Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
-Sigmund Freud (attributed)-
-Sigmund Freud (attributed)-
Sometimes not
"So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate."
said Rush the other day at the President's Club Dinner, to appreciative guests like Justice Clarence Thomas, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and other self-satisfied plutocrats who thought it was funny that Clear Channel has had to lay off 12% of its work force while Rush has a $400 million dollar contract with them. Business for Rush has never been better and he's never had a better time either with his 51,000 square foot Palm Beach palace on the ocean, his $54 million dollar private jet and his "populist" radio program where he can tell the boys down at the corner bar why the Liberals are out to get them and then fly off to have dinner with the other plutocrats smoking cigars and laughing their heads off at his jokes about homeless children sleeping under bridges.
That's right Doktor Freud, sometimes it's a cigar, sometimes it's not, but with Rush it's always a way of saying "I've got mine and f*ck you!"
There was a time when I had a high regard for cigars. I associated them with some of our classic comics and clowns like Sid Caesar, Ernie Kovacs, and George Burns. They wielded cigars as the conductor of a marching band would wield a baton … pacing the rhythms of jokes and punch lines.
ReplyDeleteJust shy of his 100th birthday, George Burns made one last stage appearance in Los Vegas, and this joke was his last:
“I was raised to always respect my elders. The problem at my age? There is no one left to respect anymore.”
How sad is our world when a good cigar is wasted on a potty-mouth like Rush Limbaugh.
Life itself is wasted on Rush Limbaugh.
ReplyDeletePT Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute." Sadly, because of this, Rush will always have an audience.
ReplyDelete"I've got mine and f*ck you"- that's the motto of the Republican party.
ReplyDelete"It has been said that tobacco is a product that 'when used as directed, causes illness and death'".Erich Goode, Between Politics and Reason.
ReplyDeleteWe can only hope.
Someone really should torture Rush Limbaugh.
ReplyDeleteThere is also this wise saying:
ReplyDelete"The bigger they are, the harder the fall."
Really. When's the last time he was invited to speak on Meet the Press or Face the Nation or PBS?
He's a clown who makes a lot of money because there will always be people who love to watch clowns.
He has no intellect, no reasoning power, no sense. People like to watch him or listen to him they way they would a tornado. It's fascinating, but always destructive.
Remember: He appeals to a very small minority of undereducated, bigoted Americans. We're a nation of 300 million+ citizens. A tiny minority of those citizens listen to the jerk.
That says more about them than it does the gasbag.
I can see the "liberation" of our country by the forces of Obama hasn't really taken the edge off that anger, has it? Or the envy. Or the snark.
ReplyDeleteOh well.
Patrick my friend. It is right wing bloggers that parrot the venom Rush Limbaugh spews that suffer envy. They see Rush making millions while they sit in front of their computors saying to themselves, "I'm an asshole. I can insult and make things up. Why is Rush making millions while I'm here getting intellectually beaten down by a girl named Shaw and a guy with a goofy moniker like Kind and Gentle?"
ReplyDeleteDon't be ashamed or feel alone Patrick. Just look at the blogrolls of our conservative blogging friends. They are full of these people.
Kind and Gentle,
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be like you: kind and gentle.
Actually, about 6 years ago I was.
Kittens and butterflies used to follw me home from the rainbow store.
"liberation by the forces of Obama?"
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that someone who implies that he's now a writer has to stencil his graffiti on the wall using the patterns he got from captious Republican propaganda.
What gives you the impression that anyone at all sees Obama as a conquering general, or a messiah or any of the other things your argument would need in order to look like it meant something?
No, sorry, if Jesus Christ were president, it wouldn't keep anyone from getting angry at what Bush or his pirates, or you for that matter have done and continue to do.
Confess, you bought a "write by the numbers" kit, didn't you?
Shaw: when a dude with eight tentacles tells you to chill out, you chill out.
ReplyDeletePatrick typed: "I can see the "liberation" of our country by the forces of Obama hasn't really taken the edge off that anger, has it? Or the envy. Or the snark."
ReplyDeleteAnger, Patrick? We're not the ones calling Mr. Obama a Commie-Marxist-Fascist-Socialst-Muslim, now are we? Or calling for "taking back the country."--That one is truly hilarious.
Envy? ENVY? We don't envy the GOP, we pity it. It has become the party of old white, angry, mostly [but not all] undereeducated people. Even Joe the Plumber left it!
Only 21% of Americans gladly identify with it! Envy?! Ha!
We ardently hope the GOP keeps Rush as its leader and the emblematic representative of who they are. Really.
Snark? Always.
101: Are you saying that I, in my enlightenment, am a parrot (when I usually outthink Rush on a regular basis)?
ReplyDeleteAs for envy, none will be found here. I'm too lazy to do so. However, just because you want me to look in the mirror, I'll do so.
Wait, I do that regularly already.
Capt: You take yourself and my comments a little too seriously sometime. Perhaps I "erred" in "suggesting" Obama was anything to you (or Shaw especially) other than a common schlub that got elected. Of course, it could be the slew of posts I've seen on the liberal blogs proclaiming such. Or the fact that the President drops some variation of "the last 8 years" in every damned speech he gives (and yes, I do listen). And despite continuing and accelerating) the Bush bailouts, he still uses this as one of his reasons for everything.
As for the template charge, not likely. I'm the person who invents new lines.
Shaw: We're not the ones... calling for "taking back the country."--That one is truly hilarious.No, you were just doing that for the prior 8 years (to varying degrees as I can't cite comments by everyone for the Bush years).
"As for the template charge, not likely. I'm the person who invents new lines."
ReplyDeleteLet me know when you do.
If you don't want to be taken seriously, why write anything? The nasty little meme telling us that "liberals" take Obama to be a messiah was made up by Republicans so that the perfect could be set up as the enemy of the good.
"The Liberal Blogs"
Of really? you've read all the millions of them, or just enough to select for your argument, and since the word "liberal" has been so debauched as to mean less than nothing, why don't we try to avoid it along with the rest of the dicto simpliciter.
Capt: Of really? you've read all the millions of them, or just enough to select for your argument...I think you know exactly what I mean. Obviously I haven't read every liberal-leaning blog (I said as much to Shaw) out there. And my use of "liberal" is about as broad as the use of "conservative," which would be a simplistic way to describe my blog.
ReplyDeleteOne doesn't have to know the exact notes of a song to understand where it is going.
As for not wanting to be taken seriously, I do, in general. But there's a difference between taking a comment, which was relatively light, too seriously and the commenter, who may have a serious point, yet not just fire it off in a serous way. I've been known to do that a whole lot.
Plus, you occasionally get right wingers who are completely serious when they drop pretty much cut-and-paste comments tearing Obama a new one. I'd rather approach my disagreement with most of the policies of the administration, and more progressive thought, with a little humor, primarily because it's about the merit (or lack thereof) of the ideas presented, not the people that present them.
"One doesn't have to know the exact notes of a song to understand where it is going."
ReplyDeleteAs I remember, Name That Tune wasn't all that easy. Anyway, it all depends on how well it's written. The best always goes somewhere you didn't expect, but whether or not it's true about music, that sentiment remains a popular one for people who put words in others' mouths for the sake of argument. It's actually the definition of prejudice and It's a bit like the slippery slope fallacy, which I can use to "prove" that I can swim the Atlantic. For example, there's the popular: if he's going to let the top bracket go up by 3%, the next step is confiscation of all private property by a Marxist state.
To be blunt, I took offense at the "rage" insinuation, as though having a new president meant we should forget or forgive the outrages of the old one. It reminds me too much of the popular Republican rejoinder: "if you're angry, you must be wrong" people like Ann always use when we're discussing her hysterical rages.
As to the envy, I'm at a loss. Of whom and what am I envious?
I confess I'm not entirely sure what "snark" means. I suspect it was coined to fill in gaps in someone's vocabulary. I'd prefer sardonic, if you can't see your way to "uproariously funny."
Okay, to clarify further on my original comment (which was written in a way to stir the pot), as I now know what bothered you about it, let me restate it more honestly: Despite the fact that Obama and the Democrats now have almost complete control on the government, I've noticed that here (and on the other left-leaning blogs I routinely visit) there seems to be a fixation on people who are 1. marginalized due to the election and 2. speaking to a targeted audience that is decidedly opposed to the policies of the current administration. In addition, I'm always bothered when people fixate on the personal wealth of someone who has been successful as though it has not been earned honestly, as well as sardonic comments that border on mean (which can be funny if you touch the truth (Oxy jokes, for example)).
ReplyDeleteIs that a stereotype I see before me?
ReplyDeletePoor and content may be rich and rich enough for Shakespeare, but it hardly describes me, thanks.
Rush has a lifestyle that would embarrass a Maharaja, but while living at a level of vulgar display that Saddam could hardly aspire to, he has the nerve to say of Democrats "these are the guys who tell you that they are at one with the middle class, feel your pain, etc. . . . they don't want to be anywhere near the common folk"
What provoked that? John Kerry asking for a Philly Cheese Steak without Cheez Whiz.
Nice from a guy whose street is off limits to ordinary mortals and guzzles Chateau Haut-Brion '61 and sends his housekeeper to risk her freedom buying him dope. A regular Guy, Rush is. Feels your concerns. Man of the people who giggles with his friends about how disgusting the rest of us are.
Did he earn his billion honestly? As with anything, it depends on what honesty means. I don't think so however and I think his behavior puts him beyond all sympathy regarding anything one might mock him for.
If you can't see who people like Coulter and O'Reilly and Limbaugh really are, there's really no point to this at all.
Capt: Did he earn his billion honestly? As with anything, it depends on what honesty means.Not in this case (or most cases where a talent is involved).
ReplyDeleteHe is in the radio business. In radio, his money is made by attracting and retaining an audience. He has done so longer and better than anyone else out there. So politics aside (because if it were abut politics alone, he'd be off the air) he has earned his money as honestly as anyone.
If lies and libel constitute an honest living, then the word honest no longer means anything. He makes his living spreading hate, sedition, bigotry and irrational anger. A regular Walter Kronkite, he is.
ReplyDeleteSo what's your point: morality is measured in dollars? I should like him? I should feel jealous of his chronic rectal sores? His drug addiction? His keen wit? His house?
OK, I have to admit his house is a useful to take a bearing on for coastal navigation - and of course that's just where I dump my holding tanks. . .
So what's your point: morality is measured in dollars?No, you posed a question as to whether he earned his money honestly.
ReplyDeleteHe has stated (and I'd quote if I had it handy) that his goal is to build and retain an audience. He has been successful at that.
Now you may not like his opinions. You may question his facts (sometimes correctly). And you may despise his character. But unless he's broken any laws in doing his show (he hasn't that I know of), then there's no other conclusion you can come to on his level of success, based on all available numbers.
And the biggest mark of that success is that we're having a conversation about him (instead of actual politicians and policy makers).