Off-Season OT-Daschle/Liberals Whine.....
David H.
Just A Foot Soldier In The Limbaugh Jihad
By Lowell Phillips
November 24, 2002
Developing into a conservative wasn't easy in the pre-talk radio world, but
somehow I managed, though the cards were stacked against me. I'm the product
of a single-parent household and the welfare system, who grew up within the
borders of perhaps the best example of urban decay in America. To this day
Detroit remains a withering illustration of the folly of liberal thinking.
Perhaps to a lesser extent today, but during my formative years that
metropolitan area and the state of Michigan as a whole were under the
direction of the leftist ministry of labor, otherwise known as the United
Auto Workers. My brother and I also were blessed, for a time, to have
babysitters of the anti-Vietnam variety who chuckled when they encouraged
us, both not yet 10-years-old, to join them as they swilled wine from those
groovy suede shoulder flasks. They were also considerate enough to tell us
to "hold it in" when they taught us to smoke pot, and to send us to our room
before having orgies in my mother's bed.
No, I'm not kidding.
Fear not, my pot smoking and wine drinking ended when we were rid of them.
And that single horrific glimpse of one of their mass romps through the
keyhole permanently dissuaded me from considering such things. But the
larger environment remained hostile to all ideas to the right of Jane Fonda.
Perhaps due to being naturally contemplative and a witness to the utter
failings of liberalism, my conservative views developed early on. One thing
I'm reasonably sure of is that I was the only student at Chadsey High School
who carried a picture of Ronald Reagan in my wallet.
This isn't to say that it was easy, heavens no! Being a news junkie required
active analysis, and the filtering of what did from what didn't make sense.
As shocking as it might be to believe, I was once a regular, though
skeptical listener of National Public Radio. Often to the dismay of my
friends, my professors and anyone else unfortunate enough to be around me, I
evolved into an eager and confrontational debater who reveled in election
seasons and at how easy it was to trump liberal arguments.
At one point a friend and regular witness to my tirades said to me "You've
got to listen to this guy on the radio, he sounds just like you!" When I
asked whom he was referring to, he blurted out "Rush Limbaugh". I replied
snidely, "Oh, that guy". To that point I had never listened to his, or any
other talk radio show. I was familiar with the name, however, and drawing on
what I'd heard added, "that guy is a racist". Considering myself to be an
intellectual conservative, I didn't want my views sullied by exposure to
him.
But as the 1992 election campaign dragged on my revulsion at the media's
love affair with the Clintons escalated and on a whim I tuned into Limbaugh
and agreed immediately that he did indeed sound just like me. Pardon my ego,
but it's easy to be an amateur Limbaugh when you're only preaching to an
audience of two or three. 20 million requires just a wee bit more. Hearing
both the host and the callers, I felt relieved to know that I was not a
philosophical accident, not a lone conservative in a neo-socialist's world
and not the only one vilified for having the temerity to defy liberalism.
Over the years I've become fond of a few conservative talkers, though it's
undeniable that Limbaugh was the pioneer and remains the standard bearer.
But like others, I've had to endure ridicule for listening, in addition to
that for my sin of being a conservative. I'm portrayed not solely as
ignorant, but as a verifiable hater who burns crosses in my free time and
lurks outside gay bars chewing tobacco, with baseball bat in hand.
Because I'm a fan, I have been blamed for the spread of AIDS, the Oklahoma
City bombing, the beating death of Matthew Shepard, the dragging death of
James Byrd Jr., starvation, war, pestilence and now threats to esteemed
public servants. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle exposed my
latest offense,
"What happens when Rush Limbaugh attacks those of us in public life is that
people aren't satisfied just to listen. They want to act because they get
emotionally invested. And so, you know, the threats to those of us in public
life go up dramatically, and on our families and on us, in a way that's very
disconcerting." It might indeed be "disconcerting" if it were true, which I
don't believe for a moment. Excuse my tendency to doubt Mr. Daschle, but his
pattern of hyperbole in vilifying his opponents since securing Senate
leadership in a backroom deal leaves me no choice. He's taken every
opportunity to politicize the war on terrorism and obstruct essential
legislation all while feigning outrage and casting the blame on Republicans.
He appeared flustered and indignant on the floor of the Senate, derided the
President and accused him of saying that Democrats were "not interested in
the security of the American people". Not only was it a poor acting job, it
was easily refuted by a glance at the text of Bush's speech. 6 months after
the 9/11 attacks he all but charged the Bush administration with
establishing a dictatorship based on their reasonable preparations for the
survival of the government in the event of a cataclysmic attack. He was
later proven to be lying as to his knowledge of it all.
Daschle went on to explain that the growth of terrorist type violence is
likely the result of an Islamic version of Rush Limbaugh,
"We see it in foreign countries and we say, 'my G-d', how can this religious
fundamentalism become so violent?...Well, it's the same shrill
rhetoric...and pretty soon it's a foment that becomes physical in addition
to just verbal." What he failed to do, as is typical with such accusations,
was to provide a single example of a talk show host or other conservative
personality suggesting or condoning violence or engaging in speech that is
beyond simple disagreements. When pressed during a CNN interview he refused.
By contrast visceral hate-laden rhetoric from the liberal, otherwise known
as the mainstream media, abounds.
Years after leaving the House of Representatives, former speaker Newt
Gingrich remains one the most despised men in politics. As an experiment for
the readers at home, ask around amongst your acquaintances for someone who
dislikes Gingrich. This shouldn't take long. Once you find one, simply ask
"why?" You will either receive a nonsensical answer or, more likely, no
answer at all. This is a testament to the relentless vilification of the man
that has no connection whatsoever to the truth.
National Public Radio reporter Sunni Khalid, once commented in an C-SPAN
Journalists Roundtable,
"I think there's a big difference when people told Father Aristide to sort
of moderate his views, they were concerned about people being dragged
through the streets, killed and necklaced. I don't think that is what Newt
Gingrich has in mind. I think he's looking at a more scientific, a more
civil way of lynching people." On the November 2, 1994 edition of the CBS
Evening News, reporter Eric Engberg claimed,
"[H]e waged such constant guerrilla war against the Democrats he was
attacked for McCarthyism.... Gingrich himself, bombastic and ruthless, would
be the most dramatic change imaginable, a change the [Clinton]
administration can only dread." On the CBS Sunday Morning broadcast of
January 8, 1995, TV critic John Leonard described the Gingrich-led Congress
as "a slash-and-burn Khmer Rouge." Days earlier, Today Show host Bryant
Gumbel asked House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, "Do you think
middle-class Americans are in need of protection from that group?"
This is only a tiny sample from media personalities that claim impartiality,
unlike hosts like Limbaugh who at least admit to their philosophical
leanings. It's far more believable that Mr. Gingrich was the target of
threats due to this incessant denigration than Daschle was as a result of
substantive disagreements on talk radio.
In virtual unison the Hollywood left has condemned the Bush administration
in the most spiteful terms possible, maintaining their longstanding
tradition of casting conservatives as "bigots" and "religious zealots".
Woody Harrelson, captured the Hollywood interpretation of Bush's leadership
in the war on terrorism,
"This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White
House have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on
any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist." This is
indistinguishable from the views of Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon,
Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin or any other notable Tinsel
Town personality. It's also scarcely different from the perspectives
promoted on the editorial pages of the New York Times, LA Times and the
Washington Post.
After the Republican victories in the recent midterm elections, the host of
PBS's "Now, With Bill Moyer" warned that the Bush White House would use "the
power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own
lives", would use federal taxing power to "transfer wealth from working
people to the rich", would give corporations "a free hand to eviscerate the
environment" and would take away our freedoms using "secrecy on a scale you
cannot imagine".
Being guilty of the maliciousness that Rush Limbaugh lacks, Liberal talk
show host and former CNN writer, Mike Malloy's website declares in blood-red
print the need to "fight the murderous lies and sickening incompetence of
the Bush crime family!" It goes on in detail to explain how there is no
distinguishing between the Bush administration and Islamic terrorist.
Limbaugh's site contains nothing even remotely similar.
With such inflammatory rhetoric, opponents of the Bush Administration might
not only threaten him, but also consider violent action a moral imperative
to spare us all from his maniacal intentions.
When we look within our country for extremist politics, we see not Limbaugh
listeners - but radical environmentalists, animal rights activists, anti-war
and anti-globalization fanatics smashing windows and clashing with police.
All are factions of Tom Daschle's Democrat Party. When we look overseas we
see the supporters and appeasers of despots that Democrats make common cause
with. And when we turn to our own "objective" media we receive venom-filled
rhetoric vastly out-of-sync with mainstream American values. As painful as
it may be for Mr. Daschle to admit, he and his allies created Rush Limbaugh
and thereby talk radio. He and his allies, through their incestuous
relationship with the press made someone like him inevitable. But that's
supply and demand, and they don't get that either.