"Never give a sucker an even break." --WC Fields
Rush Limbaugh may be evil, but he sure is a genius.
Or, the media is motivated so much by cheap controversy to drive ratings that it hardly takes a genius to suck them all in to help your cause.
Limbaugh says Obama caused the recession to pay back white America for 230 years of racism.
Get the ploy?
Limbaugh knows that the media will focus on the most outrageous and inflammatory part of his latest nonsense -- that Obama is paying back white America for racism. The argument--if there even is a serious one -- will be over whether Obama is, or is not, paying back white America. But, it will bring viewers.
I suspect even many true racists in the country would have trouble buying that one.
But, that is not what Limbaugh is really trying to sell. And, those are not his target audience.
You are. And, it will get carried to you by the media establishment in the form of a repudiation of Limbaugh's race remark.
Exactly what Limbaugh wants them to do.
He wants the country to believe that President Obama "caused" the recession. His hope -- and, judging by the media response, he is succeeding -- is that the race part is so inflammatory that the utterly false, but far less inflammatory, assertion that Obama caused the recession will seep into peoples' consciousness, without further thought.
Watch tonight. Olbermann will have Rush as a "worst person," and decry his appeal to racism, and then just correct the record on the cause of the recession. Ed Schultz will do almost the same. The rest of the media will follow suit, providing lots of publicity for Limbaugh's statement, all focusing on the race issue.
Game-set-match to Limbaugh. The clearest sign -- he'll reassert it all again the next day.
I am writing this hastily in the hopes that the shows will see it, ignore the race part of the statement entirely, and focus the discussion about the causes of the recession.
Then, Limbaugh loses. The clearest sign -- Limbaugh will not engage in the cause of the recession argument. He knows when to fold'em.