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Why progressive radio is losing; or, raise foot, take aim, fire


An interesting pair of events spotlight the difference between rightwing talk radio and leftwing talk radio this week, and suggest why one is smashingly successful and the other is still amateur hour, 3-1/2 years after the founding of Air America:

• Randi Rhodes, Air America host, found herself face down in a gutter in front of an Irish bar in New York City, bruised and disoriented. Normally, this is not the kind of mystery that would take a whole hour of Law and Order to solve. Indeed, few of us got through college without something similar happening; we try not to keep doing it in middle age, however.

But goofs at Air America promptly made it into a great conspiracy. Rhodes apparently reported the stumble as a mugging at first; and one of her colleagues, one Jon Elliott, apparently having never heard the ancient proverb "When foot is in crosshairs, stop pulling trigger," raced to the air to declare Rhodes' fall further evidence that we live in Amerikkka in 1933:

Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own? Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we're winning? Are they trying to silence and intimidate us?

Soon all the usual spots-- the Air America forums, Kos, Democratic Underground, etc.-- were buzzing with conspiracy theories:

IF this was a political hit from Blackwater or whoever, there is going to be the wrath of G-d on the perpetrators.

Adolph Hitler's right wing thugs regularly 'mugged' opponents and members of unpopular groups even before he came to power....Given Randi Rhodes courageous outspokenness about the sinister intentions of the right wing, it is not unreasonable to suspect that this non-robbery assault is an attempt by Neo-conservative thugs to silence her views.

What frequency is that, Kenneth? Alas for those whose sense of personal drama is fed by imagining that they live in the darkest and thus coolest of times, a day or two later Rhodes sheepishly admitted that, uh, she'd just tumbled down by herself in front of an Irish bar for unknown reasons. Rightwing bloggers have had fun ever since mocking the overwrought reaction to her accident. Are they trying to silence you, Jon Elliott? No, because you provide too much juicy material.

• Congress tackled a really important issue the other day: it wrote a private company suggesting that it needed to shut up one of its employees. The employee was one Rush Limbaugh, a popular talkradio host of the right, and the reason Democrats in Congress swerved across eight lanes of the First Amendment to try to silence him was to try to create an equivalent in public outrage to the "General Betray Us" ad placed in the New York Times (at illegal bargain rates) by MoveOn.org.

The premise was that Limbaugh had slandered our soldiers!!!! What had he done, quoted Dick Durbin or John Kerry verbatim? No, he'd referred specifically to one Jesse Macbeth, currently being prosecuted for posing as an Iraq veteran, as a "phony soldier"-- which in fact he was, in the sense that he claimed to have committed atrocities in Iraq when in fact he was discharged before completing basic training. But Media Matters, a nonpartisan watchdog group which watches the rightwing media for Hillary Clinton all day long, sliced and diced Limbaugh's actual quote to try to make it look like he'd been indiscriminate in using the term.

This would have been a pretty easy thing for Limbaugh to refute under the circumstances, but showmanship isn't being on the defensive, it's taking it to another level-- and Limbaugh, realizing that he had in his possession a letter containing the signatures of three possible next presidents of the United States, among many other luminaries, in the act of trying to shut up a private citizen, decided to auction it off as a fundraiser for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Fund, a scholarship fund for children of soldiers and police officers killed in the line of duty. The auction, which ends later today, is now at over $2 million for the letter, an amount Limbaugh pledges to match.

I realize there are many whose gorges rise at the mere mention of Limbaugh, and I am no fan of the entire genre of talkradio ranting, but if one can overcome one's partisan feelings and merely admire how the game is played, this is brilliant showmanship on every level-- down to the Hallburton briefcase the letter is kept in. It embarasses his opponents, it makes them a party to reinforcing his claim that he is a stalwart supporter of the troops, and it just demonstrates such brio, such swashbuckling panache, in how one responds to one's enemies. Progressive radio will never emerge from the dank basement of conspiracy mutterings and appeal to a broad audience until it too can project this kind of sunny gusto for the fight, the kind that projects inner confidence and the joy of the thing well done. The first step in avoiding falling on your face is to raise your sights.


19 Comments

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Does Media Matters know it works for Senator Clinton? Want to confirm the illegality of the rate NYT charged MoveOn? Want to comment on the contrast of Dems going after Rush and the GOP killing both the FISA bill and SCHIP?

In other words, do you have anything useful to offer, here? I'm surprised you haven't complained about Rep. Pete Stark's comments. 

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Okay, I'll play Whack-A-Mole for a moment.

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbzC6-N9mwM

At about 2:20, Hillary says she helped found Media Matters. I'd say they know who they're working for.

2) The New York Times confirmed that it was a "mistake" (and thus a violation of campaign finance laws as an in-kind donation). Here's a paper of record:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300752.html

3) Not sure what I'm supposed to contrast about two totally different things, but the Republicans in Congress opposing things they're opposed to seems like how Congress is supposed to work; trying to silence a private citizen and radio network is, to put it mildly, not how it's supposed to work.

Any other softballs you want to throw from inside the groupthink bubble?

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Point to you on the MoveOn ad.

No points awarded for Hillary claiming founderhood in the YouTube bit--it's not only a casual reference to multiple organizing actions, it's not exactly a statement by the organization in question. I asked if Media Matters agreed.

Re Congress I was trying to suggest taking about substantive policy instead of sniping. Rush is a disgusting gasbag, but I suppose he doesn't deserve Congressional censure.

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So you don't just take it at face value that Rush Limbaugh lies about everything?

 

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You do realize that says far more about you than about the subject of the sentence-- regardless of the subject?

In any case, if you actually see a lie in any of this, feel free to point it out.

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You're saying, then, he's a reliable messenger? A reliable, trustworthy voice in the media?


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Folks can judge for themselves easily enough. Complete quote:

CALLER: No, it's not. And what's really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.

RUSH: They joined to be in Iraq.

CALLER: A lot of people.

RUSH: You know where you're going these days, the last four years, if you sign up. The odds are you're going there or Afghanistan, or somewhere.

CALLER: Exactly, sir. My other comment, my original comment, was a retort to Jill about the fact we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction. Actually, we have found weapons of mass destruction in chemical agents that terrorists have been using against us for a while now. I've done two tours in Iraq, I just got back in June, and there are many instances of insurgents not knowing what they're using in their IEDs. They're using mustard artillery rounds, VX artillery rounds in their IEDs. Because they didn't know what they were using, they didn't do it right, and so it didn't really hurt anybody. But those munitions are over there. It's a huge desert. If they bury it somewhere, we're never going to find it.

RUSH: Well, that's a moot point for me right now.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: The weapons of mass destruction. We gotta get beyond that. We're there. We all know they were there, and Mahmoud even admitted it in one of his speeches here talking about Saddam using the poison mustard gas or whatever it is on his own people. But that's moot. What's more important is all this is taking place now in the midst of the surge working, and all of these anti-war Democrats are getting even more hell-bent on pulling out of there, which means that success on the part of you and your colleagues over there is a great threat to them. It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much.

Here is a Morning Update that we did recently, talking about fake soldiers. This is a story of who the left props up as heroes. They have their celebrities and one of them was Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth. Now, he was a "corporal." I say in quotes. Twenty-three years old. What made Jesse Macbeth a hero to the anti-war crowd wasn't his Purple Heart; it wasn't his being affiliated with post-traumatic stress disorder from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. No. What made Jesse Macbeth, Army Ranger, a hero to the left was his courage, in their view, off the battlefield, without regard to consequences. He told the world the abuses he had witnessed in Iraq, American soldiers killing unarmed civilians, hundreds of men, women, even children. In one gruesome account, translated into Arabic and spread widely across the Internet, Army Ranger Jesse Macbeth describes the horrors this way: "We would burn their bodies. We would hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque."

Now, recently, Jesse Macbeth, poster boy for the anti-war left, had his day in court. And you know what? He was sentenced to five months in jail and three years probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and his Army discharge record. He was in the Army. Jesse Macbeth was in the Army, folks, briefly. Forty-four days before he washed out of boot camp. Jesse Macbeth isn't an Army Ranger, never was. He isn't a corporal, never was. He never won the Purple Heart, and he was never in combat to witness the horrors he claimed to have seen.

You could argue about it based on the first reference, but the clarification makes it obvious that he meant, well, literal phony soldiers like Jesse Macbeth, not real soldiers he was calling phonies.

Here's what Media Matters kicked off the whole thing with, which I find cut so severely as to be completely incoherent, but the opening sentence is plain enough-- and simply untrue:

During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." He made the comment while discussing with a caller a conversation he had with a previous caller, "Mike from Chicago," who said he "used to be military," and "believe[s] that we should pull out of Iraq." Limbaugh told the second caller, whom he identified as "Mike, this one from Olympia, Washington," that "[t]here's a lot" that people who favor U.S. withdrawal "don't understand" and that when asked why the United States should pull out, their only answer is, " 'Well, we just gotta bring the troops home.' ... 'Save the -- keeps the troops safe' or whatever," adding, "[I]t's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people." "Mike" from Olympia replied, "No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media." Limbaugh interjected, "The phony soldiers." The caller, who had earlier said, "I am a serving American military, in the Army," agreed, replying, "The phony soldiers."

You are correct on one point-- Moore alone seems to have the sense of showmanship missing elsewhere on the Left, as well as the gift for comedy that makes a message palatable. At least he proves it can be done.

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I'm not convinced. There's a pretty extensive discussion between the "phony soldiers" reference and talking about Macbeth. The immediate context of Limbaugh's answer is in response to antiwar soldiers, not fraudulent claimants.

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I'm saying your comment was content-free.

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While that could be said about Rush and most "interactive journalists", I suggest that the host need not take positions. A nondirective psychotherapist can say fairly neutral things and get the client to express anger, although an occasional provocative comment, in a medical setting, is needed to break suppressed feelings loose.


Much of electronic journalism, interview or Ann Coulter, thrives on anger. Anger sells.

--

Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

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I've asked you a question, and somehow that's content free?

I can only assume you're avoiding the answer.

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Your first comment is of no value that I can see.

Your second misses the point-- he's a commentator, with a known rightwing political bias. (And unlike Fox News, which calls itself "Fair and balanced" just to give people like you fits, he has never denied it to my knowledge.) Did that answer your question? Was there any doubt about that, really?

My question is, what did any of this add to the discussion?

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Your first comment is of no value that I can see.

You do realize that says far more about you than about the subject of the sentence-- regardless of the subject?

Talking about "added value," really, I see no point to your posts. Nor do I see any point in discussing them with you. Every time, I try and give it a shot. But all you do is deflect any comments that you don't like or want to answer.

Whatever you don't want to talk about is "not adding anything to the conversation."

I think the fact that you're defending Rush Limbaugh, and not at all being skeptical or critical of his claims makes you, basically, either a fool, or a follower.

That's what I'm trying to determine -- I don't really care about the claims in your post that much. I don't care whether Media Matters "chopped up" and edited Limbaugh's comments.

For the record, though, they did not. All it took was a simple search to find the page where you quoted them. Anyone who goes to that page can see what you did -- you took the "cut up" intro part, and tried to pass that off as Media Matters' parsing of the conversation.

What you don't mention is that right below it, Media Matters prints in full, the transcript. Unedited.

No wonder you don't provide a link.

Which makes you, maybe not a liar, but certainly someone who isn't coming into the Cafe to have an honest argument.

But, oh...poor Max. You'll start crying about how us liberals never take anyone who doesn't think like them seriously.

Well, this post is exactly why.

You're defending Limbaugh, taking his post-comment justification and passing it off as what he meant in the first place. But any reasonable person reading the entire transcript can see, he's talking about soldiers who are against the war. Not one particular fake soldier in one particular case -- that's justification after the fact. And then you're trying to pass off Media Matters as someone smearing Limbaugh, doing things like "chopping up" the transcript.

What's the added value of any of us who try and have a conversation or a debate with you? After this post, I see no reason.

Over and out.

You have a nice day. 


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Every time, I try and give it a shot. But all you do is deflect any comments that you don't like or want to answer.

Utter bullshit, as anyone examining the record of my posts can easily see. I have often carried on lengthy, substantive conversations on wide-ranging tangents with half a dozen people at once, refuting false assertions with actual facts and links to citations. Look at this one for instance:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/mgmax/2007/aug/31/at_least_hitler_meant_well

Nearly half the comments are by me, in an incredibly wide-ranging discussion. If you can't take the heat, stay outta the kitchen!

I think the fact that you're defending Rush Limbaugh, and not at all being skeptical or critical of his claims makes you, basically, either a fool, or a follower.

Another ad hominem comment which completely evades my main point: style and brio add far more to arguments than whining and bitterness, yet one side still fails to learn that.

What you don't mention is that right below it, Media Matters prints in full, the transcript. Unedited.

As if framing the debate in a distorted way has no effect. But in any case, your claim that the page shows the complete transcript is simply false, as anyone can see by comparing the Media Matters transcript with the portion I excerpted.

You'll notice that Media Matters includes lots of extraneous material before the "phony soldiers" comment, but cuts off shortly after that comment in order not to have to show the context of the comment, about Jesse Macbeth. Media Matters edited out the full context to distort what was said; you claim it's complete either mistakenly or as a deliberate falsehood. To quote your own words, "Which makes you, maybe not a liar, but certainly someone who isn't coming into the Cafe to have an honest argument."

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It was Limbaugh who sliced and diced the transcript. Your general point is correct, however. Left wing talk radio needs a Michael Moore.

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posted in wrong place

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You usually assume a disinterested, knowing tone, like political commentators discussing the horse-race aspects of a campaign. But a scan of your blog posts suggests you only have complaints about liberals. Nothing wrong with posting from a conservative viewpoint, but I no longer buy the "Kennedy liberal" label.

Starting with the oldest, you sound fairly pleased that impeachment hopes are fading. Then you defend Bush's personality against his demonizers. Then you ask if perhaps we should not complain at all about our screwup prez. Then you invite a shitstorm by titling a blog post "Karl Rove---Great American". (Nobody bit.) Next we have complaints about Peter Mehlman's wording on Huffington Post. Then Bruce Fein is of course a liberal, since he is asking for impeachment. That he calls himself conservative matters not. Then a speculation about Roberts suggesting Miers to deflect a Gonzales choice. We'll call that one neutral.

Then follow several predictions of the demise of various liberal aspirations, along with more complaints about language used by liberals.

Think you could find something to complain about among Republican politicians or talkers? Anything possibly wrong with our foreign policy? Perhaps you have an issue with corruption in the GOP? Or maybe the way the war has been prosecuted? Or maybe about why the hell we're in Iraq? Or why FISA was way too much power for a Democratic president, but terribly restricting to Republican one? Or why our president's "Energy Plan" consisted of a map of Iraq's oil field's?

Does it bother you that the GOP was using voter caging lists, in violation of a consent decree? Do you give a damn about the sabotaging of legislation that mandates EPA actions like New Source Review? Or that the administration continually, and still, appoints industry cronies to regulate said industry? Or that the new head of Family Planning opposes birth control?

We do know you as no friend of liberals, but maintaining a pretense of not being a water-carrier for conservatives is dishonest.

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But a scan of your blog posts suggests you only have complaints about liberals. Nothing wrong with posting from a conservative viewpoint, but I no longer buy the "Kennedy liberal" label.

What would be fun about posting something everyone could agree with?

Is puncturing the stifling air of groupthink trolling? Or is it giving you a chance to sharpen your wits?

I'm disappointed that you reject this gift I offer. I can tell by the number of comments that it's one of the few times this place comes to life, and doesn't just serve as a "liberal" "Democratic" repository for 1983 Merman's neanderthal anti-semitism, so why are you knocking it?

* * *

That said, I'll tuck my cloven hoofs back in my pockets and address your points:

1) I am pleased impeachment hopes are fading, as I stated fairly clearly I think, because I think this constant recourse to impeachment is a bad thing (and I was against the Clinton one too, even though I knew he was largely guilty, but the whole Starr setup stank).

2) Yes, my argument was, Bush's real flaws are apparent enough, must we go into the fever swamps and imagine him as worse than Hitler? (Another argument I used to make about Clinton as well.) And I think the point about how our partisanly poisonous atmosphere makes it impossible to do things about things you might want to do something about, like Darfur, is a serious one, not that the likes of Valdron could answer it with anything more than obscenities.

3) The actual post about Rove is perfectly solid and far from trolling, however, if you read it and not just the enticing headline (which is actually mocking the idea that Rove is a hugely consequential figure, pro or con).

4) The point about Bruce Fein was that they were selling him as a conservative when that's plainly not true in the conventional sense. So I referred to him just as blithely as a liberal. Neither, of course, being strictly accurate, and each demonstrating the problem with the other.

I have plenty of other complaints about our free-spending president, our excessively timid secretary of state, etc., but they're not identical to your complaints-- and since you have them, I suggest you make them-- and I'll write what interests me.

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Should be of interest to you on this topic:

Clinton Finds Way to Play Along With Drudge

By JIM RUTENBERG, New York Times, October 22, 2007

....The early advantage on their side, in the view of several Republicans, seems to have gone to Mitt Romney, who hired the former Bush political aide who had been the central party’s prime point of contact with Mr. Drudge, Matthew Rhoades....Mrs. Clinton’s communications team, led by Howard Wolfson, is not leaving Mr. Drudge to the Republicans. Five current and former Democratic officials said Mrs. Clinton has on her side the closest thing her party has ever had to Mr. Rhoades in Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee official, who has established a friendly working relationship with Mr. Drudge — and through whom Mrs. Clinton’s campaign often worked quietly to open a line of communication....

Though liberals say the site’s ideological imbalance remains plain, Republicans, who viewed the site as theirs in campaigns past say they are noticing what they believe to be more Democratic driven — often Clinton driven — items on it. And, as New York magazine reported recently, Mr. Drudge sometimes mentioned Mrs. Clinton favorably on his syndicated radio program, even if no one really knows whether his comments reflected admiration or simply a recognition that keeping her in the news is good for his business....

....a strategist close to the Clinton campaign said, her aides had decided to use the site more aggressively and capitalize on the line to him established by Ms. Sefl — now a vice president at the Glover Park Group, the former firm of Mr. Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, and an informal adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe. Ms. Sefl had no comment.

At the same time, Democrats said they noticed an occasional Clinton-friendly tone from Mr. Drudge, whom New York magazine quoted as saying on his program: “I need Hillary Clinton. You don’t get it. I need to be part of her world. That’s my bank.”

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