Wednesday, July 02, 2008

McCain just another Bush?


49% of voters polled claim to be worried that McCain is too much like Bush.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

gee whiz, I was looking for your Rush-bash article but it's gone. Maybe it's something to do with the $400 million contract he just got, while Air America fizzles like a wet firecracker regardless of how much George $oros pumps money into it's lifeless, rotting corpse.
Meanwhile, liberal comedian Al Franken is still not out of the wods for his past income tax 'jokes' ha ha he's so funny!

Conservative talk continues to reign while liberal talk dies and liberal newspapers continue laying off employees while losing subscriptions. The current king of liberal rags, the NYT is a certifiable laughing stock.
wow. I wonder what it is that people are reacting, or should I say NOT reacting to? There's only two possibilities:
People are more stupid than the media thinks they are, or they are much smarter than the media thinks they are.

I don't understand the hoopla myself.

When they pay some ball player millions, nobody bats an eye, or when some rapper tells kids it's all down to be pimpin ho's and killin cops and gets millions for that, hey, no problem! But when a conservative talkie finally gets the brass ring, look out!

Aaron said...

"public polls have shown that a strong majority of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Limbaugh, such as a Rasmussen Reports poll illustrating a 2-1 margin of unfavorable ratings, with 62% of those surveyed reporting an unfavorable opinion of Limbaugh, the highest for any public figure polled by Rasmussen".

Give him credit, it is still higher than Bush. You think all those ratings are because only Konservatives listen to Rush? Not so. I prefer to listen to Rush. I have heard that the average Rush listener is not a Konservative. I can't prove it, but I'd bet it's close. I reject most of liberal talk radio. Liberals don't like having someone tell them what to think, which is why air america doesn't work that well. Konservatives love their authoritarian father figures who are "always right" and have it all figured out without having to fool with the pesky details.

Anonymous said...

polls schmolls, Limbaugh's show America's #1 talkfest hands down w/20 million listeners at any given time. Bush's rating doesn't mean much compared to the Dem congress rating which is even lower. Gee, didn't the Dems also promise to bring the troops back while they were climbing over the Foley scandal?
I guess everyone forgot about that, which is good for Obama since he's been promising the same thing for a while now, though flip flopping on it even more recently.
I'm sure glad Obama is bringing America "change" and saving us from the same old politics.

Aaron said...

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, you could rest assured that Rush Limbaugh would denounce him as anti-American, elitist, highminded, etc... Nevermind that he wrote the decalaration of independence.

You can count me in with the 20 million Rush listeners. It is fantasy radio alot like Art Bell- just enough truth to make you wonder. You don't have to believe it to enjoy it. You don't have to believe in Christianity to enjoy Narnia books. You don't have to believe in Zeus to enjoy Greek mythology.

The cheap success of Konservative propaganda radio stems from the fact that the host does not have to tie himself to the contraints of certainty or factual correctness. If there's the slightest possibility of something being true (and even when there's not), the host talks as if it already were true. There's nobody to interrupt him, no counterpoint to undermine his statements at all, just a one-way conversation.

The mere act of making hyperbolic statements with firm conviction as if they were absolute certainties gives the audience the impression that he has good reasons to believe what he does. Examples?

"I can't *believe* these liberal crazies believe in manmade global warming, I'm going to go insane!!!, Mars is warming for crying out loud!!". Fake outrage. Fake astonishment. Fake and irrelevent points. The goal is not to inform but to distract.

How can anyone be amazed that somebody believes something which is accepted by every climate organization in the country, every republican and democratic candidate that ran for president (except Fred Thompson who pretended to be on the fence) and even the Bush administration's own scientific report?

Newsflash, he's not amazed. He's not outraged. He's faking it. He is acting. But he knows that his audience is so stupid and uninformed that they will think to themselves "gee, there must be a good reason why Rush is so outraged. Hmm, I don't know my ass from a fucking hole in the ground about global warming, but if Rush is outraged that people believe it, there must be a good reason".

That's how it works. Pick any issue, that's how it works. Rush doesn't have to be right about anything to be able to say "I'm right 99% of the time". He is like a psychic who only makes vague predictions and takes credit for being right no matter how wrong.

Ultimately his goal is to misinform, distract, exaggerate, name-call, and obscure until his listeners are no longer able to discern truth from fiction.

"But 2+2 = 4 was written in the new york times, I don't have to believe it". "But Bill Moyers said 10x2= 20, I don't care what he says he a far left lunatic". "The nightly news said that 5+4=9, why do I care what the liberal biased media says?".

"And Rush said that 1+2= 35.67, it may be a little bit biased, but it's just as reliable as anything in the liberal media".

Anonymous said...

your analyzation of conservative talk is interesting yet quite inaccurate, and much of what you say can be applied to liberal talk as well. What you say about "distraction" is also why I say the both of you are wrong about Bush. Bush is a cheap distraction; a lightining rod to draw our attention away from the men behind the Oz's curtain. You are being deceived, and the machine works a well as a dream.
Also, if you choose to ignore or disagree with facts, that does not make them any less facts.

If you assume I don't know the difference between a fact and an opinion, that makes YOU more ignorant than you assume me to be. This is mind numbing at times and I often wonder why I keep trying.

Aaron said...

Talk radio is 90% Konservative and 100% bad for the fortification of the human mind. It's like the McDonalds of nutrition. It's like the commercial where the Olympic athlete holds up the Big Mac, implying that eating McDonalds burgers and fries was his secret strategy to winning the gold. When I listen to Cspan and hear callers make points so dumb the moderator laughs and stares at the floor, I know they came straight from talk radio. I can understand how some people want it destroyed by the fairness act, though I don't think it should. The last think talk radio hosts want is cooperation between republicans and democrats. They are a destructive, polluting force in America. Their hosts are *horrible* dispicable Amerikans wh o lie and pump their chests with glee. I wish we lived in the days of duels.

Anonymous said...

//If you assume I don't know the difference between a fact and an opinion, that makes YOU more ignorant than you assume me to be//

Assume? ASSUME!?! There's no need to a-s-s-u-m-e. You have proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, that you *don't know* the difference between "fact and an opinion". Ha! Just look at all your climate change arguments! Duh. You haven't the faintest grasp of the difference between fact and opinion. And, by the way, you are welcome to cross-post that assertion.

As to Aaron's summation of Rush. He's right. I occasionally listen to and even enjoy Rush for the same reasons, but I listen to him for entertainment, not facts.

Aaron said...

Nice try Mike. But saying that someone is insane or stupid because they believe mainstream science is just plain ridiculous. You can feel free to disagree with mainstream science all you want and offer whatever reasons you think support your cause, it doesn't bother me. But it is intellectually dishonest of you to pull up myths and arguments which have already been studied and rejected by the worlds top climate scientists, and then imply that not only am *I* a fool and a dope for believing them, but the top scientists are also fools and dopes. This is absurd and sad. It is intellectually dishonest and troubling. It is a symptom of being infected with the invective of talk radio. Makes me sick listening to it because it is all bark and no bite.