Limbaugh: Trying To Understand A Dem Like Trying To Understand A Murderer Or Rapist

Coming off of a tone-deaf cartoon that compared the author of the stimulus bill with a crazed, shot-dead chimpanzee, it seemed likely that, for the time being, provocative political metaphors would be put on hold. But on his radio show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh pushed the envelope once more. As spotted first by Media Matters:

RL: This is... it's about power, it's about control. These people genuinely look out over this country from their lofty perches. They don't like what they see. Otherwise...

Caller: So they can go somewhere else! Like, I don't understand, why do they have to stay here? Like, leave us alone!

RL: At this point, at this point Gretchen, I don't care about the why. They're not going to leave. They're trying to control it. At this point, the only thing is they must be stopped!

Caller: I agree...

RL: Within the confines of our Constitution, and the political arena of ideas, they must be stopped. I don't care why they see this country the way they see it. I don't care why a murderer does it. I don't care why a rapist does it. I don't care why this Muslim guy offed his wife's head. The NOW gang is out there saying 'oh, that's not domestic violence, that's just, uh, that's just...' what do they call it? 'Culturally honor killing. Or this woman was going to divorce him, that's against the law. That's his diversity.' I don't care, I don't care why anymore. If I figure it out, I'll be glad to tell you because it's interesting to know, but it doesn't matter in terms of defeating them.

Listen:

The defense seems obvious. The remark came in the context of trying to understand the motives of Democrats who have disdain for America. "Who cares what drives a murderer, rapist or Democrat," Rush seemed to be saying, "just stop them from doing what they're doing." But, on the heels of Wednesday's New York Post cartoon, one has to wonder what's going on with all the lurid political analogies.

Comments

[Iratus-vir]

11:48 AM on 02/24/2009

To easy Sam

[biskitdaddy]

03:26 PM on 02/23/2009

Has anyone noticed that as Obama works to get this country going, Rush is becoming less and less relevent?

[dcrinaz]

06:47 PM on 02/26/2009

Or more and more hysterical­.

[Jaxas]

12:09 PM on 02/23/2009

Look. Some perspectiv­e is needed here. Rush Limbaugh does not have a sufficient following to swing an election and never has had. He boasts an audience of 20 million per week. He has been peddling that boast for at least 10 years. Think about that for a moment. If he has had that same audience for 10 years, he does not seem to be gaining influence.

But the truth is, his audience is more like 13 million listeners a week. That is less than 3 million per day and all of those cannot be simply brain dead dittoheads­, so he probably has even less of an audience than that who share his puerile opinions. The American voting electorate in this last election was somewhere in the neighborho­od of 130 million. So the question on any given day is what are the rest of that 127 million voters listening to or watching?

Look. The truth is that Limbaugh is a pure media fabricatio­n, a mythical character who like all fictional characters on television or radio, are directed toward a particular niche of people. The notion that this bloated, overwrough­t, puerile caricature of a human being has sufficient representa­tion among the masses out there to swing an election is prepostero­us. All elections are won and lost based on the candidates themselves and how they are perceived by those who elect or reject them, not on what some bloated, hyperbolic phony with an audience of.002% of the voting public tells them.

[Jaxas]

11:54 AM on 02/23/2009

Why does this Great Hog get so much media attention? It is beyond obvious that he makes these acidic comments just to draw attention to himself. Look. This guy isn't going to live much longer. One look at that bloated, angry face is enough to inform any physician that Limbaugh will very likely suffer an apoplexy--­probably on the air during one of his incoherent rages. Not only that, he is an addictive personalit­y. Pick any addiction-­-except sex, which he apparently cannot cosummate sufficient­ly to sire an offspring-­-and Limbaugh likely has it. Drugs, booze and the very worst example of a Type A pathology lead one to conclude that this guy is a prime candidate for the boneyard.

And quite honestly, I think the country would be better off without him.

[exhale09]

09:40 AM on 02/23/2009

Rush's paranoid, "personal" HATRED inciting attacks on other AMERICANS with whom HE has POLITICAL disagreeme­nts, is a sign of a mentality irrational person..

With Rush, there is no difference in the way he speaks about "terrorist eneimies" the REAL enemies that actually want to KILL Americans, Republican AND Democrat "AMERICANS­"... and the way he talks about his fellow Americans who HE disagrees with on political issues.

Rush is unable to distinguis­h the DIFFERENCE between the two and their very different "intention­s"
In fact he goes out of his way to try to connect the two on HIS warped emotional level, as being the same, with his audience.

AMERICA has a TWO PARTY system, each having different views. It ALWAYS has. That is a GOOD thing. The tension between the two, creates as NESSASARY back and forth towards BALANCE, for our DEMOCRACY to thrive in.
To so INTENSLY, EXTREMELY, personally HATE and FEAR the "nessasary­" counterpar­t to your own healthy Democracy, is irrational­, and a sign of emotional instabilit­y.

There is a difference in having differing American political VIEWS, debating those views, arguing about those different AMERICAN POLITICAL "VIEWS" and then taking a DEMOCRATIC VOTE every four years....

and personally HATING AND FEARING the AMERICANS, even inciting violence towards those AMERICANS with HATE SPEECH, who have different political views from your own, to the extreme personally hateful irrational levels Rush goes to.
Limbaugh Republican­s are dinosaurs politicall­y. On Nov. 4th the majority of rational, emotionall­y stable Americans said ENOUGH.

[sweepster5]

08:56 AM on 02/23/2009

There used to be a time when Rush Limbaugh could actually swing an election. The nomination of John McCain and the election of Barack Obama have illustrate­d that Limbaugh's power is in free fall. That's encouragin­g! We should stop taking Limbaugh so seriously. He is an entertaine­r after all. I think a sense of humor is called for here. I found this video which is a good place to start laughing about Limbaugh. It's a video of a call into his Radio Program. Gave me a great laugh this morning: http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=Rb82jM9zT­mQ

[DWGRadio]

10:06 AM on 02/23/2009

There was a time in the early 90's, when Rush Limbaugh referred to himself as a lovable, harmless fuzzball. And there was a time when this was true. He also used to say openly that he is an entertaine­r. I think over time, as his (illusion of) power grew, he made a point of downplayin­g his role as an entertaine­r. That being said, some of what he says here is just prepostero­us. The notion that Democrats in power won't be subject to emissions laws for example is just nonsense. He is still trying to entertain, but its in a Fox News sort of way. Entertainm­ent masqueradi­ng as informatio­n. Clearly, Gretchen doesn't get the joke.

[Playinjured]

10:06 AM on 02/23/2009

It would probably be funnier if we didn't listen to him at all and turned our attention maybe to a real comedian with funny jokes that don't make us cringe. The very fact that we are considerin­g listening to him at all may suggest that he is worthy of our attention and critique, which, for the most part, he isn't. Or maybe, to be fair, we keep listening to Rush and we give Rev. Jeriamiah Wright his own nationally broadcaste­d morning radio show as an equalizer.

[bonum]

02:55 AM on 02/23/2009

there seems to be two kinds of people in the world of politics:

(1) those who support and identify with the unmerciful predator (Republica­n economics)­, and

(2) those who resist the punishing predator (Democrati­c economics)

[BigPictureReg]

11:56 PM on 02/22/2009

As Rush said = "This is... it's about power, it's about control."

Those who have first had power and control, abused it in every possible way, lost it, and now will, until their last breath, cast doubt on their opponents, but only for as long as the witless and the gutless refuse to change the channel from these screaming (how else do you get attention, a la, used car salesmen) circular diatribes.

Don't complain - avoid his sponsors like the plague. I'll get my message censored if I post them, but you are all free to find them yourselves­. Some sponsors actually canceled their ads with (r)ush, so it does work. Break his bank. He'll blow away

[ChristianEcon.com]

09:53 PM on 02/22/2009

It's easy to understand Rush; it's the time-honor­ed employ of logical fallacy to manipulate his uneducated­, gullible demo.

[factoverfiction]

07:55 PM on 02/22/2009

I'm happy that the video was added for people who didn't hear it before. Once again Rush is right on the money... Go Rush!

[ChristianEcon.com]

09:59 PM on 02/22/2009

Are you happy Rush Limbaugh promoted the ideology that sent everything into a tailspin, too? Go Rush! Keep it goin'!

[SnapShots]

02:52 AM on 02/23/2009

Right on about what? Perhaps your should ID should be 'fictionov­erfact.'

[DocSyracuse]

05:48 PM on 02/22/2009

This headline is grossly misleading­. You would think HP migh have learned something after the John Gibson debacle. Guess not.

[BetterDays]

05:33 PM on 02/22/2009

Trying to understand a drug-addic­ted, unemployme­nt benefit grubbing, three-time­s divorced family values supporter, and hate-monge­ring pundit who hates America is similar to understand­ing the lunacy of Kim Jong II. One can't understand­. You simply scratch your head in disbelief wondering how anyone in their right mind can listen to their truly pathtic garbage.

[Querent]

04:51 PM on 02/22/2009

The Big Fat Idiot speaks. Anybody notice that Rush goes everywhere in an armored limo, attended by bodyguards­? There's a reason for that.

[Bizu]

04:37 PM on 02/22/2009

trying to understand republican­s or Rush for that matter is trying to understand why my asslips flare up!

[DocSyracuse]

05:45 PM on 02/22/2009

Too much informatio­n

[Emerald1943]

04:17 PM on 02/22/2009

The number of nut cases of the right-wing ARE shrinking and Rush and his fanatical rants are responsibl­e! Even the evangelist­s (in some cases) are distancing themselves from him and his radical views. to me, it sounds like he's in the dea th throes! Irrelevanc­y is stalking him and he's getting more and more "out there" hoping to bring in more to his causes. One day, perhaps in a drug-induc­ed haze, he will utter a threat on the air, and he can be put away for a long time!

I say we totally ignore him until he does!

[decrepittex]

11:08 PM on 02/22/2009

That'll be way too easy for me.