Everything You Need to Know About Rush Limbaugh "Conservatism": A Handbook for All Americans, from Left to Right

By Elmer Lightman

Love him or loath him,
these explorations, insights and
antidotes into Rush Limbaugh,
America's
leading radio
talker claiming conservatism,
are for you
whether:
1. You think hes a hero and telling it like it is.
2. You realize hes wrong but cant express why and
dont know what to do about it.
3. You listen, think hes sometimes funny but are
ambivalent about his views.
4. Or as Rush Limbaugh intones, you have "THE COURAGE TO FACE THE TRUTH."

There's no competing national media source analyzing what
is presented by him three hours a day on over 600 radio stations.
This book presents Limbaugh over time--two decades of monitoring
him and investigating his statements.

It covers every key issue, among them:
politics, the environment,
health care, national defense, human rights, racism,
conservatism, liberalism, the media.
After each topic chapter there are sources and projects to further
understand Rush Limbaugh and the issues he addresses, a 14 Step Truth Detection Program.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491818268

Book preview

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© 2014 Elmer Lightman. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/21/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1825-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1826-8 (e)

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

I. Dedication To Rush Limbaugh

II. Background: Who Is Rush Limbaugh?

III. The Challenge For Recovering Limbaugholics, Dittoheads And Liberals

IV. Is Rush Limbaugh The Most Dangerous Man In America?

V. Step 1. Words Mean Things: Are You a Dittohead or Do You Just like the show?

V. Step 2 The Audience—what’s the appeal? The Psychology of Limbaughism

V. Step 3 Comprehending the Conservative Mind

V. Step 4 Limbaughism: Meggadittos Joe McCarthy—McCarthyism

V. Step 5 Disingenuous, duplicitous, misleading, misrepresentations? Or just lies? All varieties

V. Step 6 This is humor? What’s funny about name calling? The right wing’s standard operating procedure. And slamming women, children, the homeless?

V. Step 7.Crisis in Health—Does Limbaugh Care?

V. Step 8. Lewd, lascivious, licentious.—Rush Limbaugh family values?

V. Step 9 The Real Environmental Wacko

V. Step 10. Rush to Rumor, Hypocrisy. Responsible Citizen?

V. Step 11. Liberal, liberal, liberal. The facts labeled, the label libeled

V. Step 12. Racist, Bigot? Or Just Low Class?

V. Step 13. Demagogue, Divisive, Today’s Benedict Arnold Masquerading As a Patriot?

V. Step 14. Good Limbaugh—Encourage This

VI. Limbaugh And The Media

VII. A Primer On HOW TO COMBAT LIMBAUGHHOLISM

Truth Detection Media

VIII. What’s Going On Here?

IX. Is It Conservatism?

X. Where To From Here?

Ultimate Truth Detection Program

Preface

Whether you love him or loath him, these insights and antidotes to the radio talker are for you if:

1. You think he’s a hero and telling it like it is.

2. You realize he’s wrong but can’t express why and don’t know what to do about it.

3. You listen, think he’s sometimes funny but are ambivalent about his views.

4. You have THE COURAGE TO FACE THE TRUTH.

• VITA (Values-Insight-Truth-Awareness Project) is an academic and media project led by a former radio talk show host, credentialed history teacher, professor of communication ethics, media advisor to environment, health, education, and human rights organizations, pursuing a Ph.D. who has researched Rush Limbaugh’s statements extensively since 1991 to determine their veracity and effect.

• People take me seriously because I am effective. And in my pursuit of the truth, I am an exceptionally accurate commentator. Rush Limbaugh self-description.

• THIS BOOK PRESENTS AN EXHAUSTIVE INVESTIGATION INTO THE REALITY BEHIND THAT.

I get so few complaints. And complaints are an opportunity to learn. I get so few that I actually enjoy this kind of criticism ’cause I never, ever get it and it’s a learning opportunity. Rush Limbaugh to a dittohead caller giving him fan criticism. July, 2005.

KEYNOTES

Let’s see where the facts lead us rather than these ideologies of left and right. The words of Newt Gingrich (former Republican Speaker of the House), C-Span 12/03/05. It’s always a good idea to start by asking about the facts. Whenever you hear anything said very confidently, the first thing that should come to mind is, ‘Wait a minute, is that true?—Noam Chomsky (called The conscience of the American people by The New Statesman) commenting on media. Rush says anything that crosses his mind and people believe it. I mean I’ve known since the day he got here he’s said things that I knew were just not true. But you know, most people have no sense of responsibility.—Lyn Samuels, former talk show host on Limbaugh’s flagship station WABC New York, July 2, 1994. "Rush Limbaugh will have three hours to say whatever he wants . . . and there is no truth detector. You won’t get on afterward and say [what] was true and what wasn’t."—President Clinton to St. Louis KMOX radio, June 14, 1994. There is no need for a truth detector. I am the truth detector.—Rush Limbaugh. YOU ARE ADDICTED TO THIS PROGRAM, Rush Limbaugh tells listeners. He maintains that you have contracted EIB—Excellence in Broadcasting, the self-aggrandizing title of his syndicated program. (He decides the criteria for excellence and says the title describes him.) EIB is, he says, an airborne phenomenon, and there is no cure; EIB itself is the cure for liberalism, we’re told.

This 14 STEP TRUTH DETECTION PROGRAM is the cure—for Limbaugholism. Defined as: brazenly bragging that one seeks and finds the truth, while actually turning the truth on its head every day; falling prey to believing Limbaugh.

On November 18, 2003, his second day back on the air after weeks in a rehabilitation program for his addiction to the drug Oxycontin, Limbaugh declared, EIB is the only healthy addiction there is. He blared that when the clients at the rehabilitation center tune in, you’re going to get addicted all over again, This time to his program, he tells them.

Limbaugh uses the analogy to drug addiction to describe those who habitually listen to and believe him. Where is the rehabilitation program for the addiction Limbaugh purveys?

This book is the rehabilitation program. Here we’ll examine the facts and the effects of Limbaugholism and what can be done about them.

Symptoms qualifying you for the Truth Detection Program

The Steps to Truth Detection and Recovery from

Limbaugholism

* Hear what Limbaugh says *

** Then get the facts **

*** Then act on reality ***

Action programs conclude each chapter

There is no competing national program countering what he presents three hours a day on over 600 radio stations. This book presents him over time–two decades of monitoring and recording him. It is only a representative sampling. One need listen with discernment at any time to hear inaccuracies, misleading, skewed thinking, falsehoods, whether in 1991 or today.

Reading note: All quotes in the book are transcribed in accurate context and where possible capture Rush Limbaugh’s syntax, pronunciation, and word usage as he delivered it.

A problem with presenting a study of Rush Limbaugh is that he has co-opted the language, the symbols of truth; effective language to describe what he does has been co-opted by him. For those without knowledge or historical perspective, describing him to those new to discourse, can sound like it’s stealing his rhetoric. What is stated accurately can sound like his way of errantly criticizing others. It’s surreal. We need summon awareness and intelligence to see through it all. Sorting out fact from fiction can be aided by the late Senator Patrick Moynihan’s aphorism that everyone is entitled to their own opinion; no one is entitled to their own facts.

INTRODUCTION

Rush Limbaugh personifies the media image and projection of the current conservative movement. While numerous others have emerged on radio, a t.v. channel—Fox News, and on the internet, he continues as the central voice of the mindset declaring itself conservative. (Whether this is accurately termed conservatism is explored in chapter VII and IX.) Republican candidates for office curry his favor. Examining what he professes is a lens to view and understand the entire mindset, its effect and influence on and by those espousing it. The 14 subject explorations into what he says on the key issues and the contrasting documented facts is the first part of the book. That is followed by examination of the mindset overall, it’s roots, causes, the human condition itself. It concludes with how to respond to it and the prospects for the future.

We must love each other despite all differences and conflict expressed in and even by this book. The author laments any conflict generated by the observations expressed, or the way anything is stated in the book. The objective analysis employed in this research may be detracted from by the author’s manner of expression or reactions to what was found. Employing empathy toward all people regardless of their predispositions is sine qua non. Investigate the Ultimate Truth Detection Program concluding the book.

I. DEDICATION TO RUSH LIMBAUGH

I’ve always said it takes six weeks of steady listening to have this program really understood by a new audience member because it takes that long or longer for the context of this all to come into place.—Rush Limbaugh.

This book is dedicated to Rush Limbaugh and his listeners.

Well over two decades of often daily attention to Rush Limbaugh on radio, t.v., and reading by and about him has contributed to its production.

The book is based on the conviction that everyone who influences people, as he does, is obligated to do so in a way that will improve life for all of humanity. Less than that provokes anger, frustration, even fear. With his innate mastery of propaganda, Rush Limbaugh has turned these reactions to his favor. He delivers routines about what will happen to people who don’t believe the truth according to him, such as: you have to believe the truth to be sane. To avoid real craziness simply ask: is Limbaugh truth really true?

The so frequent discrepancies between what Rush Limbaugh states as his purpose versus what he really does compelled the writing of this book. It’s based on thoroughly and continually listening to him. It cannot be discredited as coming from not listening and not knowing what goes on here, as he alleges in order to dismiss critics.

The book is based on his radio program and partially on the defunct TV program, not the books or newsletter. Broadcasting is where he’s best known and influences the country. It’s that which this book covers meticulously; the book is attentive to, and comprehensive regarding what he’s said for decades on radio.

On first hearing Limbaugh in 1991 it seemed obvious that 80% of what he said was alternately factually untrue or so skewed, biased and misleading as to be contrived propaganda. You can’t tune in for more than thirty minutes without noticing examples. Furthermore, there is the covertly hostile and cruel material that lowers the bar for political discourse which Limbaugh wannabes now have even outdone.

Talk radio is me. They’re synonymous. Same thing, he boasts. He’s the entire territory, everyone else is irrelevant. He claims he has never even listened to others. Extraordinary that someone in a business maintains to have never even heard of others prominent in that business.

Rush Limbaugh spawned a field of sound alike talk radio that took the format still lower. It has ranged from conventional mentalities (Sean Hannity) to bellicose misanthropes (Michael Weiner who actually labels himself Savage), felons (Gordon Liddy—jail time for Watergate; Oliver North—convicted for Iran Contra, overturned on a technicality), bigots (Bob Grant who preceded Limbaugh, was even fired by WABC New York, a leader in right wing radio), and assorted bellicose voices with the occasional garden variety conservative (Michael Reagan) dominating the radio airwaves. The laborious task was begun of listening to and taping the god father of right wing talk radio to assure that everything written about this phenomenon could be documented and unassailable as to accuracy.

Rush Limbaugh admonishes the audience to be seeking and accepting the truth. Dedicated to him, this book’s purpose is to deliver just that.

You must have the courage not only to face the truth but to believe it.

—Rush Limbaugh

II. BACKGROUND: WHO IS RUSH LIMBAUGH?

I am talk radio. When they say talk radio, they mean me, and when they use my name, they mean talk radio.—Rush Limbaugh, various times including March 6, 2006.

It’s mesmerizing and strange, if not numbing, to drive across the United States with the radio on. From coast to coast on as many as 650 radio stations, day and night, some airing it twice, there’s the garrulous voice of the dogmatic right wing. Over five million copies of Rush Limbaugh’s two books are in print; incredibly his first book’s sales are rivaled only by Lee Iaccoca’s book and the Bible. His newsletter has claimed around 500,000 subscribers, more than many long established, respected opinion journals. The claim had long been that 20 million people tune in during the week, 4.5 million at any given moment. Talkers Magazine in 2002 and 2004, however, reported the weekly number as 14.5 million, although the realities of audience measurements make both numbers questionable. There’s no complete national rating system. Nonetheless, a visitor from another planet would think this guy must be an important human leader. It’s been waggishly said that the return of a Christ might not command such a sweep of media.

He opens the radio show with: The views expressed by the host on this show are the only views you need. Because the views expressed by the host on this show are the result of the pursuit of truth. We find the truth here. You must have the courage to face it and believe it. This isn’t simply hyperbole to get a rise out of the audience. He continually asserts that his joking is always to make a serious point. The humor cannot be dismissed; it’s there to promote the politics. And he goes beyond even religious evangelists in his vow to stay on the air until everyone thinks like he does.

Origins

What credentials did he have to become a commentator seriously affecting the country? He was a music disc jockey. He didn’t finish college. His earlier aspiration in life to be a disk jockey went off track various times. Could it be because his favorite song from that period is Rinky Dink? (Dave Baby Cortez’ 1962 hit.) Aside from the obvious humor in that, note that one definition of rinky dink is: . . . to give (someone) the rinky-dink and varr., to cheat or swindle(someone).

He had been fired several times from stations around the country. In his defense—that’s common, stations hire and fire, even capriciously, to acquire audience. In Sacramento, California, in the 1980s, he began doing joke political routines. He says he wanted to see if he could get an audience to just hear him, so he eschewed interviewing guests. Concurrently, shock-jock radio was getting audiences led by gross sex humorist Howard Stern in New York. Limbaugh’s attacks on feminists, whom he referred to as feminazis, (perhaps his one original contribution to the base culture lexicon) and against the homeless with what he called homeless updates—items in the news about the unfortunate whom he mocked—sure enough got him the attention he wanted.

Everyman, or Corporations’ Man?

Limbaugh explains the audience’s psychology as his own. He says he didn’t want to oppose the corporate world, he wanted to become a success in it. He tells how he wouldn’t even wear blue jeans in the ’60s. That dress style to him was a symbol of rebellion against the system he wanted to be part of. He equates the system with the country itself. Far be it from him to rage against the machine as many of his generation did in the 1960s. In the U.S., corporations, the real power in the country, won’t be attacked as a system. Every individual corporate offense from the savings and loan scandal to the corporate crimes of Enron to BP’s criminally negligent behavior are viewed separately. It’s not a problem with the system, it’s just those individual offenders. And even those are hardly dwelled upon by Limbaugh.

One day in February, 2006 Limbaugh expressed disdain for the phase, speaking truth to power. He insisted, What about speaking truth, and said that the phrase was just a way of attacking George Bush. (!)

Rush Limbaugh and those who call themselves conservatives refuse to admit one of the fundamental truths of American democracy—it saves capitalism. Although vilified by the right wing, President Franklin Roosevelt’s measures during the depression saved capitalism at a time when sentiment for socialism was high. Decades earlier, Republican trust buster President Teddy Roosevelt helped the system by correcting the abuses in the system. Today President Obama receives the same audacious accusations of being a socialist after he continues the same policy as the prior Republican administration of bailing out banks not nationalizing them.

But Limbaugh summed up his answer to any of it in his comment to a student who had a college assignment to write a paper defending capitalism. Limbaugh: Capitalism needs no defense. Exercising its regulatory is one of his peeves against government.

His defense of the indefensible was most egregious in March 2006 when Democratic and Republican senators held a hearing with the heads of the major oil companies. A recapping on his web site screamed, Stalinist, Marxist Democrats grill big oil executives. He quibbled about one senator who’d said we, the people, have no say in what the oil companies do. Limbaugh claimed that this wasn’t true because record gas prices came down when people complained after hurricane Katrina. Even as he said that the prices in New York were back up to $ 2.55 a gallon for unleaded regular alone and kept rising nationwide. A month later it was near $3.00 a gallon.

The hearing was about how government is not enforcing anti-trust laws initiated by Republican Teddy Roosevelt to protect the citizen from big business abuse. Incredibly, Limbaugh concluded with this:

You may hate the oil companies, folks, but imagine if this was your little business where you work or maybe if you own a business, a small business, imagine yourself being up there having these guys talk to you this way, when it’s these same people that put all the limitations on these oil execs as to where they can and cannot and how they do their business.

Limbaugh practices the deceit of seducing the underdog into sympathizing and identifying with the overdog. In other contexts it’s known as the Stockholm Syndrome whereby war prisoners identify with and defend their captors.

Your little business!?

One oil company alone, Exxon-Mobile, made a larger profit in 2005 than any corporation ever before in the history of the country, $33 Billion. Other oil companies’ profits weren’t far behind. Yet the price of gas stays high. Who’s little business? The Government Accounting Office (GAO) studies tell the tale. In 1991 the five largest oil companies controlled 27% of the nation’s gasoline stations. Soon after five companies controlled 61%. After 1991 there were 2,600 mergers. For example, in 1999 the largest oil company, Exxon, merged with the second largest, Mobile. While each merger reduced company costs they resulted in increased cost at the pump. That isn’t explained by any increase in the cost of crude oil. The situation is described by one analyst as akin to reconstituting the Standard Oil monopoly of a century ago. Breaking up that monopoly changed the country from being at the mercy of big business. That was done under the principle that it is is illegal to harm competition. Today’s mergers set us back a century. The free market breaks down.

Among the results were two airlines going into bankruptcy due to fuel costs, food costs rising due to fuel costs to farmers and citizens having to grapple with food and fuel rising prices while incomes don’t also rise. Natural gas is involved also. By limiting supply it is not brought to market thus effecting rising demand and cost rises.

The oil companies’ response was right in line with Limbaugh’s leave them alone sentiments.

U.S. companies must develop the economies of scale to compete in the global marketplace, the Chevron company executive said.

The chief executives asked Congress for greater access to oil and gas resources onshore and offshore, and no punitive measures such as a windfall profit tax. They want permit cost recovery for refining new low-sulfur gasoline and adhering to new diesel regulations. And they want elimination of the number of gasolines required for clean air requirements. We need your help, not new barriers, according to Shell’s executive Hofmeister.

The oil companies need our help? Lower clean air requirements? Drill in environment sensitive areas? Tax them less so their profits will be even larger with no corresponding benefit to the society they profit in?

We need ask if then Republican chairman of the senate Judiciary committee, Arlen Spector, was Stalinist for proposing that the Clayton Anti Trust act be reinforced by making it unlawful for oil and gas companies to attempt to drive up prices by withholding oil from the market. Is it Stalinist to outlaw mergers when they appreciably diminish competition, or to study if more divestitures are needed, or establishing a joint federal-state task force and making OPEC subject to U.S. antitrust laws? Stalinist according to Rush Limbaugh.

How we believe

People’s historian Howard Zinn explained how people are raised to believe in their country, and the system. Including its wars. Education does not teach people to be critical thinkers regarding the country or its history. That’s despite the silly claims that establishment education is leftist for including occasional valid information which by its factualness is critical of the country’s policies. Limbaugh performs as p.r. spokesman for the nation’s errors. Legitimate history is anathema. Yet he presents himself as a truth telling investigator of what we need to know.

How did he get here?

How did Limbaugh get on 600, once 650 (despite any decline he continually claims the program is growing by leaps and bounds) radio stations? The marketing of his program to stations was attractive. Radio stations need to fill time. Either they pay their own employees or they buy syndicated programming. That’s an expense. Limbaugh’s organization gave the program away. No expense. Within it were commercial breaks so the stations could make money on a program they got free. What a deal! Limbaugh kept access to one ad slot per break for his ads. So everyone makes money. The stations get free programming. He gets to be the most listened to talk radio host in America.

In recent years he’s gone a step further by boldly incorporating promotion for sponsors into the content of the program. He adroitly weaves the sponsor’s product into the topic under discussion. That is a significant move that would seem to be violating a code of business propriety.

Media critic Robert McChesney points out regarding media consumption: supply creates demand. The more there was of this kind of talk radio the more there came to be. In the imitative media business, if one such program makes it, why not try ten? Thus the Limbaugh clones, the drone-alikes.

Ultimate Purpose

He brags that the prime criterion of the program is to get the largest audience that will allow confiscatory ad rates. He generally keeps off the program those further reactionary on the political right wing than himself if only for commercial considerations. Also, he has said he doesn’t want the show to appear activist. He wants sponsors to feel the show provides a compatible environment for them.

Ironically this was the very motivation that caused newspapers to institute objective reporting in the early 20th century—giving both sides in every story regardless of how much more true one side is, keeping opinion out, attempting to be objective—all making the newspaper safe for commercial interests to advertise and not appear to favor any one view. Limbaugh now faults such journalism as liberal. He abhors actual journalism and repeatedly says so.

What’s he want?

Limbaugh inadvertently revealed his own motivation and need in a discussion about what men want from women. Approval, he asserted. Limbaugh’s overwhelming need is demonstrably that. He conducts the program to assure that he gets it. He puts himself in no forums where he can be challenged. He rarely appears in other venues and those few are predetermined to be friendly. He explains how he makes sure they are not going to go after him, describing it as himself being shrewd against maliciousness. He boasts that he eschews the approval of the other media. No, it’s obviously the challenge he eschews. He determines from whom he will get approval and engineers things to make sure he gets it. All the while he uses his forum to push his political positions.

Narcissism is Limbaugh?

Rush Limbaugh exhibits grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. The world he sees continually revolves around him. His proclaimed purpose was to see if he could get an audience to listen to just him, no guests. He announces every mention of him in the media. When Romney was challenged to release 23 years of tax returns Limbaugh’s reaction was that’s all but one year of the Rush Limbaugh Show. He reacts when people don’t acknowledge him. He chastised a caller for not giving dittos, being critical, not acting like the usual caller. Such quips as, well trained broadcast professional… taking a professional risk putting amateurs (callers) on the air, aren’t the statements or humor by a non-self involved individual.

Pick your god

He indicts Hollywood as having the box office as its god. In fact it’s his god. He’s found he can tout himself, his politics, which serve the corporate world, and get an audience, and make money. He has long lamented people not buying his sponsors’ products when they don’t like him. At one point he feverishly exhorted those who don’t agree with him not to deprive themselves of the advertisers’ wares. This went on even before the Florida orange juice controversy in the mid-90’s which presented him with another chronic problem when activists objected to that industry sponsoring his program. The industry had previously been represented by Anita Bryant, the celebrity who was militantly against homosexuals. The industry withdrew from Limbaugh’s program apparently to avoid further association detrimental to business. Rush’s effort to be successful in the corporate world continues. If he was resisted at first by controversy-shy commercial radio not wanting to risk alienating audiences (he speaks of the difficulty he had at first getting the program accepted), he learned how to stay on the right side of the commercial line. And as long as he was making money for everybody, that line became his to draw.

Intellectual wannabe

Limbaugh’s not obtaining a college degree factored into another need—intellectual acceptability. In a fatuous move to overcome his low brow image he began to clothe his low brow routines in the language of academia. He obviously wants his conservatism to compete with liberal thought in the arena of ideas. With faux academic pretentions he fatuously dubs his program, The Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, and himself, the doctor of democracy. He declares that he’s on the cutting edge of societal evolution.

Reversing observable wisdom, Limbaugh claims conservatism involves thought and liberalism is simply emotion and an effort to feel good. Then unwittingly contradicting himself he mocks liberals with an affected, effete, constipated vocal rendition of a stereotyped academic, i.e., one who thinks too much. Elsewhere, he presents himself in his version of what a good intellectual sounds like. This intellectual envy finds it’s voice in adopting the inflection of the original conservative broadcaster, Yale bred patrician, William F. Buckley. In his version of sounding erudite, Limbaugh utilizes Buckley’s tone and halting, talking through the nose delivery. Eventually even that wasn’t enough in his grasp for respectability for his often inherently beneath respect act. (See chapter on name calling.)

It’s a recurring Limbaugh theme. He bloviated on May 24, 2013 that Democrats don’t think, They feel and emote but they don’t think. Anyone who’s dealt with the right wing mind’s disregard for facts and obstinate adherence to predetermined positions will have trouble squaring his claim with reality regarding the difference between liberal thinking and what he calls conservatism.

So beyond intellect what might he claim or coopt? Spirituality. So he poses in a mock facade of the trappings of spiritual movements. In his incessant self promotion introducing the program came to include, Your guiding light in times of trouble, tumult, etc. And, since spiritual gurus lead people to enlightenment, Limbaugh cartoonishly dubs himself Maha Rushie. It’s all show business with Limbaugh, the facade of spirituality even gets co-opted to his service.

It’s