Out on a Limb(augh)

Rush Limbaugh says a lot of things that irritate some people. But I have to wonder how much is truly wrong and how much is people taking things out of context and hearing what they want to hear so as to confirm their belief that Mr. Limbaugh is as bad as others say.

I remember the time in college when my roommate heard that Rush would be on the Phil Donahue show (still the original incarnation) and figured Rush would be ripped apart. After all, everyone just knew Limbaugh was an idiot. Wrong. Every time Phil brought up some outrageous claim, Rush had a clip to play that put things in context and defused and debunked it. Rush came across as opinionated, to be sure, but not the idiot he was said to be. Instead, Donahue and his audience seemed like they hadn't bothered to do even minimal research. I could only wonder that Limbaugh had been permitted to have those clips. They were devastating. It was surprising at how wrong the people around me, who expected the opposite result of what happened, were. It's not they were stupid. In general, they were damn smart. But they'd bought into a belief without checking out if it was truly correct. "Everybody knows" - no, sometimes "everybody" doesn't know.

Rush had a TV show back then, and I started taping it and watching it the next day. There were many parts I'd fast forward over (mainly where he went on about religion or smoking), but there were some very interesting things as well. One was a set of budget projections that showed that there'd be a huge deficit today - even if all the policies that had supposedly balanced the budget were to remain unchanged. Another was an extended clip of something from CSPAN, which had a long lead-in. Rush said he knew it was long and started out dull, but he wanted to show all of it in context. The next day I saw the featured congressman on the news saying he'd been taken out context. It really showed what a liar the congressman was.

Rush is no godlike source of wisdom, and he's certainly far from perfect, but neither is he the demonic idiot that some try to cast him as. Evidently he recently mentioned Further Confusion and said something about how there's a war on and the tsunami ravaged parts of world need rebuilding so how dare anyone have a party? This has been going around LJ a bit, with the usual predictable outrage and foolish name-calling over something removed from context.

I still listen to bits of Rush's radio show at times (I also listen to NPR - so you can put that overly broad paintbrush away, Bub). You know what he's been railing against recently? Not furries. He's been sending up the claim by some that since there's a war on and the tsunami ravaged parts of world need rebuilding, so how dare anyone have private inaugural parties - they should do something else with their money. Now, put the comment about FC in context and what happens? He's not really saying furries should not have conventions in such times as these, he's pointing out that people go on with their lives - and thereby pointing out the idiocy of those claiming the inaugural parties are somehow evil.

I doubt I've convinced anyone of anything, but I feel better for having said what I have said.

YAQ: Extreme sport

( Extreme(ly foolish) )