Fox Nation Pushes ‘Satire’ Site’s Article About Ridge Attacking Limbaugh As Fact-Based Truth
Fox Nation Pushes ‘Satire’ Site’s Article About Ridge Attacking Limbaugh As Fact-Based Truth
Last Thursday, while appearing on C-Span’s Washington Journal, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R) was asked about former Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement that “Rush Limbaugh is Republican and Colin Powell is not.” “Colin Powell was a Republican as far as I’m concerned,” said Ridge, adding that “it’s that mindset” displayed by Cheney that is hurting the GOP’s “unity.” Watch it:
On his radio show, Limbaugh responded to Ridge, saying, “I must have missed something, because I remember that Colin Powell endorsed the Democrat, Barack Obama, at a strategic point in the campaign in 2008.” The blog, Elective Decisions, which features “the satire of Chris Davis,” then wrote up a post saying that Ridge responded to Rush by challenging him to a fight:
So this morning, Ridge went back on Washington Journal, responding to Limbaugh’s rhetoric. “I’m so sick of Rush Limbaugh. He’s the reason we lose elections. He needs to get the hell out of the Republican Party. As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t a Republican anymore. The man’s running. The man’s hiding. He’s too scared to face me!”
Ridge continued his rant, threatening Limbaugh. “Meanwhile, he sits there in his ‘Southern Command Post,’ and destroys the Republican Party! I’d like to just have three rounds in a boxing ring with that guy so I could shut him up! I’m caling (sic) you out, Limbaugh. Let’s see if you have a big enough set of marbles to back up your crap!”
Though the “Elective Decisions” blog is clearly marked as “satire,” the Fox Nation linked to the post and promoted it as if it were based on reported facts:
This isn’t the first time Fox News has promoted a parody as truth. In 2007, the network aired at least eight segments on a purported “news” story that was actually a parody article.
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Limbaugh: Obama is ‘behaving like an African colonial despot.’
Limbaugh: Obama is ‘behaving like an African colonial despot.’
On his radio show today, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh quoted at length from a new article in the American Thinker entitled, “Obama, the African Colonial” by L.E. Ikenga who identifies herself as a “first generation born West African-American woman.” In the article Ikenga argues that Obama is best understood through his “identification with his father” and his adoption of a “political mindset rooted in post colonial Africa”:
Like many educated intellectuals in post colonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign “isms”, instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas.
Ikenga concludes, “[U]nderstand this: the African colonial who is given too much political power can only become one thing: a despot.” Limbaugh took Ikenga’s argument and ran with it, declaring that Ikenga “nailed who the guy is.” “We’ve elected somebody who’s more African in his roots than he is American…and is behaving like an African colonial despot,” Limbaugh said. Listen here:
Angered By His Holocaust Museum Shooting Coverage, The Far Right Goes After Shepard Smith
Angered By His Holocaust Museum Shooting Coverage, The Far Right Goes After Shepard Smith
On Wednesday, Fox News’ Shepard Smith responded to the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum by a white supremacist by saying that it was time to re-think the Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism that conservatives disparaged. “The right went absolutely bonkers!” said Smith, adding that the report was a “warning to us all” and that DHS was “warning us for a reason.”
Later in the day, Smith said that the e-mail he’s been receiving from viewers has become “more and more frightening.” “It’s been happening over the last few months,” said Smith. “There are people now who are way out there on a limb.” Watch it:
As Media Matters noted yesterday, the right-wing has now turned its fire on Smith. On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh mocked Smith’s “whining and moaning and complaining about e-mails”:
LIMBAUGH: As for Shepard Smith whining and moaning and complaining about e-mails, nobody needs to tell me about hateful e-mails, for crying out loud. I get the most vile, sick e-mails attacking me as a “Jew lover” that you can imagine. I don’t read ‘em. I hear about them. They’re in a public account, of course, as you know — and I’m a conservative. Who do you think these hate e-mails from coming from? Where are they coming from? Yeah, I get people, “You Jew lover, you Jew lover!” because I am faithful to Israel and a number of other things.
So, Shep, you got nothing on anybody out there. The vile hate that was 24/7 in most of the American media for the eight years of Bush — and particularly from 2003 on after the Iraq war — nobody, nobody at this point in time has ever done, in our society, anything comparable to the kind of hate that we got from mainstream sources.
Allahpundit of Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air wrote that if Smith truly believes his viewers are “would-be presidential assassins,” then “why doesn’t he quit?” Further out on the fringe, conservative blogger Pamela Geller, who writes at Atlas Shrugs, titled a post, “Please Shepard Smith Out the Door!” She followed it up with a post saying, “Shepard Smith has got to go.” Geller’s call for Smith to be fired is beginning to get traction with some conservatives online.
Sanford: Cheney’s prominence ‘probably isn’t’ good for the GOP.
Sanford: Cheney’s prominence ‘probably isn’t’ good for the GOP.
Today, ABC News’ Jake Tapper interviewed Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) for an ABC News podcast. Sanford conceded that it is not good for the Republican Party to have Vice President Cheney at the forefront, and repeatedly suggested that old leaders need to make a “conscious deferral” and step aside:
TAPPER: What’s your view on the prominent that Vice President Cheney has created for himself?
SANFORD: I’d say the beauty of America is, you know, it’s everybody’s prerogative. So if that’s his thing, you know, go for it.
TAPPER: But is it good for your party?
SANFORD: Probably isn’t. … You know, while somebody may have been at the top at one point, to really keep an invigorated political system, you’ve got to have new voices stepping in and stepping to the plate and giving their opinions. And any time you have some of the senior leaders continuing to lay out their case for what they believe, it probably usurps the voice of new leaders coming in.
When Tapper asked Sanford how he felt about Rush Limbaugh, Sanford suggested that Limbaugh was one of the leaders “who have had more than their share of time at a front-row seat.” “If you’ve got a disproportionate microphone, you might want to share it,” Sanford said. Listen to it:
Cal Thomas compares Sotomayor to ‘white supremacy’ advocate G. Harrold Carswell.
Cal Thomas compares Sotomayor to ‘white supremacy’ advocate G. Harrold Carswell.
On Fox News Sunday this weekend, conservative columnist Cal Thomas declared that “as usual,” Rush Limbaugh is “absolutely right” when he calls Judge Sonia Sotomayor a “racist.” Thomas complained that the media has a “double standard” when it comes to covering Supreme Court nominees accused of racism, citing two judges nominated by Richard Nixon — Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell:
THOMAS: It is double standard, as usual. Rush is absolutely right, as usual. I went back and looked at some of the Republican nominees. Richard Nixon nominated two justices to the Supreme Court, named Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. Many Democrats denounced both of them as racist, one because he belonged to an all-white country club. that was enough for him. It depends on whose ox is being gored. A racist is a racist. If you think you are superior because of your race or gender, if that isn’t racist, what is?
Watch it:
It’s telling that Thomas mentioned the reasons that only one of Nixon’s nominees was considered racist. As Media Matters’ Jamison Foser noted last week when Pat Buchanan laughed about his support for Carswell, the judge’s nomination ran into trouble when “a blatantly racist” speech he delivered was revealed. “I believe that segregation of the races is proper … and the only practical and correct way of life in our states. I yield to no man in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy and I shall always be so governed,” said Carswell at an American Legion gathering.
Limbaugh jokes: ‘Would a white male judge have fractured his ankle’ in the same way Sotomayor did?
Limbaugh jokes: ‘Would a white male judge have fractured his ankle’ in the same way Sotomayor did?
Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor broke her right ankle today after stumbling at La Guardia airport in New York. According to a spokesperson, she was treated at George Washington University Hospital and released to attend “her full schedule of meetings on Capitol Hill this afternoon.” Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh couldn’t resist making a joke in response to the news of her injury. Noting the incident on his radio show today, Limbaugh wondered aloud whether a “white male” would have broken his ankle under similar circumstances:
LIMBAUGH: She fractured her ankle in an airport. She stumbled in the airport on her way to senate meetings. Now, the question is, would a white male judge have fractured his ankle in the same circumstances in the same airport on the way to Senate meetings?
Watch it:
Rush’s “joke” was an apparent reference to a comment Sotomayor made in a speech on diversity in 2001.
Rick Perry presents an award to ‘brother’ Limbaugh and proclaims: ‘God bless Rush Limbaugh.’
Rick Perry presents an award to ‘brother’ Limbaugh and proclaims: ‘God bless Rush Limbaugh.’
Last Thursday, Rush Limbaugh came to Texas for a “pep rally” in support for Governor Rick Perry and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX). Both Republicans have championed Limbaugh’s call to make President Obama fail: McCaul has called on the tea party protesters to shed the blood of the tyrannical Obama administration and Perry has repeatedly said that Texas might have to secede from the nation. Limbaugh accepted Perry’s offer of an Honorary Texan award with an awkward fist bump/hand shake:
PERRY: And you said something on your radio station that you thought you ought to pack up and move to Texas. [cheers] When when you get here brother, you an honorary Texan. God bless Rush Limbaugh.
Watch it:
As Perry held Limbaugh tightly to present him with the award, McCaul stood behind the two cheering and clapping the entire time. (HT: Burnt Orange Report, Huffington Post)
Limbaugh: ‘I do want and I still want Obama to fail.’
Limbaugh: ‘I do want and I still want Obama to fail.’
On Hannity’s America tonight, host Sean Hannity interviewed conservative talker Rush Limbaugh. In one of his first questions, Hannity attempted to portray the media as being unfair to Limbaugh by characterizing him as wanting President Obama to fail as president. Limbaugh, however, quickly corrected Hannity, insisting that he does indeed want Obama to fail:
HANNITY: Last time I’m here, I ask you…do you want [Obama] to succeed. You gave a very long answer that got reduced to Rush wants Obama to fail. Which wasn’t what you said.
LIMBAUGH: Well, in a sense it was. It was. I don’t hide from it, I do want and I still want Obama to fail.
Watch it:
Later in the interview, Limbaugh reiterated his belief that Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Obama only because of his race and that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. Limbaugh, however, said that he may be able to “overlook” her racism and support her nomination if he comes to believe that Sotomayor is anti-choice.
Limbaugh: I Could Support Sotomayor If I Became Convinced That She’s Anti-Choice
Limbaugh: I Could Support Sotomayor If I Became Convinced That She’s Anti-Choice
Just hours after President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh accused her of being a racist and demanded that conservatives oppose her nomination. But in a little noticed portion of his radio show yesterday, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh highlighted the fact that Sotomayor is a Catholic whose views on abortion are not well-known. Limbaugh suggested that, if he becomes convinced that she is anti-choice, he would consider supporting her nomination. Sotomayor “might be the biggest hope for overturning Roe v. Wade down the line,” he said:
We know she’s Catholic. We also know she has no record on abortion. Sonia Sotomayor being Catholic and having not said a word about abortion, I find that interesting. All libs who want to go anywhere in liberalism are pro-choice and they make no bones about it, she hasn’t said a word about it, which could mean that her private feelings are she’s pro-life.
If I could be convinced that Sonia Sotomayor might be the biggest hope for overturning Roe v. Wade down the line, then I might be persuaded to look at her nomination in a different light. I’m serious. I’m dead serious. I’m dead serious. Life, preserving life, to me, is a far more important issue — we can deal with the racism and the bigotry, that can be canceled out by other justices and so forth.
Limbaugh reiterated this argument again today on his radio show, saying, “She would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. … She’s a Catholic, a devout Catholic, she hasn’t got a record on [abortion] … I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination if I can be convinced that she does have a sensibility towards life.” According to Limbaugh, the fact that she is Puerto Rican, makes it even more likely that she is “devout.” Watch it:
Limbaugh’s hope that Sotomayor will allow the anti-choice stance of the Catholic church to influence her rulings in the court room is a direct contradiction of his insistence last week that Sotomayor’s nomination must be stopped by conservatives because, as he argued, she would allow her personal experiences to influence her rulings from the bench:
RUSH: Have you seen, and do you remember if you have seen it a picture of the lady holding the scales of justice? Do you know what’s remarkable about the lady in that rendering? She’s blindfolded. She doesn’t know whether the people before her… Justice does not know whether the people before it are black, white, Hispanic, male, female, rich, poor, Martian, or whatever. There is nothing about Sonia Sotomayor that is blindfolded where justice is concerned.
Apparently in Limbaugh’s view, when judges allow their religious backgrounds to directly influence their rulings in ways conservatives view favorably, it’s blind justice. When judges remark that being a minority can give individuals perspective on the impact of their rulings, it’s racism.
Former Klansman David Duke Rips Limbaugh For ‘KKK’ Comparison, Says Sotomayor Is The Racist
Former Klansman David Duke Rips Limbaugh For ‘KKK’ Comparison, Says Sotomayor Is The Racist
On Friday, Rush Limbaugh said that Judge Sonia Sotomayor “brings a form of bigotry and racism to the court” akin to that embraced by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. Listen here:
Responding on his personal website, David Duke decried the comparison to Sotomayor. “Limbaugh, a recent addict to illegal drugs, has no business making personal attacks against me for my past,” Duke said. “I have consistently supported true equal rights, stating again and again that I support the best-qualified person regardless of race in hiring and promotions.”
But while rejecting Limbaugh on the one hand, Duke embraced the attacks against Sotomayor made last week by nativist former congressman Tom Tancredo, who said Sotomayor belongs to a “a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.” From Duke’s site:
Dr. Duke, a PhD who lectures about half the year in Europe, also criticized Judge Sotomayor as an activist in the primarily Mexican organization, La Raza, which literally means “the race.” Duke says her racial bias can be seen in a statement she made in a speech delivered in 2001: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” [...]
Sotomayor, whose appointment has ignited a sustained controversy among both Democrats and Republicans, has long been an activist for radical-Left Mexican organizations and an enthusiastic proponent of racial discrimination against White people called affirmative action.
Elsewhere on his website, Duke claims that Sotomayor is part of a grand Jewish conspiracy to control “any person who is influential or who may at some point in the future become influential.” No word yet on whether the right-wing will also embrace this attack on Judge Sotomayor.
McConnell: I Have ‘Better Things To Do’ Than Ask My Party To Stop Calling Sotomayor ‘Racist’
McConnell: I Have ‘Better Things To Do’ Than Ask My Party To Stop Calling Sotomayor ‘Racist’
Just hours after President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh declared that Obama had nominated a “racist.” In the following days, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) followed suit, while Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) appeared to come to the same conclusion.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) denounced such attacks as “terrible” late last week. This morning on Meet the Press, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) — who will help lead Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings — said that “he would prefer his colleagues refrain from calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist.” Similarly, on Fox News Sunday Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the accusations of racism were wrong, remarking that Limbaugh was simply attempting to “entertain” his audience.
On CNN’s State of the Union, however, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he has “better things to do” than to ask members of his party to refrain from accusing Sotomayor of being a racist. Host John King noted that McConnell is the “highest elected Republican in the United State of America” and asked, “would it be best that language like racist not be used?” McConnell demurred:
KING: Are Rush and Newt making it a lot harder by using language like that? [...]
MCCONNELL: They’re certainly entitled to their opinions. … Look, I’ve got a big job to dealing with 40 senate Republicans and trying to advance a nation’s agenda. I’ve got better things to do than to be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment.
Watch it:
As Paul Krugman remarked on ABC’s This Week this morning, “I think the Republicans have got a real problem here. Because if they do go ‘no,’ they’re going to seem to be the party of Rush Limbaugh, the party of Newt Gingrich, the party of completely crazy accusations against someone who is after all a highly-respectable, very smart, middle-of-the-road jurist.”
AUDIO: Cornyn says Limbaugh and Gingrich’s attacks on Sotomayor are ‘terrible.’
AUDIO: Cornyn says Limbaugh and Gingrich’s attacks on Sotomayor are ‘terrible.’
Soon after President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, right-wing luminaries like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh attacked her as a “racist.” But some Republican lawmakers are trying to distance themselves from that argument. On NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called that attacks “terrible.” “Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don’t think it’s appropriate and I certainly don’t endorse it. I think it’s wrong,” said Cornyn. Listen here:
After criticizing Sotomayor for saying that her life experience affects how she approaches the law, Cornyn was stumped when confronted with Justice Samuel Alito’s statement that he takes his immigrant background “into account” on the bench. “I had not remembered that,” said Cornyn. “I think it is a fact that people do have different backgrounds, but I don’t think those backgrounds ought to determine what the law is.”
Limbaugh on Sotomayor: ‘Do I want her to fail? Yeah.’
Limbaugh on Sotomayor: ‘Do I want her to fail? Yeah.’
Reacting to Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court today, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a “horrible pick,” said that Republicans should “go to the mat” in their efforts to oppose her confirmation in the Senate, and — echoing his hopes for Obama’s failure — declared that he wanted Sotomayor to “fail”:
LIMBAUGH: Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes! She’d be a disaster on the court. Do I still want Obama to fail as President? Yeah. AP you getting this? He’s going to fail anyway, but the sooner the better.
Listen here:
Rove sides with Cheney, says he would pick Limbaugh over Powell.
Rove sides with Cheney, says he would pick Limbaugh over Powell.
Earlier this month, Dick Cheney made headlines after telling CBS that he would rather have Rush Limbaugh in the GOP than Colin Powell. “Well, if I had to choose — in terms of being a Republican — I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think,” he said. Today on Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove said he agrees with Cheney:
Q: Dick Cheney said if it’s a battle between, or a choice between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell, he sides with Limbaugh. You?
ROVE: Uh, yes, if I had to pick between the two. But you know what? Neither one of those are candidates. Neither one of those are going to be people who are offering themselves for office. This is a false debate that Washington loves.
Watch it:
Former Bush Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge took a shot at Limbaugh today, telling CNN that Limbaugh can be “shrill” and uses language in a way “that offends very many.” “[W]ords mean things and how you use words is very important,” Ridge said. “But personally, if he would listen to me and I doubt if he would, the notion is express yourself but let’s respect others opinions and let’s not be divisive.”
Krauthammer refuses to criticize Rush Limbaugh by name.
Krauthammer refuses to criticize Rush Limbaugh by name.
Politico’s Ben Smith profiled Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer today as President Obama’s “biggest critic,” writing that Krauthammer is not “impressed by the current state of the conservative resistance.” As an example of Krauthammer’s dissatisfaction with the conservative opposition, Smith highlighted his criticism of the tea parties and Rush Limbaugh, though Krauthammer wasn’t actually willing to criticize Limbaugh by name:
Leaving the verdict on the Bush Administration to “the next generation’s David McCullough,” Krauthammer also told POLITICO that he isn’t rooting for Obama to fail.
“What I want to say is — I don’t want to repeat his name - I don’t want Obama to fail,” he said, referring to radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I want our country to succeed. And when I criticize him, it’s because I think his ideas are misguided.”
As ThinkProgress has previously observed, conservatives criticize Limbaugh at their own peril. As RNC chairman Michael Steele learned in March when he called Limbaugh an “incendiary” and “ugly” “entertainer,” conservatives who criticize El Rushbo are quickly forced to kiss the ring and apologize.
Limbaugh resigns as ‘titular head’ of the Republican Party, passes ‘the baton’ to Colin Powell.
Limbaugh resigns as ‘titular head’ of the Republican Party, passes ‘the baton’ to Colin Powell.
Today on his show, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh delivered a tongue-in-cheek monologue in which he announced that he was “resigning as the titular head of the Republican party.” Limbaugh explained, “It’s not an office I sought, it was a position that rather was ladled onto me…without my acquiescence. … I quit!” Explaining his reasoning for his resignation and continuing his public feud with Gen. Colin Powell, Limbaugh said:
LIMBAUGH: There frankly is someone far more qualified and capable and more in tune with today’s Republican party than I to be, not only its titular head, but its real head and that would be Gen. Colin Powell. So, I now pass the baton to Gen. Powell as the titular head of the Republican party. From this day forward, it will be up to Gen. Powell to instruct the party on things it needs to do to win elections in 2010 and of course the all important presidential election in 2012.
Watch it:
While it’s not clear whether or not Powell is “more in tune with today’s Republican party” than Limbaugh, Powell is certainly “more in tune” with the American public.
Limbaugh responds to Price: ‘How the hell’ can Price say Powell is better for GOP than Cheney?
Limbaugh responds to Price: ‘How the hell’ can Price say Powell is better for GOP than Cheney?
This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough asked Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) if he believed that Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Cheney were “somehow better Republicans than Colin Powell.” “Goodness, no,” Price responded. On his radio show today, Limbaugh respond to Price, asking, “How in the hell can you say that Dick Cheney was worse for the Republican Party than Colin Powell!?” Limbaugh reiterated his claim that Powell endorsed Obama entirely because of his race and proclaimed that Cheney was a model Republican because he “gets results”:
LIMBAUGH: How in the hell can you say that Dick Cheney is worse for the Republican Party than Colin Powell? It was Colin Powell who endorsed Barack Obama after the Republican party gave Colin Powell the exact kind of nominee he claims to want. [...]
The Vice President gets results! Do you not see what Dick Cheney was able to pull off last week? You basically have the Bush policy on Gitmo and interrogations intact. … And [Price] says that Dick Cheney is not as good a Republican as Colin Powell is?
Watch it:
The question now is if Price will, like other Republicans before him, deliver a mea culpa for publicly disagreeing with El Rushbo. But disagreements within the conservative movement aside, the “Bush policy on Gitmo and interrogations” is by no means “intact.”
Rep. Tom Price: ‘It’s Not Up To Rush Limbaugh To Decide Who Ought To Be In The Republican Party’
Rep. Tom Price: ‘It’s Not Up To Rush Limbaugh To Decide Who Ought To Be In The Republican Party’
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today and publicly distanced himself from Rush Limbaugh’s version of the Republican party. Price said that “it’s not up to Rush Limbaugh to decide who ought to be in the Republican Party” and such exclusivity is “counterproductive.” He also said that Vice President Cheney was wrong in saying that Limbaugh is a better Republican than former Secretary of State Colin Powell:
SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you disagree with Rush Limbaugh that Colin Powell should leave the Republican Party?
PRICE: Look, it’s not up to Rush Limbaugh to decide who ought to be in the Republican Party. There are all sorts of wonderful folks across this land who hold dear the fundamental principles that we, as Republicans — [...]
SCARBOROUGH: Congressman, do you believe that Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney are better, quote — I’m just using terms that we hear every day on TV and radio — that they are somehow better Republicans than Colin Powell?
PRICE: No. Goodness.
Watch it:
Price has been called one of the “rising” stars in the conservative movement, so it’s interesting that he is so willing to buck Limbaugh and Cheney. The other Republican to do so recently was Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), who dismissed the hate radio host as just “a television personality.” (He has yet to apologize or backtrack, as so many of his colleagues have done.)
Transcript: More »
Rep. Shadegg Dismisses Rush Limbaugh As Just ‘A Television Personality’
Rep. Shadegg Dismisses Rush Limbaugh As Just ‘A Television Personality’
This morning, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) received enthusiastic praise during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. (Host Joe Scarborough called him “the wind beneath my wings.”) Scarborough and Shadegg began by agreeing that party leaders like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh were wrong to say that Colin Powell is no longer welcome in the Republican party. When Scarborough asked whether the party was “big enough” for both Cheney and Powell, Shadegg replied, “Absolutely, no question about it.”
Minutes later, however, Shadegg embraced Limbaugh’s position on global warming — even while trying to distance himself from Limbaugh, whom he called just a “television personality”:
O’DONNELL: Do you agree with Rush on global warming?
SHADEGG: I don’t even know what Rush Limbaugh —
O’DONNELL: He believes it’s a fraud and is not happening.
SHADEGG: I believe the far left is making it a fraud by claiming that it has been proven to have been caused solely by man-made greenhouse gases, when that evidence isn’t in. And by rushing to solutions that aren’t yet justified. Now you can decide whether that’s Rush Limbaugh’s position, I don’t actually think it is–
O’DONNELL: Pretty much that’s Rush Limbaugh’s position. Congratulations. You got it right.
SHADEGG: But Rush Limbaugh is a television personality. I don’t think he’s chairman of the Republican Party, last I looked.
Watch it:
Despite his attempt to distance himself from Limbaugh, Shadegg’s head-in-the-sand position on climate change is in effect identical to that of the “television personality.” Just recently, Shadegg claimed that “there is some debate on whether global warming is in fact being caused by man-made greenhouse gases.” In fact, the debate has been long over: Man’s action is contributing to the boiling of the planet, and if the U.S. does not act soon, it will be too late to avert disastrous effects.
Of course, Shadegg’s global warming denial received no criticism from the Morning Joe crew. O’Donnell praised his climate change stance: “The way he plays against the global warming issue and Henry Waxman and all that sounds very reasonable.” Mika Brzezinski agreed: “Absolutely!” However, O’Donnell quickly added that Shadegg “does want to kill [energy legislation] completely.”
How long before Shadegg — like so many before him — is forced to apologize to the easily-affronted RADIO host for dismissing his influence?
Transcript: More »
Fox Condemns Sykes’s Act: If A Talk Radio Host Compared Obama To A Terrorist, He Would Be Fired
Fox Condemns Sykes’s Act: If A Talk Radio Host Compared Obama To A Terrorist, He Would Be Fired
Last night on Fox News, Sean Hannity and Dick Morris expressed outrage at comedian Wanda Sykes’s act at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Sykes joked that “maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight,” and said she hoped his kidneys fail. Specifically, Hannity couldn’t believe that she compared Limbaugh to a terrorist, saying her jokes were far worse than waterboarding detainees. He and guest Dick Morris then claimed that if a conservative radio host ever made such a comparison, he could be fired or arrested:
HANNITY: Calling him a terrorist, comparing him to bin Laden, et cetera, et cetera, and then wishing kidney failure. Now for all the moral indignation and outrage over waterboarding, what would be worse, wishing an American citizen who has a different point of view that his kidneys fail and to waterboard a terrorist to get information? [...]
HANNITY: Now there is a double standard. Now can you imagine if we go through this list here of — what if somebody called Barack Obama, compared him to a terrorist? What if somebody wished him ill? That he wouldn’t do well? [...]
MORRIS: He would be carted off in handcuffs. And they should be. No one should make a joke about the president dying and frankly no one should make a joke about someone in political life like that dying.
Ironically, a few seconds later, Hannity asked why Sykes didn’t bring up President Obama’s tenuous link to former Weatherman Bill Ayers. Watch it:
Hannity repeatedly brings up Obama’s connection to Ayers to imply that the President might sympathize with terrorists. Of course, Hannity has never been fired — or arrested — for doing so. Similarly, Morris has claimed that Obama’s relationship to Ayers is “the equivalent of having a close relationship with Osama bin Laden.”
Over at TAPPED yesterday, Adam Serwer also rounded up many of Limbaugh’s previous statements, including his belief that Obama himself is a “terrorist attack,” Obama wants to “murder a million babies a year,” and that if UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown keeps “slobbering” over Obama, he’ll “come down with anal poisoning and may die from it.”
Of course, neither Hannity nor Morris were advocating firing Limbaugh last night.
Transcript: More »
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