The NY Times Sends A Dittohead To Interview Rush Limbaugh

The Times writer who profiled Limbaugh is pretty much a Dittohead, a Limbaugh devotee. So of course there was no reason to fear a "hit job." The whole notion was literally laughable.

Out of the 7,700-plus words Zev Chafets wrote about Limbaugh, I counted exactly two in the entire piece in which the writer quoted a Limbaugh critic (apparently secondhand) saying something unkind about Limbaugh's craft.

Does every Limbaugh profile need to be a hit piece? Of course not. Should every serious Limbaugh profile at least try to convey to readers what's so controversial about the host and what he says on his radio program? Of course. And that's where the Times, rather obliviously, took the pratfall with its Limbaugh article.

Read the entire Media Matters column here.

Comments

[init]

Even the willful ignorant have had it. His contract will be terminated.

[pitneo]

They love feeding Rush on people because he does such a good job of causing chaos. And the more chaos he causes, the more the people are at each other's throats. That's why they want to give him more money just to keep us at odds with each other. They haven't realized that that crap is old and it stinks. Can't you smell it?

[frankifrost]

IT HAS TAKEN A LIFETIME FOR THIS COUNTRY
TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN EVIDENT
TO THE REST OF THE WORLD:
THE NYT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A RAG
USED TO PUSH THE NEOCON AGENDA.

[Zentomato]

Try number 3.

Rush is an extremely wealthy and powerful person and it seems that the NY Times is just pandering to him. I can't bear to listen to the drug addled hypocrite for more than a minute or two at the most. In my humble opinion Rush has done more harm to our country than almost anyone else. His incessant brand of divisive hate speech has done more to politically polarize this country than any other broadcaster or pundit. Rush is a despicable creature to be avoided at all costs.

[pitneo]

That's his purpose. To divide and conquer. And as long as he can do that, he will stay in business until the cows come home.

[Zentomato]

Nearly 2 hours ago I posted this comment. It has yet to appear. Let me try again:

Rush is an extremely wealthy and powerful person and it seems that the NY Times is just sucking up to him. I can't bear to listen to the drug addled hypocrite for more than a minute or two at the most. n my humble opinion Rush has done more harm to our country than almost anyone else. His incessant brand of divisive hate speech has done more to politically polarize this country than any other broadcaster or pundit. Rush is a despicable creature to be avoided at all costs.

[missette]

I read the article, and found one bit of praise for Limbaugh to be particularly grating. He was saying, in effect, that Limbaugh was worth his fortune because he manages to be entertaining, supposedly without a script, for 3 hours a day, and challenged us to try it for even 15 minutes. The obvious counterpoint is that Rush would probably find it equally difficult to care for the sick for three hours a day, much less eight, five days a week, or to keep airplanes flying or giant rigs on the road, or bring bad guys to justice, or edit newspapers or magazines, or wait on tables, or repair - or design - roads and bridges, or engineer a spacecraft, or write computer programs, or develop turbine engines, or study molecular biology, or numerous other endeavors that keep life interesting and make the world go round. All these, too, have value, but Rush and his brethren regularly undervalue the vast work of the masses in order to elevate, and exaggerate, their own worth and contribution.

[timothe]

Nobody complains about what George Clooney makes. No one.

[pitneo]

Huh?

[larry278]

What else would you expect of the NYT? The NYT hasn't been a newspaper of record for 40 years. Since puffery doesn't pay well the NYT has been dying for 40 years. Perhaps Murdoch will authorize the golpe de gracia sooner or later.

[LiberalBuzz]

Another reason American hates the media.

[pitneo]

I would say THE MAIN REASON! Thank you my friend.

[PrinceHal]

OK, what's up with the Times?

Maybe hiring Bill Kristol wasn't that far off the main road, after all.

Not only do we have Zev Chafets writing suck-up pieces about Comedian Rush Limbaugh, we've also got rightie Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the Book Review --- the signature section of the Sunday Times -- consistently assigning political books of every persuasion to right-wing reviewers (see complaint below from "Queenofthedamned").

It would appear that the Times is trying to get cozy with the right, as if the right will ever quit peeing all over the paper every chance it gets. Or will ever stop referring to it as if it were the principal owner of American liberalism.

I cancelled my Times subscription when Rosenthal hired Kristol, but the Times then offered me a big bargain to come back. Result: I came back. Mistake, I now believe.

[swift_goat_pet_for_truth]

What's the news?

They send foodies to review restaurants. They send movie buff to review the films.

And they sent chickenhawks to hype the war before, during and many years after the invasion.

Its Standard Operating Procedure.

[DallasMike]

Where are all the serious articles on BO all I ever see is fluff pieces about what he eats for dinner.

[doctorwang]

you can't be serious.

[DesertLight]

how's capitalism working out for you????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually pretty good, thanks!

[DesertLight]

Nerd alert! Guess I could be here all day debunking ruthless comments from lemmings who never listened to a show of his but pretend to know everything about him from the Media Matters perspective.

[Eoin45]

"Guess I could be here all day debunking ruthless comments ..." Then why don't you?

[DesertLight]

Every once in awhile I DO have to go in to work.

[Queenofthedamned]

Please. And last week not one but TWO AEI members reviewed political books in the Book Review. What a surprise--David Frum, the man who gave Bush "the axis of evil," bit, had nothing good to say about White Protestant Nation, a new book about the origins of todays conservatives; and Norman Ornstein, billed as AEI's "centrist" gushed over the recently published Grand New Party by the darling dumpling-boys of the right, bright-shinycons Douthat & Salam. What IS it with the Times these days? They're not even attempting a facade of objectivity.

[Sumocat]

In fairness, could anyone other than a dittohead tolerate talking to Limbaugh for more than a minute? I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else passed because they'd rather be stabbed in the eye.

[pitneo]

Or the foot so they wouldn't have to go!

[speakyourmind]

Excellent point.

[sa]

"play dumb"

willful ignorance. something very keen in the republican (capitalistic/fascist) party.
pretend you don't know how your actions of greed
end up in violence and death in the real world.

greed is violence -
only it is unseen.
it plays out in hopelessness.
death, violence, jail.

sometimes all the people
republicans throw under the bus,
comeback and bite them.

the karmic wheel turns...

p.s. go on, take the money and run...

p.p.s. you can send someone to jail for 35K/year - or you can send them to college
for considerably less. but that wouldn't be republican - you can't hire a college
graduate for six dollars an hour.

p.p.p.s you can send a high school graduate to iraq for a million dollars a year.

p.p.p.p.s. is anyone getting how insane america is - and its culture of greed?

p.p.p.p.p.s. you can give everyone healthcare and have a healthy nation - or you can give
most of the money to "healthcare workers" and administrators, and keep most
of america sick or dead.

how's capitalism working out for you????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DesertLight]

The last thing I want is some foreigner telling me what I should think.

[DesertLight]

how's capitalism working out for you????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fine! Thanks for asking.

[sa]

the willful ignorant respond.

.