Just go read The Rude Pundit. He’s got Limbaugh pegged. He also has a somewhat realistic prediction for the aftermath.
And thus Limbaugh will go on, damaged, but unbowed. He’s now tainted, but you can bet that all of his listeners see him as the victim here and that, six months, a year from now, nearly all of those sponsors will be back. But maybe, just maybe, he will be poisonous enough to be nothing more than a deranged cult leader, a deaf and dumb and dying dinosaur in the tar pit of his fading career.
The Rude Pundit being optimistic? Wow. I don’t think the poison will daunt his fans — they wallow in that stuff.
I doubt his fans/cult followers will be the least dismayed, except by his not apology. He still holds more sway than he deserves, despite no one knowing how big his audience really is. Rush has performed the ultimate con job on both the gop and the public, i.e., making it appear he has more impact than he really does.
Rush has weathered similar storms before. The sponsors will indeed be back soon enough since business is business, and Rush’s following is too large to ignore.
While the Huffington Post cannot be trusted whenever it wanders near the topics of science and health, its political content is often useful. Cenk Uygur of “The Young Turks” has a post in which he derides the oft-repeated claim that Limbaugh’s radio audience numbers 20 million people. He demonstrates that the claim is just undocumented fluff. Uygur takes a deflating (and encouraging) look at the alleged popularity of the fat man behind the curtain.
Is this not actionable by Ms. Fluke? The heinous beast needs to sued, if not just for the joy of discovery. Consider that he brought up her sex life, I would think it germane that his be discussed under oath.
Not that it would be a pleasant read, mind you…
Most of his fans won’t be swayed in the slightest. Already my friends who listen to him are framing this as if Limbaugh was singled out and “attacked”. He was somehow “tricked” into saying these things through some insidious groundwork laid back in one of the previous Republican debates when birth control was brought up in the first place.
Yes. A guy can go out and conduct a vicious verbal attack on an innocent woman for daring to speak her mind, and somehow HE’S the real victim here.
Mindboggling.
I do not understand at all how this became such a big deal all of the sudden. Rush has said far more disgusting things in the past, and he will continue to say equally disgusting things in the future. He needs to be treated like the Westburo Baptist Church – just ignore him and he doesn’t really have any power.
popeformosus:
It doesn’t work that way. If we ignore him, he still has power. As long as he has sponsors and a broadcast pulpit, he has power. As long as he has listeners who eat from his mouth like baby birds eat half-digested worms, he has power.
The best way to dispose of Limbaugh is to publicly excoriate him, to make it known his views are unacceptable.
When GOP leaders have to apologize to you…sorry you DO have real power.
We are not Rush’s parents ignoring him does not remove the reward for his behavior as there are plenty others who reinforce…all silence does is make him look stronger via lack of disent. This is the biggest tactical error liberals make. They will not go away if you ignore them.
The only time its good to talk about ignoring someone is if you’re doing what I call the “Huckabee Elephant Bluff”
Explanation
Don’t think of pink elephants. The HEB is when you pull off a sleazy tactic in the course of demonstrating that you are above such immoral actions. After Huckabee showing how good he was by showing an attack ad he made to the press to stress how he was not going to run such an attack ad. See also Gore Videl dismissing BAchmann as too stupid to address. You get the attack in while hiding behind finger wagging at such naughtyness
Don’t think of pink elephants.
I don’t know why Berlusconi had to resign when he finally did and not years earlier.
Bingo.
That’s easy. Elephants are dark blue.
For some reason, I kept hoping that R*sh L*mb**gh’s career tract would follow that of Father Charles Coughlin.
The vemon, the lies he told of Fluke, all this is typical of him. It would seem that the main difference is that even those people who do not have a problem with his tactics, it was obvious that he was way off base in his charges against her.
Sadly, while he is taking some hits, enough of his core audience will take this as L*mb**gh standing up for his principles, he will continue on. I wish I was wrong.
But even if this proves to be the first step in the downfall of his show, he will live very comfortably off the millions that various corporations piled upon him for his rage.
He was tainted long ago. Although I wouldn’t put it that way.
He is a broken warped amoral personality who has made a large fortune reflecting back the prejudices of the worst of our socity.
(Many of whom are fundie xians. Did you know xianity is the basis of all morality? I didn’t either.)
The nanny filter blocks Rude Pundit, but I’m familiar with his style, and I can imagine the rest of it.
“I’ll take ‘Mental Images I Didn’t Need’ for $500, Alex.”
janine:
QFFT.
He may be an odious collection of ideologically diseased corruption, all wrapped up in an Egger suit, but I suspect that won’t matter much as he enjoys the immense wealth he gathered for spewing puss, bile, and hatred. If he ever had any shame, he sold it long ago.
Pegged?
Yet and other Dan Savage inspired creation.
The only way Rush can have a satisfying downfall is if he dies by falling down a long flight of stairs while experiencing violent diarrhea.
Hmm, that seemed fairly tame for him. The Rude Pundit seems to be losing his edge. Not that I can blame him, it’s probably dulled from overuse on the thick elephantine hides of the Right.
Rush does his own example of Huckabee Elephant Bluff
I’m sorry I resorted to the sort of attacks your horrible hateful disgusting maggots use all the time.
It wouldn’t shock me if Rush gets admitted to the hospital in the next few days for “chest pains” in an attempt to make himself look like the victim. “Look what they’ve done to that poor man! Enough is enough.”
the only thing that would really make him suffer would be the lose of the spot light the lose of the fame and the lose of the microphone. it is obviously the only thing he really loves! millions are nothing
may his audience go deaf and drift away from him.
uncle frogy
One can claim that Rush has staying power and a large loyal base of supporters, the Ditto Heads, but, he once was on TV and now its just radio and the Internet. Market share is a cruel mistress.