I am saying that what is going on with the Limbaugh exchanges, starting with the White House, and including David Frum, Wanda Sykes, Colin Powell, Michael Steele, and Roberta McCain goes way beyond you, and I expect that Limbaugh will fire back as he has the motive, the means, and the requisite lack of inhibition.

Agreed.

Mentioning Limbaugh’s name provokes near hysteria in some quarters. That must mean something. I’m wondering exactly who is feeling inflamed and might start to act on their righteous indignation. These may be straws in the wind announcing a dispute, perhaps over race, that will get ugly indeed.

But the mention of almost ANY name, right or left, that is prominent in the political sphere “provokes near hysteria” from some segment or another of the political population. That fact, in and of itself, proves nothing. Hysteria abounds at both ends of the political spectrum. Mention Dick Cheney at Daily Kos and you’ll get hysteria. Mention Obama at some conservative blogs and the same is likely to result.

BTW, on the whole, my unscientific, entirely anecdotal opinion is that the Conservative blogosphere is more tolerant than the Liberal blogs.

I want to always keep this dictum in mind: The opposition may actually be right on some issues, albeit usually for the wrong reasons.

I used to be all for abortion, now I’m not. My mind was not changed by hysterical, religious-based ultimatum, but by thoughtful debate.

I like this blog because the posts are never hysterical and the comment on the posts is usually thoughtful. I learn things here and have adjusted my thinking on many issues because of the posts and comments.

As for the possibility of things getting more “ugly,” short of shooting real bullets at each other I don’t see how the situation with the extreme Right and extreme Left could get any uglier.

I will take your advice and go back to the Limbaugh website to see for myself.

Take a barf bag with you. You’re going to need it. Key “Fort Marcy” and “Michael Fox” into the site’s search engine and read what you get.

Peace be with you, Oblio. Your heart’s in the right place.

First, look at the date: January 2008, during the period before McCain was nominated. Finding fault with him at that point doesn’t add up to suppressing conservative turnout in the general election, which was your main beef.

Second, I failed to see anything ugly or incendiary in the transcript. There was nothing that was clearly over the line.

Perhaps some people will get inflamed if you even talk about immigration and abortion, no matter what you say or how you say it. I don’t think that any good can come out of going down that road. It suppresses thought at the bidding of emotion. There is no way that we can get good policies on contentious issues without serious thought, or by excluding or ignoring the opinions of people who strongly disagree.

I am saying that what is going on with the Limbaugh exchanges, starting with the White House, and including David Frum, Wanda Sykes, Colin Powell, Michael Steele, and Roberta McCain goes way beyond you, and I expect that Limbaugh will fire back as he has the motive, the means, and the requisite lack of inhibition.

Mentioning Limbaugh’s name provokes near hysteria in some quarters. That must mean something. I’m wondering exactly who is feeling inflamed and might start to act on their righteous indignation. These may be straws in the wind announcing a dispute, perhaps over race, that will get ugly indeed.

I will take your advice and go back to the Limbaugh website to see for myself.

One day while listening to Limbaugh on the radio I heard him offer in reference to the upcoming general election the opinion that he(Limbaugh) no longer had a candidate in the race that he(Limbaugh) could vote for. This was either just before or just after McCain won the nomination.

So I went to Limbaugh’s website, which has archives of his programs, keyed ‘McCain’ into the site’s search engine and got almost a 1000 hits! El Rushbo LOVES to talk about McCain, always in a negative manner of course. Reading through 996 transcripts of his radio program would be the equivalent of reading a long bad book so I read through 3 or 4 pages of hits and got this. It’s not the same crapola that I heard that day but it’s close enough. In it Limbaugh says to a caller, “I can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee” in reference to John McCain.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012408/content/How_Rush_Chooses_Candidates_.guest.html

Limbaugh is a master at insinuation. There’s no doubt that Limbaugh is entertaining, even ‘riveting’ would not be too strong of a description of his style and until a few years ago I was somewhat of a fan myself.

It was thrilling to hear someone talk back to the Lefties in contrast to the usual MSM fawning, to hear someone with a big following who seemed to be mainlining my own thoughts and even bringing up points I might never have thought of on my own.

But something brought my admiration to a halt. Limbaugh started implying that the Clintons had murdered Vince Foster, a member of their administration that had committed suicide. Oh, he was cagey enough not to put it bluntly, as in ‘The Clintons murdered Vince Foster.’ A direct statement like that would have surely brought a lawsuit and perhaps unfavorable publicity so he took/takes the coward’s route, implication and insinuation, mainly with veiled references to “Fort Marcy,” the park where the unfortunate man took his life.

After that I started listening with a more critical ear and realized what he was: a clever blowhard – who in recent years has managed to appoint himself as the unofficial gatekeeper of the Republican Party.

Steele called Limbaugh’s comments “ugly” and “incendiary” when he didn’t need to, and he didn’t specify which comments he meant. Any recent examples would have been sufficient. By my lights, Steele was in the wrong on that count, and it was appropriate for him to apologize.

Judging from my visit to his site almost any Limbaugh broadcast is “ugly” and “incendiary” so I don’t think Steele was under any obligation to quote Limbaugh. Anyway, attempting to so would have only have prolonged the firestorm and would probably have gotten the poor man into even more trouble with Limbaugh’s listeners. Better a quick abject apology, hat in hand, and try to move on without angering the Grand Poobah even further.

Besides, the writer has been presented with several of what I believe are “ugly” and “incendiary” aspects of Limbaugh just in our little exchange on this thread. Does it have to come from Steele’s own mouth in order for him to let the hapless, obviously frightened Steele off the hook? I invite the writer to peruse the transcripts of Limbaugh’s broadcasts – they are all available at Limbaugh’s website – to satisfy himself whether Steele’s comment was justified or not.

Limbaugh might be guilty of something; I don’t know because I don’t listen to him. But let’s ring him up on the right charge. As it is, this feels like an Alinsky campaign to personalize, polarize, and freeze a target. It might only get bigger, because Limbaugh is not inhibited by political correctness, and he can metaphorically shoot back.

I don’t get what the writer is driving at with the above. Is Limbaugh going to “shoot back” at me? This is kind of funny, if that is the writer’s meaning(I’ve had to guess at the writer’s meaning a couple of times during this exchange). Dear readers, I am not important enough for Limbaugh to bring me within his baleful crosshairs. El Rushbo hunts for big game, not insignificant grackles.

Steele called Limbaugh’s comments “ugly” and “incendiary” when he didn’t need to, and he didn’t specify which comments he meant. Any recent examples would have been sufficient. By my lights, Steele was in the wrong on that count, and it was appropriate for him to apologize.

Limbaugh might be guilty of something; I don’t know because I don’t listen to him. But let’s ring him up on the right charge. As it is, this feels like an Alinsky campaign to personalize, polarize, and freeze a target. It might only get bigger, because Limbaugh is not inhibited by political correctness, and he can metaphorically shoot back.

I quote the writer:

… reasonable people will conclude that you are riding a hobbyhorse for reasons best known to yourself.

The writer obviously accuses me of concealing my “reasons” for believing as I do. I see no other way to interpret his words.

I have no “reasons” other than I believe the Republican Party is regretfully headed down the road of sure defeat. It used to be a great political party but these days it is simply a losing organization whose leader Michael Steele, in order to keep his job and save his career, is forced to make an abject public apology to Rush Limbaugh. I vote Republican but am relieved not to be a Republican Party member for I would be ashamed if I were. O how far the Grand Old Party has fallen.

I am giving you credit for having some reasons why you seem to stay so fussed about Limbaugh et al. You haven’t explained what those reasons are.

My reasons for holding Limbaugh in contempt? Here’s a couple:

In one of the more important elections in our history he bashed the Republican Party’s nominee incessantly, from the nomination on through the campaign. This knave has a huge following and no doubt contributed significantly to Obama’s victory.

To vote or not is every citizen’s personal decision. To encourage others NOT to exercise this right, especially when the gullible hang upon your every word, is despicable. The millions who have died to create and defend our right to vote must be turning over in their graves.

I have other “reasons” as well but want to make comment – not write a book.

Perhaps you are particularly sensitive to their messages on immigration, abortion, same sex marriage and perhaps other “social issues” so that you pick up on what they say and are offended by it when other people would simply ignore them.

Did Michael Steele “ignore” Rush Limbaugh? Unless you can believe that publicly kissing Limbaugh’s butt is ignoring Limbaugh I don’t see how it can be reasonably believed that anyone can “simply ignore” Limbaugh’s knavery. His presence is much too large on the political stage.

I do not “ignore” such violations of trust as encouraging folks to throw away their right to vote and abetting Obama’s victory. I despise it and delight in exposing it.

Throw us a bone, man.

I have been offering the opinion that the Republican Party over a period of time has de-emphasized some good political principles(limited government, free market economy, strong national defense) in favor of rather strict social and moral requirements from its candidates and members(religion, family values, etc.) and have contended that this tendency is not good for the Party. If this is “wild” rhetoric then I plead guilty.

But the writer goes even further and ascribes an unnamed but definitely sinister motive to my comments, asserting that I am “riding a hobbyhorse for reasons best known” to myself. I have tried to keep my “reasons” transparent. Is criticism so hard to swallow that evil intent must always be imputed to it?

Let me see if I am understanding the writer’s point by paraphrasing:

If members of the Republican Party disagree with each other the undecided folks within the general public will see this as proof of the untruths which the “progressives” have hurled at the “Religious Right” and this will not only hurt the Republican Party but all conservatives as well. I ask the writer to correct me if this is wrong.

But what has hurt the Republican Party, in my opinion, is that the Republican Party is now commonly thought of by many as the Religious Right Party. Not the Limited Government Party, or the Free Market Party or the National Defense Party; indeed these hallowed principles seemed to have been all but forgotten by the Republican Party. They are given a little bit of lip service when election time rolls around but it’s faint and muffled at best.

Should a political party be pushing religion to the exclusion of other, in my view, more appropriate products? Isn’t promoting religion the job of the churches? Shouldn’t it be up to the individual and his place of worship to deal with religious issues?

What the general public pays attention to is not some infighting between groups within Party but the spectacle of the leaders of the Republican Party getting on their knees to kiss El Rushbo’s butt. Talk about harmful perceptions!