Ezra Klein: Limbaugh.

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:



LIMBAUGH.

If you happened to be unaware that there's a guy named Rush Limbaugh who hosts a popular program on AM radio, then this New York Times's profile will be an incredibly illuminating read. But if you happen to be aware of that guy already, and are wondering about the implications of the most popular radio host in America being a global warming denialist and self-described "defender of corporate America," then the piece stands as an extraordinary act of editorial cowardice.

The profile reads a bit like Gadsby, the famed novel written entirely without the letter "e." Here, the Times appears to have challenged itself to write 8,000 words on Limbaugh without saying anything that could be even remotely interpreted as critical. It's perfectly clear why: The article begins with one of Limbaugh's assistants snarling to the reporter, “Are you the guy who’s here to do the hit job on us?” The Times wanted to prove Limbaugh's staff wrong, so they wrote a puff piece. See? Liberals can be fair and balanced too!

But deep within the article are glimmers of a more interesting profile about Limbaugh and the state of contemporary conservatism. Limbaugh -- and Karl Rove, and Jay Nordlinger, and a host of others -- believe Limbaugh to be the intellectual soul of contemporary conservatism. Liberals learn about conservatism from David Brooks, but conservatives learn conservatism from Rush. And we're talking two entirely different conservatisms. Here, for instance, is what Limbaugh describes as his presidential platform:


1. Open the continental shelf to drilling. Ditto the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
2. Establish a 17 percent flat tax.

3. Privatize Social Security.

4. Give parents school vouchers to break the monopoly of public education.

5. Revoke Jimmy Carter’s passport while he is out of the country.

6. Abandon all government policies based on the hoax of man-made global warming.

If liberalish conservative intellectuals seek a Sam's Club Conservatism, then #2 and #3 are the more traditional variant: Mercede's conservatism. #4 is a bad public policy idea, but it is a public policy idea. But #1 #5, and #6 speak of a largely bankrupt movement: They're pure resentment politics, mixed with a toxic distaste for empiricism. The stereotypical liberal loves the environment, so Limbaugh will drill up the shelf, a policy that won't do much to increase the oil supply, but will presumably piss off Al Gore. And you know what will really piss off Al Gore? Doing nothing about global warming. Denying its very existence. Oh, and for good measure, screw Jimmy Carter.

So what does this mean for conservatism? Who cares!? The point of this piece was to leave Limbaugh relatively happy once it was published. In that, the Times succeeded. But Limbaugh fits into an interesting and long-running tension in the conservative movement: Where is its soul? Was it Jesse Helms, a stone-cold racist and bigot? Liberals, in good faith, sort of assumed Helms a marginal figure, and have been informed, in recent days, that he was in fact a key figure. Were Limbaugh to drop dead tomorrow, the obituaries would no doubt extol him as a leading conservative thinker and actor. What does that say about conservatism?

Posted by Ezra Klein on July 7, 2008 9:55 AM


http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=07&year=2008&base_name=limbaugh

[navarth]

1. What does it say about conservatism??

That it's a bankrupt philosophy that doesn't live up to it's name? I mean what the hell do they CONSERVE?

Another cowardly performance from the NY Times....eccch

[baldguy]

2. They "conserve" the profit margin, and seek to expand it.

At the expense of the bottom 90%.

[Initech]

3. I like Bill Hicks' take on that fat piece of crap better:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6F7Q7BkAbCk