In a desperate plea to find more applealing radio content than daytime soaps, I've recently taken to listening to Rush Limbaugh on the Big Talker 1210.
One thing that you have to understand is that Rush is all about entertainment. I mean, he's a radio personality. He doesn't really exist as a political pundit. He makes commentary on how he sees things from a decidedly conservative viewpoint. In this vein, I can't help but think his naive views are vocalized to elicit a reaction from his audience.
I think there are two types of people that must listen to Rush. First, there are the conservative sympathizers. I think this group is much smaller in number than one might initially believe. I mean, wouldn't listening to someone with your own views be like listening your yourself talk? I guess some conservatives need their egos stroked or need to have their opinions broadcast to feel validated.
The second group, probably in greater number, is the leftist Democrat group. I think these guys listen just to hear what flaky right-wing crap Rush has to say next. But ok, that's my theory on his audience.
During the part of the show I caught today, Rush was blabbering about how he doesn't really believe that half of america hates Bush. That if the election was today, Bush would win in a landslide against Kerry. Well, duh.
Before I get onto the Bush/Kerry election thing, let me attack Rush for a minute, because it's fun. Rush is an odd dude. He'll read the polls out of various organizations all talking about how americans generally, by half, don't like Bush, and those people would simply vote for any reasonable Democratic candidate set in front of them. And then he'll say, "I don't believe it." Well, Rush, your disbelief isn't a fantastic counter-argument to the many well-respected polls that you quote.
He gets some guy to come on as a guest and say exactly what would strengthen his position the most. This guest is a democrat that is going to vote for Bush because, as he says, the American people don't have all of teh information needed to make a good decision in their voting. Um. Ok. What information do you have that we don't? Please tell us. Or you can just let Rush agree with you and begin his rant, completely skirting the facts.
Of course Bush would win against Kerry if the election was today. Nobody knows who Kerry is. Kerry is trying hard right now (as any Democratic candidate should) to get himself nominated as the supported Democratic candidate. He's not out talking to Republican voters about his agenda, because that's not currently his goal. With the support of the DNC, Kerry can put good money toward swaying those Republican votes his way.
Besides that, Bush is the sitting president. He has a huge advantage in the election, because most people abhor change. Unless Democrats can convince voters that change is good for our country, they'll have a hard time overcoming the well-funded Bush machine.
Here are some things that I don't like about Bush:
- His education plans don't look like they work. Look at Texas, where a student who graduated with honors from a "no child left behind" high school doesn't even make a passing grade on a basic college entry exam. The system seems flawed.
- Do I have to mention the economy? Bush may have created a huge workforce by forming the DHS, which should amount to a lot of tax money spent domestically, but even with the tax cuts (which sucked, by the way) we aren't very well off.
- Adding religious proclamations to a governmental document that primarily guarantees rights, in a government that was primarily forged to exscape religious persecution is wrong, and reveals the lack of political knowledge that we should require of a president. I don't care what you think about gay marriage, you may not take away someone else's right to it because of your (primarily) religious beliefs.
- I would say that Bush's policies on the environment sucked, but he doesn't have any. That's pretty bad, though, huh?
- He likes war. He won't admit it, but he does. He likes the idea of two US bases in Iraq. He likes the idea of hostilities in Israel. And the whole time he has little concern over the hundreds of US soldiers that have died fighting a war that America, as far as I can tell, didn't need to fight.
- Jobs. Jobs will win this election. The candidate that offers the most appropriate way to close the cheap foreign labor market will win this election. Guaranteed.
It's intersting comparing Rush and Bush on the whole Iraq issue. Bush would have us attack Iraq, a country with nothing to offer us, of no threat to us, in spite of plenty of UN-provided evidence of being no threat. Rush would have us re-elect Bush in spite of the numbers of people in polls proclaiming their hate for the war, and their disappointment with the economy, and their need for a change. Weird, those Republicans.
Man, I hate going off on political ideas here. I'm just irritated by Rush. But like I said, that's kind of his point.
Bush not having any environmental policies? Yikes, he's had a bigger impact on the environment than any other president since Teddy Roosevelt, just not in the way that is helpful. I could post all day here so I just picked two good links. The first, an article in Rolling Stone by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the second, George's record at Sierra Club.
On a related note, another big talking radio personality has been trading barbs with Rush Limbaugh lately and might be the reason that George Bush gets thrown out on his ass this November. Strange as it may seem, Howard Stern, may just be the the catalyst that causes millions of people to vote George out of office. Originally a Bush supporter, Stern has recently taken to bashing W every day on the radio. Stern has tremendous influence on his audience and his influence is considered by some to be the reason Whitman beat Florio in N.J. years back and the reason Pataki is the Governor of New York. Strange thing, politics.
Most polls are showing the presidential race as a dead heat. There is a growing sentiment of "anybody but Bush." Kerry is pedestrian and without distinction, but he's not W. I wish that I could be excited about Kerry, but I am not. I think that few are. Kerry already has the nomination, he's not thinking about that, he is already going after Bush. Campaigning in Texas recently, no less. In fact, this election is unprecedented in the fact that already in March the incumbent is on the warpath already with ridiculously manipulative ads.
Kerry is not likely to get too much useful help from that wussy DNC. They hung Gore out to dry last year. They're a disorganized bunch of infective namby pambys that are symbolic of what's wrong with the party. Chairman Terry McAuliffe is a tool. Kerry needs to distinguish himself as his own guy and convince people he has a plan.
Kerry has a good environmental voting record - that gains points with me, but, the most important thing would happen during a potential Kerry administration is the appointing of a Supreme Court Justice. It's very likely to happen at least once. Chief Justice Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens and even Sandra Day O'Connor are rumored to be considering retirement.
Seldom optimistic, I think I may actually see a light at the election tunnel. With what the wags are referring to as Stern's "schwing" voters I would say it is a done deal, Kerry is the next president except for the fact that the Bush administration is is well poised to steal the election through electronic vote fraud. You think there was a controversy about "hanging chads" in 2000? You ain't seen nothin'. Electronic voting machines have been screwing up all over the country and the manufacturers of these devices are safely in the Republican Party's pockets.
From the enviroment to his opinion on the size of Rush L's audience this owen is a complete imbecile.
Some years back there was a very naive woman who was some sort of celeb, she was heard remarking to a friend of hers "I have no idea how Richard Nixon won this election", "no one I know voted for him"!
Just like that woman who clearly lived within an antiseptic left wing group of people Owen thinks his world is a direct reflection of this great country.
I am not sorry if I burst his (and that moronic H Stern environmental fans) bubble.
Decent ordinary Americans watched how Bill "the jerk" clinton allowed many Americans to die (including 27 U.S. sailors from the USS Cole bombed in Yemen).
Our embassies in africa were leveled and many citizens were killed but it seemed clinton did not count blacks as worthy of fighting back for terrorists killing them. The first trade center bombing was in 93 while clinton was setting the moral code in the white house.
If america had to depend on sissies and traitors like Owen and his environmental buddy to defend us we would be calling each other "comrade". But republicans like R reagan and Geo W Bush will never let us down. They will defend us and even attack bums like Saddam in the effort to protect us!
Decent ordinary Americans are watching US soldiers die every day in Iraq, and the death toll has recently exceeded 1000.
I'm not defending Clinton's apparent inaction, but I am certainly not going to to support a president that sends a thousand soldiers to their deaths to fight a needless war in which no Americans were threatened, while scaring the American public into thinking it's all in the name of "fighting the war on terror."
When you've grown out of your name-calling and are able to defend your points without repeating Rush's right-wing rhetoric verbatim, come on back and we'll share an intelligent conversation.
Hitler was a madman who never got into the U.S. THANK GOD But he started his madness on his own turf.thank GOD for people like our president for stopping history from repeating itself.(saddam hussain was the weapon of mass distruction) like hitler killing and torture becomes a sickness that needs to be stopped!and in the U.S.today there are these wacked out groups that still support people hitler and charlie manson what is our sociaty coming to... listen this isnt some reality show you can turn off when it gets ridiculous this is real life and we have to preserve it!!! and it starts by stopping these madmen
Uh, Saddam Hussein was an ineffectual leader whose military ambitions were stifled by UN sanctions, and whose weapons of mass destruction were nonexistent. Perhaps he was a danger to the world with his reckless dictatorship, but he didn't attack us on 9/11. Since he has been removed from power, though, his country has become a haven for the terrorists that our current president is so adamant about defeating. Still, we send hundreds of troops to die in Iraq each month while the terrorist numbers there swell.
Incidentally, Hitler thought he was on the side of God. I don't think you want to brandish religion as the justification this president uses to invade and kill more innocent Iraqis than terrorists, insurgents, Americans, and illegal prisoners of war combined.
The only madman here is the one who can't see what's going on in his own farce.