The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse: Rush the Spokesman for Football Fans

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a clear and unmistakable sign of the End of the World and the onset of Devine Judgment. ESPN has hired that well known expert on all things football, Rush Limbaugh, he of the big mouth and the wide following among the Boob-wah-zee, as the voice of the fan. It was bad enough that Monday Night Football hired, may all the saints preserve us, Dennis Miller, as the resident smart ass for Monday night. Rush Limbaugh? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are those guys thinking?

For Pete’s sake, at least give me someone who looks like they played the game. I don’t need a representative of the fan. If I did, I sure don’t need this blow hard. I don’t need what amounts to a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party telling me about the game I love. Isn’t it bad enough that Athletes for Jesus have taken over the game and that I get either tribal dancing or genuflecting after every touchdown? Now I will have this wide body telling us how the dreaded liberals have screwed up the game.

Does this clown really have anything to add, or is ESPN just positioning its self to get on the Anti-Christ’s good list when the Time of Tribulation descends on us? Death, War, Famine and Rush! Good God, what next? The Olympics with Bill O’Reilly?

2

Get over it.

Rush is a big football fan, and he’s being paid to talk about football. I don’t forsee him even mentioning politics on this show. Rush has wanted a football-related job for some time, and he’s savvy enough to know he needs to check his politics at the door. Don’t pretend like everybody’s so one-dimensional that they have to present the same facet of their personality in every situation. The only bias he’s likely to show on ESPN is his pro-Steelers one.

Rush is a talented radio voice, and undoubtedly a good speaker. He can hold his own on a talking head show like “NFL Countdown”, without being a sports journalist, and that’s the premise. He’s not an industry insider, ergo he’s closer to being the fan’s voice than the journalists are. And as I understand it from the ESPN talk shows this afternoon, Rush’s role will be limited to a one-minute piece, and then at most a few scattered comments at the round table, and he is not being given an equal role on the show with the present hosts like Chris Berman.

It’s not the first time this approach has been tried. I’m willing to bet Rush will be far superior to the oafish and unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who plays the outsider role on Fox’s pregame program. I’d think even most die-hard leftists would find Kimmel’s “End Suffrage Now” skit from the Man Show far more offensive than anything Rush has ever said or done, and unlike Kimmel who was given a free hand to do little “comedy” bits on Fox’s pregame, Rush is going to talk about sports.

Considering the way these pregame shows are evolving then, it seems that Rush is actually a pretty tame addition in comparison.

3

How much do we have to pay that lard ass to talk about football and nothing else, ever again?

4

I don’t know how much, but I bet it’s in Twinkies.

5

I thought the “End Woman’s Sufferage” skit from The Man Show was downright hysterical. But I’m a bad person.

6

FWIW I believe Rush was a lineman on his high school football team.

7

Are you sure he wasn’t the entire line?

8

I specifically started listening to Rush during lunch about 6 months ago specifically because of all the vitriol and hate I’ve seen thrown at him on these boards, and by the likes of Al Franken.

Now I happen to agree with a fair amount of his politics, so I’m sure that plays into it, but IMO about 95% of the shit that is said against him is a flat fucking lie.

Demonize the man because you don’t like his politics. Nice.

He tends to be kind to his callers. He’s intelligent, well-spoken, consistent, and he meticulously cites his facts, presenting the original audio, or reading directly from transcripts while always crediting his sources both pro and con.

He is openly critical of both the Bush administration and elements and people in the the Republican party. He is not a tool of the Republican party, he is a political conservative.

Rush has quit smoking, overcome a weight problem, and worked through a tragedy where he went completely deaf for several months.

I think some of you people must be stupid because the pompous blowhard thing is obvious hyperbole and not to be taken seriously.

If making fun of fat people is wrong, then it’s still wrong if you happen to disagree with their politics. It’s fucking stupid when the guy isn’t fat either.

Every day or so Rush usually makes a point of playing the audio of some stupid act demonizing him, or mischaracterizing him. He pronounces these attacks good things and is untroubled. To him they confirm that he is indeed correct and proper in his activities.

"They attack me on this level because it is the only level upon which they can attack me. They literally have nothing else. They don’t know what I say. They don’t know what I stand for. It shows you far the left has departed from reality that they do not engage on the issues. They can’t. They don’t have anything anymore. It is these attacks and lies, so openly shown for what they are for anybody who bothers to listen to the show, and the way they do this to everything they disagree with or don’t like, that is the reason that the voting public has given a mandate to the Republican party and conservatives.

We haven’t won the vote, the Democrats have given it away. They do this so much, it seems that it is all that they do, and they have lost their credibilty with the voters."

(My paraphrase, but that’s the essential idea)

I think he’s right.

This thread certainly evidences it.

9

Scylla, if you ever find yourself in N’awlins, we’ll have a couple of beers on me.

10

FWIW, my politics are fairly center of the road, and I skew conservative on more than a couple of issues, but when a commentator had more than once been shown to use inaccurate “facts”, simply to grind his own political axe, refers to himself as having “Talent on loan from God” and nourishes legions of followers who pride themselves on not thinking for themselves but simply endorsing what he says with a “ditto”, I think the term “pompus blowhard” is an understatement.

11

I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood the meaning of “ditto”. It’s shorthand for complimenting Rush on his show. “Dittoheads” are simply fans. The term has nothing to do with endorsing Limbaugh’s views or not thinking for oneself, although it has been misrepresented that way by some of Limbaugh’s opponents.

12

What Dave said. Not to mention the “one-man truth squad” label he affixed on himself, when he clearly doesn’t give a flip about the truth.

13

It’s ironic to accuse someone of not caring about the truth while endorsing a post that pejoratively misrepresents the meaning of “ditto”. :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Weirddave:

Have you personally listened to him for a couple of weeks, or are you just repeating what you’ve heard others say.

Rush has indeed used innacurate facts on occasion and he has also come back and made corrections several weeks afterwards when he has found out that he is wrong.

When that study came out from FAIR blasting him for his innacurate statements he was rightly upset. This FAIR thing is not an impartial study by any sense of the word. It was a deliberate attempt to crucify him by his opposition under the false pretense of impartiality.

He commisioned an independant fact checker to listen randomly but regularly for a period of time, and to check tapes of his show from the past randomly (so if he was lying, simply cleaning up his act for a few months wouldn’t save him.) This study (which is available on Rush’s cite (which unfortunately is a pay one,) found Rush to be accurate up around 99% of the time in his factual statements. He still talks facetiously about how upset he was not to have made 99 44/100 percent pure and thus be on a par with ivory snow.

If you listen to his show, it is very difficult for Rush to lie, because he generally does not make factual statements from out of the blue. he tends to either play the tape making the assertion or credit the source to which he got the cite that he is referring to.

He does generalize, and I on occasion take issue with his generalizations, but those are clearly matters of opinion and not factual statments subject to the same standard.

As has been covered “ditto” is simply shorthand for “I like your show.” Lots of callers used to call up and talk about how much they loved him and his show and fawn over him. He has asked people not to do that. If you wish to compliment him or his show generally you can just say “ditto.” It seems to me that a true pompous blowhard would cultivate such admiration rather than abbreviate it.

I happen to think the “talent on loan from God,” thing is pretty cool, and again, if you’re taking it seriously you’re missing the point. it’s actually self-deprecating.

He acts like the caricature of a pompous blowhard. It’s absolutely obvious if you actually listen for a little while that he is not doing this seriously. I strongly suspect that he does it specifically to bait his detractors.

Listen to his show for a couple of weeks, check out his website and see for yourself. Form your own opinion.

15

I may not like Ray Kerrison’s political columns, but he is one of the best horse race columnists in the country.

good luck to rush with his second job.

16

Cafe Society thread on this topic.

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You know, I’ve seen Limbaugh bashed around here for Eons, but for the life of my I can’t remember the last time anyone posted a factual rebuttal to something he said. It’s all just pure character assassination.

I don’t listen to his show. We don’t get it in Canada. But with all the fatuous liberals like Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, and Al Franken who spout half truths and distort facts, is Limbaugh really deserving of all this vitriol?

BTW, in case some of you weren’t aware, Limbaugh used to work for a professional football team. I think he was the media spokesman or something. So I’m guessing he knows quite a lot about pro football, and might even have some good insider insights. But I won’t be listening to him, because I’m not a football fan, either.

18

Scylla, as it happens, I listened to Rush’s show for a few minutes today. He was talking about the Nevada supreme court and a ruling they made that directly opposed a ammendment to the state constitution ratified by the voters in the mid 90s. Hmm, I thought, this is interesting, I’ll listen for a while. A lady called, and asked about the war in Iraq and about military actions undertaken during Clinton’s terms in office. Rush’s reply was that that was nothing but an attempt to divert the country’s attention from Kenneth Starr’s grand jury.

Uh-huh.

Thank you, I’ll pass. Not three minutes into my listening, and it was the same old thing. Partisan garbage, every time I’ve listened to it. Bill Clinton has been out of office for almost 3 years, the right needs to find a new boogeyman to wail and nash their teeth about.

19

Scylla, as it happens, I listened to Rush’s show for a few minutes today. He was talking about the Nevada supreme court and a ruling they made that directly opposed a ammendment to the state constitution ratified by the voters in the mid 90s. Hmm, I thought, this is interesting, I’ll listen for a while. A lady called, and asked about the war in Iraq and about military actions undertaken during Clinton’s terms in office. Rush’s reply was that that was nothing but an attempt to divert the country’s attention from Kenneth Starr’s grand jury.

Uh-huh.

Thank you, I’ll pass. Not three minutes into my listening, and it was the same old thing. Partisan garbage, every time I’ve listened to it. Bill Clinton has been out of office for almost 3 years, the right needs to find a new boogeyman to wail and nash their teeth about.

20

How did that happen?