Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh taunted the Republican leadership, contending that President Obama had more to fear from Rush, than from them. In an interview with Politico, Congressman Tom Price, who leads the Republican Study Committee, came back with some tough words for Rush:
It’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell.
Despite the back and forth between Republican hot shots, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell believes that one big-named Republican's absence from the national stage will help the party in 2010. McConnell said yesterday: "We wish the president, President Bush well, but, frankly, we will not have to be carrying that sort of political burden that we carried the last two elections."
Do you think shunning Rush could help the GOP make the comeback, or is he crucial to the party's success?
Manoush
Hussein Chalayan
Kit Heath
Rush is a fat racist turd and Obama has nothing to fear from an ignorant idiot like him. His views aren't held by the majority so really he has no sway, if he did McCain would be president and Palin would still be shopping. Go swallow a few pills Rush isn't that what you do best, what an ignoramus.
1Rush didn't like J-Mac.
2Nyara, it's a little ridiculous to conclude that Limbaugh has no sway simply because McCain didn't win. He's got millions of listeners every single day. Whether they all agree with him or not, he's got their ear, and that's "sway". Calling him silly names isn't going to change that.
3I think Rush's moment in the sun is ending; he and Palin aren't going to restore the Republicans to power.
4"President Obama had more to fear from Rush, than from them."
As I said in another thread on this, Rush couldn't prevent Obama getting elected, so what does he have to fear?
5michelin if you read the entire sentence you will realise i meant he has no sway with the majority, he has millions of followers but clearly not the majority of people listen to this fool, and l can call him whatever I want he's that ridiculous.
6When is Rush not picking a fight?
7anyway wasn't he the same person who said that if you don't back george bush you are unpatriotic and should leave, well then, he should take his own advice.
8Uh yeah, most republicans I know can't even stand rush, so I don't think it really matters WHICH side he's on, he's just viewed as a crackpot these days.
9exactly strangel, I liked what Colin Powell said about Rush. Summed up my feelings about him exactly.
I'm sure Obama is terrified of Rush Limbaugh...uh huh. He's that man under your bed just waiting to get ya!! Ooooo!
10I think that it would be most beneficial to the GOP to distance itself from Rush's divisive anger-and-persecution-complex tactics.
11but why do all these "conservative" hosts act like crackpots or sat outrageous things, it's such a turn off. If they were more like Christiane Amanpour and less like bozo the clown, i would actually want to hear what they had to say.
12I don't think Rush helps the GOP at all. Never has, never will.
13nya thats kind of unfair. there are plenty of liberal hosts who act like crackpots and say outrageous things.
14I think there's too much reliance on these pundit types anyway, on either side--hearing someone else interpret the news for you is never going to be as good as getting the news yourself and interpreting it yourself.
15Eh, life isn't fair. If we had a post about something crackpot a liberal commentator said then we could bash it, I know I would. This one is about Rush, the king of conservative crack pots (and I annoint Ann Coulter the queen).
16And Michelle Malkin as lady-in-waiting.
17Oooh, I like how the whole page doesn't have to reload now after posting a comment!
18thing is i'm a liberal already haus so i never listen to any of those liberal shows and all you hear about are the conservative ones cos let's face it people like rush and bill are ultra outrageous as is ann coulter. I'd like a show where i can hear the other side's argument with great facts and actual reporting.
19you only hear about conservative ones because the media is skewed to the left, so of course they're not going thrown them under the bus.
ann coulter and rush are bad, but bill is not nearly as bad or outrageous. if more poeple actually watched his show or read his books, they'd see that he's def conservative, but not crazy.
20plus i think more liberal people take people like Maddow, Olbermann, and Franken more seriously than people take Rush or Coulter.
21Well if you think it Haus, it must be so - no need for any supporting evidence. Don't bother to compare Rush's listener numbers with the liberal shows, or the amounts of money Rush is paid versus the liberal commentators, we'll just assume you're right about liberals taking their commentators more seriously than Rush's listeners take him.
22When I see some of the crazy stuff from Al Franken of course I roll my eyes. But I don't see him saying crazy shiz on Good Morning America or the View like I do Mann Coulter. Its not the 'liberal media' that is putting words in their mouth or giving them time - they actively seek it within and outside MSM to promote their books.
23Olbermann is quoted on GMA calling 9/11 widows money grabbing hags (or whatever the actual insult was).
24Rush is an a-hole hands down. And haus I don't listen to Maddow, Olbermann or Franken that much so I don't know how seriously anybody takes them but nobody should take Rush or Coulter seriously. I mean Coulter said that Jews needed to be "perfected" and Rush said black quarterbacks get special treatment from the NFL. We really don't need that kind of bigotry getting taken seriously.
25Sorry Steph, I forgot no one is allowed to have an opinion different than yours. My bad.
26The fact is that liberal commenters are backed up by sites such as the HUffPo, Kos, and Moveon.org that people actually take seriously for news. Add into that the people who think The Daily Show uses facts.
If you examine the traffic on those sites, you'll see there is no comparison or equally as trafficked right leaning site.
But hey I'm optimistic, with the Obama admin, I'm sure we'll see some of those sites pop up.
27And no offense to anyone here, but I'm sure there are some people who get their news from CitizenSugar.
As much as i have fun on here, its not an objective site.
28"When I see some of the crazy stuff from Al Franken of course I roll my eyes. But I don't see him saying crazy shiz on Good Morning America or the View like I do Mann Coulter. Its not the 'liberal media' that is putting words in their mouth or giving them time - they actively seek it within and outside MSM to promote their books."
Good point, mydiadem.
29Maybe Franken, Olbermann, or Maddow just havent written books yet or lately.
I'm sure we'll see them doing the same thing.
30I dont know why people get so mad about Coulter. she's just a nutjob. she doesn't have show (as far as I know), i think she only writes some column that ive never seen any paper...
she's just crazy and i think people only read her for entertainment, i don't know how mant people take her seriously.
31of course the answer is that if we want these people to go away, we just need to change the channel or not buy their stuff.... or not click, as it were.
32"Sorry Steph, I forgot no one is allowed to have an opinion different than yours. My bad."
I said nothing about contradicting my opinion - I did suggest that the facts do not support yours.
You're tossing commentators, news collection sites, blogs and groups into one hash and drawing conclusions. You're pretending there are not sites like Drudge, Red State, Townhall, and Michelle Malkin that support conservative commentators. Really want to compare traffic? If more conservative sites pop up, shall we have someone point them out to you?
One or two studies have shown that Daily Show viewers tend to be better informed than the average person. The Daily Show does use facts, and like a good satire show, it skewers them. If you know someone who doesn't get their jokes, that's a problem with that person: not society, not the Daily Show, not the media.
33i somehow doubt those three will be saying anything hateful, xenophobic or bigoted on national tv maybe unpatriotic lol. People take fox news seriously there are examples on both sides of people using biased news channel as their poison of choice. All I ever hear is how the media is so unfair and the media is biased towards the left etc etc if the media were actually that powerful i don't think bush would have been in power the last 8 years. The media might be biased but it might surprise some people that the general public can think for itself clearly if McCain had 48% of the vote in the face of such media bias
34I don't know--something tells me Maddow doesn't quite bring the "women shouldn't be allowed to vote" crazy quite like Coulter does. Just saying.
35SIGH..... I already sent you the study before that proved that Drudge is actually not right leaning the last time this conversation came up.
RedState and Townhall don't compete. Its difficult to find detains on the Kos because they actually lie about their own traffic, but according to Alexa, the Kos is ranked 3,631 on the internet for amount of traffic and pages clicked (that is globally, not US specific). Redstate.com in comparison is 33, 022.
And the Huffington Post beats them all at #437!
So as you can see, there really is no comparison.
36So where should people get their news Haus? Which avenues are acceptable to you?
And McCain only had 46% of the vote, not the 48% I keep seeing.
37I don't care where people get their news from. I'm not the one to judge, but lets be honest that as much as we think everyone might be super well informed and doing their due diligence, they probably arent.
The solution is probably to get your news from a variety of sources, but people are lazy and will go with whatever is easiest.
38"I don't know--something tells me Maddow doesn't quite bring the "women shouldn't be allowed to vote" crazy quite like Coulter does."
Coulter is a silly little twit. I wish her mouth could have been wired shut forever.
39My point is there are more popular left leaning sites than right leaning ones and those sites are more heavily trafficked, ergo more people probably take them as news than those who traffic the right sites.
Lets say for the sake of argument that 20% of people who read RedState take it as the honest to God truth.
Now assuming that people are of a baseline of intelligence, not any greatly smarter, let's assume that the same percentage of people who read the HuffPo take it as the honest to God truth.
By sheer number it means there are more people on the left who take it as the truth than there are on the right because there are more people who read the Kos and HuffPo than who read RedState or Townhall.
40I want to defend the Daily Show- yes Stewart has liberal leanings but he is quite open-minded and fair. Several conservatives have been a guest on his show and he has always listened to them respectfully and responded in an intelligent way. His show is based on facts with a humorous slant and equally makes fun of both parties. I don't think it is fair to lump it with liberal pundits because it is clearly a comedy news show.
41"I already sent you the study before that proved that Drudge is actually not right leaning the last time this conversation came up."
Did you actually read that study? There's a good reason why no one cites it or used it as a reason to change their work.
"A feature of our method is that it does not require us to make a subjective assessment of how liberal or conservative a think tank is...Instead, we simply observe the ADA scores of the members of Congress who cite the think tank. This feature is important, since an active controversy exists whether, e.g., the Brookings Institution or the RAND Corporation is moderate, left-wing, or right-wing."
And again, you're comparing several different things to reach your desired conclusion.
42I don't see why that study is bad. Not making a subjective conclusion on where a site lands is better than just saying this site is left, that site is right.
It seems using the ADA was the most objective way to go about it.
43I honestly don't care about the daily show but the fact is that a lot of younger people use it to get their news and i think thats BS.
plus i think jon stewart is pretty rude in general.
44"By sheer number it means there are more people on the left who take it as the truth than there are on the right because there are more people who read the Kos and HuffPo than who read RedState or Townhall."
Using your logic, by sheer numbers, the most watched tv show is the one the most people believe...
45Do you have an studies or numbers to back up your assertions on the more liberal sites with more traffic statement? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with you.
46What makes the ADA most objective? It's a sloppy study, little better than hearsay.
47If you're saying that the HUffPo and Kos are as reliable as fiction TV show, then yes, I would have to agree!
48mydia - i'm not quite sure what you mean, but i used alexa.com to get my traffic stats.
49Well Steph its the most objective and nonbiased study of the media out there. Do you have one thats better?
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