A Brief History…

By Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R.

Patterico’s Pontifications kicked up a bit of discussion early this month when the eponymous blogger/crimefighter wrote a post saying he hoped Rush Limbaugh would fail in his bid to become the de facto head of the conservative movement.

While I differed with Patterico on his point, I’m glad he made the post. Because having to research what Limbaugh said, and the context in which he said it, made me decide to become a regular listener.  Limbaugh is a welcome counterpoint to the spin we get from the Obama administration as relayed by a sympathetic mainstream media.

Limbaugh isn’t always accurate, a point he often makes ironically by claiming to be error-free. But he provides a valuable service by challenging the media narrative with a much different interpretation of events. And while I am a Libertarian, not a conservative, most of what El Rushbo says could have been taken from the texts of quasi-libertarian Ayn Rand.

A little background. Patterico, himself a conservative, is mainly a fan of Limbaugh’s. But he says Limbaugh chose the wrong way to frame the conservative opposition to President Obama:

I know: when he says he hopes Obama fails, he doesn’t mean he wants to see Americans suffer. He just doesn’t want liberal policies enacted because he thinks they’re bad for the country. I get it. I agree with that.

But, you know, that’s nuance.

The problem is, Americans have short attention spans and don’t always do nuance well. Just by writing the title of this post the way I did, I’ll get an angry reaction from some — even though, if you read the post, I haven’t said anything particularly negative about Limbaugh.

To see for myself if Patterico was right, I went to Limbaugh’s site, read his words and downloaded his broadcasts. And I found Limbaugh to be well-reasoned. If you like a free market, if you don’t want a vast intrusion of government into the economy, you pretty much have to hope Obama fails.

Why do we have to accept the premise here that because of the historical nature of his presidency, that we want him to succeed?  This is affirmative action, if we do that.  We want to promote failure, we want to promote incompetence, we want to stand by and not object to what he’s doing simply because of the color of his skin?  Sorry.  I got past the historical nature of this months ago.  He is the president of the United States, he’s my president, he’s a human being, and his ideas and policies are what count for me, not his skin color, not his past, not whatever ties he doesn’t have to being down with the struggle, all of that’s irrelevant to me.  We’re talking about my country, the United States of America, my nieces, my nephews, your kids, your grandkids.  Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism?  Why would I want to do that?  So I can answer it, four words, “I hope he fails.”

El Rushbo has fun. He mocks Obama’s sudden tongue-tiedness, revealed when he’s without benefit of a teleprompter, in hysterically funny performances, even doing a pretend interview with TOTUS, the Teleprompter Of The United States.

But more importantly, Limbaugh has been relentlessly covering the power grabs by Obama, and the frightening demonization of companies like AIG by Obama and the Democratic leaders in Congress, for their political benefit.  Mob rule, John Adams would have called it.

And the media has not been eager to say what it is. One of the most sickening examples to me was how the media covered protests at the home of AIG executives, demanding they return the bonuses contractually given to them.

The Associated Press carried a story that uncritically covered the protests as a struggle by ordinary folks against greedy executives:

“We think $165 million could be used in a more appropriate way to keep people in their homes, create more jobs and health care,” said Emeline Bravo-Blackport, a gardener.

She marveled at AIG executive James Haas’ colonial house, which has stunning views of a golf course and the Long Island Sound. The Fairfield house is “another part of the world” from her life in nearby Bridgeport, which flirted with bankruptcy in the 1990s and still struggles with foreclosures and unemployment.”

“Lord, I wonder what it’s like to live in a house that size,” she said.

What the Associated Press didn’t tell you is that Emeline Bravo-Blackport is the local community organizer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

On his March 25 show, Limbaugh talked with the wife of one of the AIG executives, who said her husband was so stressed at the attacks that he was taken to the hospital with heart pains. And he’s also worried about the impact on their three children that the company their father works for is being vilified.

Limbaugh said:

It is not presidential for the president of the United States to stand up and to denounce a single company like this for the express purpose of creating mob behavior and a mob mentality.  This is his life.  What do you think a community organizer does?  A community organizer, for ACORN or anybody else, goes to the downtrodden in any community and says, “You are here, and you are where you are because they have given you the shaft, they have taken what is rightfully yours, they are the people we need to protest and punish to get back what is rightfully yours.”  He’s just taking it now beyond the stages of Chicago to the stages of America.  That’s who Barack Obama is.  He is behaving as any community organizer does, who is an acolyte of Saul Alinsky, whose objective is chaos and the destruction of American capitalism, or capitalism anywhere.  So you can sit there and act outraged at the media but the media are just slaves to Obama, and they’re going to follow his lead.  So your anger here needs to be taken to the top.  Eva, I’m glad you called.  Thanks very much.  I appreciate it, and I really feel bad for you.

Strong stuff indeed, and I don’t necessarily buy all of it. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. But I’m sure glad Patterico wrote that blog post. It prompted me to find out just what Limbaugh is actually saying, as opposed to what his critics say. Now my daily routine includes downloading Limbaugh broadcasts, so I can listen to them on my way home.

I don’t take Limbaugh’s word as The Truth. The point leftists miss is that Limbaugh doesn’t expect you to. He expects you to listen and think critically, and read on your own.  Compared to the groupthink that pervades the MSM, Limbaugh’s approach is much more open-minded, one might almost say, liberal.

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Obligatory disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Bradley J. Fikes, and do not necessarily reflect the views of his employer, the North County Times.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 7:21 pm and is filed under media, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.