Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Stupid is as Stupid Does, TBogg

Considering how secular collectivists love to attack alleged false equivalencies, it might be worth highlighting TBogg's post this morning on Camille Paglia's take on Rush Limbaugh.

Paglia's getting some attention for calling out the Obama administration for an "embarrassing series of flubs" in its first few weeks. These "flubs" include the ill-advised attacks on the conservative talk-radio king. TBogg suggests Paglia's got it all wrong:

I'll explain this slowly: the White House wants to hang Rush Limbaugh around the necks of Republicans. Republicans can't repudiate anything that Rush says without having to kiss his ass later. Outside of the mouth-breathers who fill the bleak and lonely hours of their unexamined lives listening to a drug-addled sex-tourist serial groom, most people in America don't like Rush. This is a bad thing for Republicans. It's guilt by association and it's the same thing that the Republicans tried to do with Obama and Bill Ayers ... except that nobody knew or cared who Bill Ayers was because he wasn't on the radio telling African-Americans to "take the bone out of your nose" or making fun of Michael J. Fox.
Well, I'll explain something slowly to TBogg: Hello? ... That's a false association between Rush Limbaugh and Bill Ayers. Most people with half a brain can morally differentiate between an addiction to prescription painkillers (and "serial groomhood") and participation in a declared "state of war" against the United States government - a campaign of terror seeking the mass destruction of life and property that but for sheer ineptitude wasn't worse than it was. What is more, conservatives don't have to hang Bill Ayers around Barack Obama's neck. Ayers and Obama were palling around together, and had not the media become "The One's" press spokesman last year, we might not be debating whether the U.S. is on the verge of European-style state socialism.

Stupid is as stupid does, TBogg.

Leftists love terrorist chic, obviously, since only an airhead would equate Rush Limbaugh with a man who had "no regrets" and "wished he'd done" more to maim and murder Americans in a campaign of terrorist hatred. And remember, this is the guy who today's media-newspeakers pass off as a "serious and respected" education leader.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read a lot of vitriol in that piece. The left really are an unhappy bunch.

AmPowerBlog said...

Thanks Raul!

shoprat said...

Congratulations on being selected as the Conservative Grapevine website of the day. That is a bigger honor than any leftist blog can dream of.

http://conservativegrapevine.com/

The Vegas Art Guy said...

Or a bigger nightmare for said blogs Shoprat... lol

Stogie said...

Good post on a false equivalency. The Left is famous for them.

Ema Nymton said...

.

American Power,

Right or wrong really does not matter. Politics in USA is about perception.

The Republicants were able to use quite effectively guilt by association against many Democratic Party candidates over the past decades, Dukakis/Horton is only one example. The facts were totally immaterial. Truth mattered not as long as GOP won.

So now the Democratic Party has successfully hung TRash Limbaughski around the necks of Republicants. (This is a two-for for the Democratic Party. The conservatives are neutralized as well as the Republicants. Republicants can't repudiate anything that TRash says without having to kiss his ass later.)

You may snivel and whine about morally differentiation all you want. In the end, the Republicant Party and the Neo-CONservatives are finished in the realm of national politics as long as the Democratic Party continues successfully to marry the toxic waste Trash Lumbaughski to the right.

American Power cannot come out for anything nor against anything Trash Lumbaughski says. As long as this remains in play, you will have to sit in silence in all the soil Trash puts out.

"Stupid is a stupid does."

@:o?

.

heidianne jackson said...

first, congratulations (or is it condolences?) on your award from conservative grapevine donald! i am certain it is well deservered.

as for ema's comments, really? yes politics (everywhere, not just in the us) is all about perception. yes, currently, the perception is being painted that rush is a bad guy. yes currently the perception is being painted that obama is our savior.

however, it's important that perceptions IS influenced by reality. and further, that perception can change without much notice.

right now, today, rush's approval rating is 33%. got that? with a 1 in 3 approval rating he's thought better of than hollywood, lawyers and/or congress!

and since more and more people are becoming disillusioned with the obamassiah, and the actions congress is taken, i expect that both of their approval ratings will fall from where they are now. who cares what happens to rush's approval rating.

rush's rating has no bearing on whether or not conservatives get elected - well except in the minds of the liberals... talk about straw men!

Anonymous said...

the problem with ema's argument, of course, is that most republicans don't mind being associated with Rush, someone whom millions of conservatives listen to each day. Conversely, no Democrat wants to be associated with Horton, Ayers, etc.

Hang you hat on Rush all you want. He has 30 million listeners per week. Not exactly a social outcast like Ayers, Horton, etc. You can't win that one. The only people who dislike Rush are Democrats, and they won't be voting for conservatives anyway. The Rush association pleases nutroots like Ema, but is really ineffective in national politics.

And I love how the Dems win one election and all of a sudden conservatism is over. Pfft.

Anonymous said...

Pvt Pigg, the numbers I've seen of Limbaugh's listenership is 20 million per week which could translate to only 5 million total. No?

But, you could be right, I'm not going to bother looking for it. What really matters is independent voters, and they are the ones that dislike Limbaugh. The Republican base is going to vote Republican anyway.

Heidianne gets to what I wanted to address. Strawmen, which is what this posting seems to be based on. Tbogg's post addresses the damage done to the Republican party due to their kowtowing to Limbaugh and the potential damage that will do to them if they are seen to be conjoined with him. He also points out the failed attempt by the McCain campaign to hang Ayers around the neck of Obama. There's no comparison of the morality of Limbaugh versus that of Ayers.

Professor Douglas proceeds to build a strawman out of this, asserting that Tbogg made some claim that Ayers was more moral than Limbaugh. I don't see that as being the point of the blog. The point was the potential damage caused by bending to Limbaugh which Douglas doesn't address. Comparative morality has nothing to do with it.

Why put up Tbogg's post if you're just going to use it as an excuse to riff? BTW, you can't use that "liberal media" guff to try to prove a point either. That, too, is a logical fallacy. No matter how widely believed (in some circles anyway) it is, doesn't make it true.

Anonymous said...

"the problem with ema's argument, of course, is that most republicans don't mind being associated with Rush, someone whom millions of conservatives listen to each day. "

Thats awesome,

Set those standards high for them conservative brethren! Rush Limbaugh - the new gold standard in political discourse for our conservative friends.

heidianne jackson said...

dlb contrary to your assertion: "BTW, you can't use that "liberal media" guff to try to prove a point either. That, too, is a logical fallacy. No matter how widely believed (in some circles anyway) it is, doesn't make it true." there have been multiple studies done worldwide - including one by the bbc and cnn - where the conclusion was that yes they choose to air and report on stories that make their liberal arguments better. if that doesn't constitute a liberal media, what does?

i don't accept your premise that all independents hate limbaugh - or even the majority of them. the majority of conservatives in this country don't necessarily associate themselves with the republican party - many (maybe most) of us consider ourselves independent. and we don't hate limbaugh.

regardless, the ONLY reason for the administration to be putting so much energy into defaming rush limbaugh is to take the spotlight off of its assinine actions. pay no attention to that man behind the teleprompter.

Tom the Redhunter said...

Ema Nymton wrote "The Republicants were able to use quite effectively guilt by association against many Democratic Party candidates over the past decades"

Grrrr

If you're going to pull out the "guilt by association" charge, please learn what it means. It does NOT mean what you leftists seem to think it does.

Charging that Obama has had an inappropriate relationship with Bill Ayers is NOT "guilt by association."

Get it right.

Here are some good explanations of what it is and isn't:

here, here and here

Consider this; if Rush associated with a person he knew to be an active KKK member, and liberals attacked Rush over it, would you leap to his defense saying it was all "guilt by association?"

I didn't think so.

Anonymous said...

Heidianne, since I'm the open-minded sort, I went looking for the studies you mention. I found the BBC one. That, of course, is not US media. I found polling that involved CNN, but no study. Polling doesn't count. It doesn't matter hwo many people believe something is true.

Of course, all of this is off the point, which was that the post here didn't respond to Tbogg's post. Rather, it went off-tangent on the morality of Limbaugh vs Ayers. Why post the snippet from Tbogg and then not address what's in it?

Anonymous said...

There are large numbers of those who call themselves Conservatives that are not, again, are not Republicans. Many of us are Independents and a significant number of those are former democrats, especially since that thing that calls itself the democratic party is not very democratic. Notice the heavy stress from those in power now on you will do this or you will do that.