limbaugh smear true patriotism,’ that’s the theme,” says a DNC staffer. “We’re not going to let Limbaugh determine what soldiers can talk and what soldiers can not.”
Bad grammar and ill-informed opinions aside, the DNC hopes to raise millions of dollars of Limbaugh. “If we can’t silence him, we should at least make some money to make his life more miserable in a Democratic-controlled Washington in 2008,” says a Senate Democrat leadership aide.
Others on the Democrat side are pushing ahead with other plans. Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.”
“Limbaugh isn’t the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio,” says a House leadership source. “We don’t have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail.”
So, the Democrats don’t have a big enough megaphone, what with most newspapers and news programs tilted heavily in their favor. And they can’t compete one-on-one with like minded talk radio. So, they will use the power of the government to stifle free speech. Because, as a 6 year old might say, it’s not fair.
There will be dark times ahead for all of us, if this is the modus operandi of the left for the future…
I think we are at a tipping point and I’m not liking the direction. Today’s liberal left/Democrat has successfully redefined the meaning of truth. To them, everything is politics and everything used to further their politics is true. It doesn’t need to be legal, it doesn’t even need to be constitutional. As long as they think they can get away with it, and it supports their politics, it is true. A quote from above “but this is all political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage”.
So, Sandy Berger is now an advisor to the Clinton campaign, if they can get away with it, and the constitutional question of free speech falls by the wayside as they attempt to shut down conservative views because “it’s just politics”.
They can get away with it, because they can convince the general public, because they have the vastly more powerful information system. I always tell myself I will not be surprised by the views of the left, but each day I continue to marvel at the depth to which the Kool-Aid has been been absorbed by the body politic. See Michael Barone’s latest. Ivory Tower Decay. Also, the comment above from Brock, “and just one of those people is listening to Rush Limbaugh and repeating false stories at the water cooler, you are corrupting and poisoning that entire office.” This is so Orwellian it makes my head spin. The truth is that the liberal left has a huge megaphone in the liberal media. I want to have faith in the basic good sense of people, but I am also aware that the information they get, hugely affects their choices. The information they get is definitely slanted left. See the latest polls from Gallup. “Overall, less than half of Americans, regardless of partisanship, have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media.” The fact that many don’t have great faith in the MSM is a bit comforting, but the fact that most people still get their news there is still a problem.
As Keith says, it could be very dark times. If the Left is successful in muzzling Limbaugh and Levin et al, then the we have lost our most powerful voice in response to the liberal information machine. However, more fundamentally troubling, is the re-defining of our constitutional right to free speech.
Somehow I think this will just add to Rush’s ratings.
Nothing new. The left has been pushing campaign finance laws for awhile now.