Did you hear how he screwed up his constitutional references in his speech at CPAC?
That one even made Creative Loafing down in Florida: Rush Limbaugh mangles the Constitution - this time literally?
What business do you think Limbaugh is in? David Letterman does a two-minute segment making jokes and disagreeing with Rush, and Couric doesn’t follow suit. Compare that with Limbaugh himself; on the radio, solo, for three hours a day, five days a week, in every market in the country.
I just don’t see how that passes as liberal bias.
:rolleyes:
It’s simple. You guys already have the support of Hollywood (TV and movies); the music business; entertainment magazines like Playboy, Cosmopolitan, US, People, Maxim, etc.; news magazines like Time and Newsweek; influential newspapers like The LA Times, The Washington Post and The New York Times; plus the cable and broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN. And then there’s the country’s overwhelmingly liberal college and university educational system.
We have Fox and Limbaugh.
And while your side is admittedly less agressive in promoting the liberal point of view and lifestyle, it is insidious in its effect and is responsible for the fact the fact that the liberal point of view is now held by approx. fifty percent of the population.
Now, what does the Fairness Doctrine do? It attempts to shut up Limbaugh at the very least, and more than likely will morph into attempts to silence O’Reilly and Hannity as well.
Now, how does it do this, since ostensibly it only wants to make sure that the other side gets heard?
Two ways. One, since things are overwhelmingly on your side anyway, it dilutes the conservative message further even than it already is. It takes a situation where the ratio of liberal vs. conservative message is already (approximately speaking) 95:5 and seeks to make it 97.5:2.5.
And that’s only what it alleges that it wants to do. What it really wants to do is shut down opposing voices all together by making it unfeasable economically. If a station is presented with having to carry a three hour liberal program that attracts very little in the way of listeners (and therefore advertisers), it can’t afford to carry three hours of Limbaugh, or Hannity because the profits from them don’t offset the loss incurred by the liberal shows. And then what if no one wants to pony up the dough to create these liberal programs that no one wants to watch? It’s my understanding that in that case conservative programs would not be allowed at all, otherwise the doctrine has no teeth.
So you see, the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” is a sham. A wolf in sheep’s clothing that does not seek fairness but to stifle conservative opposition and free speech because that conservative opposition and free speech is making things extremely difficult for the left…a left has had the playing field pretty much all to itself for the last hundred years or so, and now with the rise of talk radio and Fox, it finds itself seriously challenged for the first time. The left does not like this and so it cooked up the so-called Fairness Doctrine in order to stifle this new and surprisingly effective opposition.
And surprisingly, I’d actually favor a Fairness Doctrine that embraced all of the ways that people got their societal input. If you want to put a conservative asshole businessman in your movie, you have to put a liberal asshole in as well. If you want Katie Coric to grin and drool all over Hillary Clinton while she spouts lies about rightwing conspiracies being responsible for accusations of her husband’s infidelities, she should be made to have Ken Starr on and grin and drool convincingly when he says he’s got a blue dress that can prove otherwise. If US or Newsweek want to run happy and wholesome pics of Democrat politicians and celebrities, they should have to run an equal amout of happy and wholesome photos of Republican politicians as well.
I could go on and on but I’m sure you get the idea. There is absolutely no fairness at play with regard as to how society gets its messages, and the playing field is overwhelmingly tilted in the liberal’s favor already. Yet it seeks to focus on one narrow area and pretend that it is only there where the battle is being fought, and it seeks disengenuously to attain ‘fairness’ when what it really wants is to suppress the other side.
Just glurge from Starving Artist.
Nice headline at Wonkette:
…and the country music business, financial magazines like Forbes, news magazines like National Review and The Weekly Standard, influential newpapers like The Wall St. Journal and New York Post, plus the talk radio hosts Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. And then there’s the country’s overwhelmingly conservative religious and financial systems.
Are you trying to claim that conservatism is the natural state of man, and they are only led astray by the liberal conspiracy planting such false ideas in their heads?
Sorry, I have to leave. I’ll try to answer later. (You do bring up some good points though.)
It can’t be said enough:
The truth has a liberal bias.
US News & World Report:
GOP to Michael Steele: Quiet About Rush Limbaugh or You’re Fired
CNN aired Limbaugh’s 90-minute speech at CPAC on Saturday afternoon, uncut.
Just an observation.
From that link:
“We all worship Ronald Reagan”? Yes, I’m sure it was meant as hyperbole. But when I think of all those Republicans last fall getting their panties in a twist about cult-like Democratic voters regarding Obama as “The Messiah” or “The One”, it seems a little inconsistent to treat “we all worship Ronald Reagan” as an unremarkable throwaway line. Are Republicans really not embarrassed about portraying themselves metaphorically as some kind of cult where Reagan is concerned?
If they want the moderates back, kicking Limbaugh to the curb is the least they could do.
He tells them what they want to hear. Do you “Let’s all kumbaya with the Democrats” moderates do that? Nooo.
-Joe
But you fail to understand that St. Ronnie was right, and therefore all that was good, while Obama is wrong, and thus evil and the Antichrist! So, worshipping Ronnie is what all people are supposed to do.
Reagan was the originator of"deficits don’t matter" and “get the foot of regulation off the necks of businessmen”. He set the ball in motion that ended up with the destruction of the worlds economy.
And, which ended up with MUCH more of the money in the U.S. in the hands of fewer, richer people. Which was pretty much the point.
(bolding mine)
And more observations:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/28/cable-news-stimulus/
There is that, and a classic bit from me that so far has not been touched by conservatives when I bring it up:
The guest host issue.
That is when people like Rush or O’reilly have an issue with their butts or loofahs and can not appear in their shows. Then replacements like Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Cal Thomas, (heck, even Chuck Norris replaced Hannity once.) Michelle Malkin, etc. substitute for them.
There is nothing wrong with that, right wingers have the right to show how silly their “fair and balanced” act is.
However, look what happens when the so called “leftist” outfits like CNN or ABC or NBC have to put substitutes in their news shows: the substitute is almost always a reporter or an expert that makes you say “Who the heck is this guy or gal?"
I would expect that if outfits like CNN or NBC were so leftist as people like Starving Artist are insisting that they are, that then something like this would happen often:
“Substituting tonight for Wolf Blitzer, Michael Moore!!!”
Now, I would love to see that, but not because I would like to see Michael Moore calling the shots in a mainstream channel.
It will be because I know that many conservatives would shit themselves at the sight of that.
How the heck did the lefties pull off this miracle? The tighty rightys got all the money, seeing as how rich folks tend to be wee bit conservative. The whole country is center-right, as everybody knows. And the conservative approach to taxation and foreign policies have reaped us dandy wars and a truly wondrous economy. How in the world did the lefties manage to win anything?
Could it be…Satan?
Nah. We’ve got the homos on our side. It’s a badly-hidden secret that all GOP politicos have been wide-stanced at least once. They let us win one occasionally or we’ll let their little (tiny, itsy bitsy, practically an inny) secret out.
-Joe