Rage must be consumed quickly, before it turns rancid.
by John Hayward
03/07/2012
Dan Riehl at Breitbart.com hears the warm purr of liberal tolerance rumbling from the Left, which is growing somewhat vexed that radio host Rush Limbaugh hasn’t ceased to exist yet:
The death threats to Rush are captured in several screen grabs of his Facebook page. "Execute Rush, now!" states one; "Don't just drop sponsorship someone kill this pig now please!!!!," reads another. These and others are documented below, with images and names obscured, so as to not be guilty of fueling the same targeted hatred the White House and Democrats have now gone to great lengths to stoke.
[…] "I think karma got a death grip on breitbart, I think his passing is inspirational. Hopefully rush will die next," reads another message directed at Limbaugh. Meanwhile, in comments posted at the L.A. Times Facebook wall, still undeleted as this article is written, readers state that it "would be nice to see that fat douche taken down but I'm not holding my breath"; "crossing fingers for a huge heart attack," and so on.
Lovely people, aren’t they? Well, at least they never, ever say rude things to women. Just ask Michelle Malkin!
As Riehl notes, we’re watching a pressure cooker of Limbaugh hatred boil over, fueled by a level of political and media synergy conservatives can only marvel at.
In what appears to be overt coordination with the White House, the Democratic Party, and organizations such as Media Matters for America, the left has pressed home what it sees as a sudden political opportunity provided by Rush's provocative reaction--despite his apology. The goal is not to protect women--who are frequently mocked by liberal talk show hosts without protest--but to force Rush, one of the most effective forces in conservative media, off the airwaves.
This is the sort of thing the rise of Fox News only hints at for the Right. Liberals aren’t really mad at Fox for dishonesty – they can never produce any examples of it during their anti-Fox rants, and they turn purple when reminded of blatant liberal journalistic frauds like RatherGate. What drives the Left nuts is that Fox can pick up and amplify stories the Left would rather ignore, reducing the time lag from blogosphere chatter to water-cooler conversation.
Political and media synergy is a function of time, and the Right simply cannot reproduce anything like the Democrats’ synchronized war on religious liberty, beginning with bizarre out-of-nowhere questions from political operative George Stephanopolous at a Republican debate, and ending with the high-speed snowball of the Fluke affair. In a matter of hours, Democrat political operatives coordinated with media allies to create a set of entirely false “facts” that “everybody knows” – Sandra Fluke is a wide-eyed 23-year old innocent college student testifying before Congress, she’s trapped in a cruel educational institution that is bankrupting her by refusing to pay for her contraception, and powerful media figure “called her a slut” on the air. The Democrats’ dopey “War on Women” campaign was launched almost immediately after this narrative was chiseled in media stone.
Now that the Left has been worked into a frenzy, however, they are being denied climax. Limbaugh’s not going anywhere. He announced today that he’s signing new advertisers, and said that two of those who earlier pulled out of his show are “begging to come back.” People are starting to buzz about the odious misogynistic garbage some of those other, supposedly pious advertisers are happy to support. A great deal of attention has been focused on Limbaugh, and the Left keeps forgetting that he’s very good at retaining attention.
This leaves inarticulate hatemongers quivering with rage as they post death threats, while the more sober elements of the liberal coalition look for productive ways to invest the unpleasant energy they have harvested – ideally before people come back around to the absurd nonsense Sandra Fluke was actually peddling, in a photo op deliberately misrepresented as a congressional hearing, or the broader outrage against economic and religious liberty she was trying to defend. They might also remember that no one was particularly worried about the cost and availability of contraception before this little circus began.
Besides pumping out fundraising letters, the other obvious ploy for Democrats is to use the evanescent anti-Limbaugh rage against political targets. The Hill reports on one such example:
Democrats are seeking to turn the recent controversy over Rush Limbaugh into a problem for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, with one House Democrat suggesting this week that Romney is at fault for Limbaugh’s ability to stay on the air.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said it is "unquestionably" fair to tie Limbaugh to the GOP candidates, especially Romney.
"The fact is, Bain Capital owns Clear Channel, he's got a conflict of interest, and you can't have a leader like that," he told Current TV's "The Young Turks” on Tuesday night.
Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984, acquired Clear Channel, which hosts Limbaugh’s syndicated show, in 2008.
Yes, Cohen said this on the tiny TV network founded by Al Gore, which continues to employ the odious woman-hater Keith Olbermann, whose misogynistic remarks come in the form of spittle-flecked personal tirades, not satirical misfires. No, Cohen doesn’t get the irony, and neither does any other liberal. All they know is that a very tenuous connection between Limbaugh and Romney has been established – Romney co-founded a firm 28 years ago that purchased the network hosting Limbaugh’s program 4 years ago – and they’re going to tug on that frayed thread until it snaps. Rage must be consumed quickly, before it turns rancid.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.
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