Rush At Twenty Years

[dustintv]

Though I am not fan and far from his political ideology, I listened to Rush's 20th Annivesary show today and he just about had an orgy with two presidents and an ex-governor calling in. Congrats to him for certainly coming a long way in twenty years.

 

[WTUX]

I am a Rush fan, though not a dittohead. I got to hear the segment with Rush and the President, George Sr. & Jeb. Throughly enjoyed that call & the entire anniversary show.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I'm surprised the two biggest stars of Limbaugh's show didn't call in, Bill and Hillary. They could have thanked him for all the cheap shots he's taken at them (I'm no Clinton or Hillary fan, but sometimes Rush does go over board in his dislike and bashing of those folks and parodies, which are funny, but sometimes over the top).







Board Editor's Note:

Some posts in this topic discussing the Communist party have been moved to Take It Outside.

[iurl=http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=106428.0]http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=106428.0[/iurl]

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Good post and history lesson Goat Rodeo Cowboy. Your explanation makes sense about the so called "card carrying" Communist's.

I agree with you about Rush and many other talk hosts. They tend to want to "demonize" the opposite party (in Rush and Hannity's case they demonize the democrats, where as Bill Mahrow (sp) will demonize Republicans and Christians).

Rush's parodies generally are funny, but I can see how they might be offensive to some. Of course there's the ON/OFF switch. However, Rush and Hannity, for my ear, quite often go over the line in the demonizing and trash talking. Even though I am not a Obama supporter, I find it offensive for Rush to refer to him as the Messiah. Rush has made, over the years, sexually insulting type comments involving Mrs. Clinton. Again, I'm not a supporter of hers, but find that sort of thing insulting and believe it lowers the level of discourse. Tell me why you disagree with her, fine, but keep the demonizing and insulting stuff out of it. The one exception, may be to that rule is her husband, Bill, who's made a lifestyle of being "Clinton". Everyone knows, as a fact, that he's a womanizer and both lib and conservative commentators have poked fun at him for this.

Which reminds me of one about the former President. This guy was at a car dealer and test drove a hot sports car. When he returned to the car dealer, the sales rep asked him what he thought about the car. The customer said, that this car manuevers so well, it's like watching Bill Clinton making moves at debutante ball. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[Biz Listener]

I agree with you about Rush and many other talk hosts. They tend to want to "demonize" the opposite party (in Rush and Hannity's case they demonize the democrats, where as Bill Mahrow (sp) will demonize Republicans and Christians).

Rush's parodies generally are funny, but I can see how they might be offensive to some.

It's not all that much different from a local sports talk show. Back when I lived in Pittsburgh and listened to Myron Cope's sports talk show, I loved it when he'd make fun of the "Cleve Brownies", or demonize Al Davis's Oakland Raiders for being the scum of the earth. There's no way that would offend any Steeler fan, and there were precious few people listening to Myron who weren't Steeler fans.

What Rush did was to adapt the "hooray for our side" attitude of a home-town sports talk host to a national audience. Rush is nothing but a cheerleader for the right, just as Al Franken attempted to be a cheerleader for the left.

To expect radio talk show hosts looking for ratings to act like Edward R. Murrow is like expecting a rock music format station to include Bach and Beethoven in their playlists. Sure, news/talk hosts say things that will offend the people who don't listen to them. That's what the game is all about. That's how it works. Rush was one of the pioneers who realized over 20 years ago that there was an untapped market of people who didn't want to listen to music in the afternoon, they
wanted to hear someone say out loud the things they believed.

To say "Tell me why you disagree with her, fine, but keep the demonizing and insulting stuff out of it" is the same as saying, "Stop being Rush Limbaugh and turn into Edward R. Murrow." Rush's show (and the shows of the rest of the news/talk format hosts on both sides of the aisle) is all about demonizing and insulting. That's the meat and potatoes of news/talk radio. Maybe once upon a time it wasn't. But this is now, and that was then. If you can't keep up with the times, switch to nostalgia radio.

So what if Rush demonized Hilary Clinton to the people who already hated her anyway? Big freakin' deal. Rush didn't convince one single person who was a support of Ms. Clinton to change their mind about her. And considering that he didn't try to do that, he can't be condemned for it. Rush preaches to the choir. That's all he does. He does it well.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

It's not all that much different from a local sports talk show. Back when I lived in Pittsburgh and listened to Myron Cope's sports talk show, I loved it when he'd make fun of the "Cleve Brownies", or demonize Al Davis's Oakland Raiders for being the scum of the earth. There's no way that would offend any Steeler fan, and there were precious few people listening to Myron who weren't Steeler fans.

I assume we have gone about as far as we can go with this take on the topic without arousing the "Editor Gods" of this discussion space. My parting observations would be this:

What is the ultimate catastrophe of "Sports Talkers Gone Wild"? Maybe a fist-fight at a sports bar? Maybe bad blood between a team ownership and the fans resulting in a move like the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis and the team going from Cleveland to Baltimore. And civilization moves on.

So a financial talk show reports erroneous information on a publicly traded company and the stock price goes breserk for a while.... or at worst the company goes bankrupt. (Been there, Done that, (twice) but I am still alive and have all might toes and fingers.) It did not give me post stress disorder.

Those who deal in topics like Dr. Phil and Oprah and Dear Abbey have to be a bit careful.... bad advice could aggravate someone into a preventable suicide.

But political talk radio of the ilk we have been discussing has much greater possibilities. We are in the middle of a serious nation financial stress because too many congressmen and senators were afraid to vote for regulations of the banking and mortgage industry because talk radio might have hung them out to dry in the next election cycle.

If my company goes bankrupt because of some talk radio guys, I can probably find another job. Which, as I pointed out earlier, I have done twice. But if my country goes from being the largest economy in the world to being the 17th econmy in the world, I will not look forward to telling my grandchildren stories of the good old days when we enjoyed the fruits of free enterprise and captialism.... and explaining to them we lost it the same way we lost our football team... because we didn't rein in the talking heads.

Would the executive branch and the congress have taken a different approach on dealing with Iraq if the listeners of talk radio had not given them warm and fuzzy feelings of support about the possibility of going to war? Try to tell the families of those who have died in Iraq that the political talk radio is just like sports talk. Starting a war is about the equal of moving a pro football team.

On that happy thought, I bow out of this thread. Will the last one out of the room turn out the lights, please.

 

[Biz Listener]

But political talk radio of the ilk we have been discussing has much greater possibilities. We are in the middle of a serious nation financial stress because too many congressmen and senators were afraid to vote for regulations of the banking and mortgage industry because talk radio might have hung them out to dry in the next election cycle.

Youre assuming that news/talk radio reaches people who disagree and persuades them to change their minds. It doesn't. That's what "preaching to the choir" means. Rush and the rest only confirm the opinions of people who already agree with them.

Would the executive branch and the congress have taken a different approach on dealing with Iraq if the listeners of talk radio had not given them warm and fuzzy feelings of support about the possibility of going to war?

Yes. They would have. News/talk hosts do not change peoples' minds. Please read what I wrote above regarding "preaching to the choir". Conservative talk radio doesn't turn liberals into conservatives. Liberal talk radio doesn't turn conservatives into liberals. And there are so few people in the middle between the two extremes who listen to news/talk radio at all that both of them can be ignored.

News/talk radio isn't all that much different from music format radio. Rock fans listen to rock stations, country fans listen to country stations.

On that happy thought, I bow out of this thread. Will the last one out of the room turn out the lights, please.

I hear you. This will no doubt end up in "Take it Outside".