David Brooks has an interesting editorial today in the New York Times about the real world effect of right-wing political shock jocks such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and their actual effect on the political process.
Over the past few years the talk jocks have demonstrated their real-world weakness time and again. Back in 2006, they threatened to build a new majority on anti-immigration fervor. Republicans like J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, both of Arizona, built their House election campaigns under that banner. But these two didn’t march to glory. Both lost their campaigns.
In 2008, after McCain had won his nomination, Limbaugh turned his attention to the Democratic race. He commanded his followers to vote in the Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton because ‘we need Barack Obama bloodied up politically.’ Todd Donovan of Western Washington University has looked at data from 38 states and could find no strong evidence that significant numbers of people actually did what Limbaugh commanded. Rush blared the trumpets, but few of his Dittoheads advanced.
This sounds about right, but it’s difficult to actually think so, because they are continually given a pulpit in which to spew from time and time again all under the banner of ratings. Not only do fans of Limbaugh and Beck watch their shows, but a large amount of people who can’t stand them watch the shows too along with the commercials that go with the program. While someone like Rupert Murdoch may have an obvious right-wing slant, he knows where the money goes and would most likely support a left-wing candidate if it meant them being in front of the camera for at least the next 4 years.
Brooks continues:
But this is not merely a story of weakness. It is a story of resilience. For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of Middle America.
I would think that the silent majority is the people who can’t these political shock jocks, both Democrats and centrist Republicans who would like for their party to gain a scent of respectability again.
My last post on this blog was more than three months ago. I was beginning to think that my blog would fall victim to the Blog Hole, that dark void of countless unfinished blogs and private publications whose voices for one reason or another fell silent due to neglect, forgetfulness, writer’s block and countless other reasons. I will try my best to avoid such tragedies.
I, however, would like to pin official blame on my 6 month diet in which I shed 50 pounds. While I cannot excuse myself, my diet did consist of visits to the gym of up to 5 times or more per week. While that may appear a bit obsessive to some, it was an important factor in my diet as well as the daily maintenance of a journal I kept of everything I ate in order to cap the number of calories I consumed each and every day (1,200-1,400 calories). More on this in upcoming posts.
A high-resolution photo of the presidential inauguration was taken last month that allowed one to zoom in on the various people taking part in the inaugural festivities on January 20. Look closely, and you’ll see supreme court justice Clarence Thomas taking a nap during President Obama’s inaugural speech. I also can’t tell if Samuel Alito is napping as well, although watching him at the inauguration, he seemed rather aloof to the entire affair (perhaps he is still annoyed with Obama voting against his confirmation in the Senate three years ago). But for a justice who rarely utters a word or any at all during oral arguments at the high court, Thomas takes it one step further by napping during not only a historic moment for the country and the world, but at a milestone in African-American history with the election of the country’s first black president.
A happy new year to all, and hopefully stock portfolios the world over look up for 2009!
Had the internet never come around, or perhaps just not YouTube, the video footage seen below would most likely have rotted away in some distant and forgotten television studio vault. I was just a gleam in my mother’s eye when these revelries took place so long ago, a time when there were still two years left in Dwight Eisenhower’s administration, the Beatles were just teenagers in Liverpool, Sputnik 1 was still orbiting the earth and J. Fred Muggs tenure on the Today Show was coming to an end. I’m sure people 51 years from now people will look back on 2008 as a strange time in its own right, laughing quizzically about things such as Facebook, Hannah Montana, reality TV, Sarah Palin, our soon-departing simian-looking chief executive and I’m sure much, much more. How fun hindsight can be…
The December 28th edition of the New York Times Magazine has their 15th annual ‘Lives They Lived’ issue, which I like to think of more as the “Bring Out The Dead” issue. Many great people passed away this year, and it’s a good review of their interesting lives.
A happy new year to all, and hopefully stock portfolios the world over look up for 2009!
The December 28th edition of the
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