Rush Limbaugh Quotes
I had to learn early on that where conservatives are concerned, the truth about them is the last thing anybody wants to report. It's the lies and distortions, the mischaracterizations, the character assassinations, that people want to report.
Limbaugh, Rush. The Rush Limbaugh Show. Premiere Networks, 16 Jan. 2014.
The queen was a lot more sophisticated about the newspapers than politicians in the 21st century.
Even as late as the 1970s most media organizations did not feel any inhibition about having a spokesperson for a political movement or candidate comment about statements that were clearly untrue. The constant political criticism of the media produced this change and no matter how absurd or false a political statement is, most media will have a spokesperson for the lie appear on the program to repeat the lie. Both political parties are thereby encouraged to exaggerate or even lie as they will never by exposed by trusted journalists and can reduce all falsehoods to a “he says, she says.”
At the time, one of the favorite right wing accusations that the media were all biased in favor of liberal points of view. Any time a news story was covered that implied or showed that right wing ideology might be wrong, the conservatives would cry “liberal bias” without addressing whether the objection was sound or not. Often the most extreme right wing views are ideological and flaunt reality. Colbert turned this into a very funny phrase.
Ryan told the national audience that President Obama had come to a factory in his district that as rumored to be closed. Obama had told the workers that the Federal government could assist and keep the factory open for many years. Then as Ryan explained, the factory closed the following year. He gave this as an example of Obama not keeping his word. However what Ryan did not say was that Obama had made the speech at the factory when he was a candidate for the Presidency, and then the factory was closed while George W. Bush was President and by the time he took office, the closure was done and the factory machines gone. And when Obama took office, our national economy was within days of complete bank and finance collapse. Obama saved most of the banks and then the American automobile industry. To suggest that Obama could have or should have done something for the factory that closed was shockingly misleading. It would have been a minor issue if some party hack had lied and made the same accusation. But this was the Vice Presidential Candidate whose acceptance speech was assumedly vetted by the Presidential Candidate’s staff. That is why the quotation was so memorable.
Romney and his surrogates had more than usual difficulty with getting their facts right. Fact checking organizations would call them on this and in April of 2012, Romney ran a TV ad that was grossly wrong and misleading. When asked about the expose of the falsehood of the ad, Newhouse made this classic response. The reason this is an important quotation is that the statement drew much more critical attention than the false had or its classification as untrue did. Even President Obama made fun of it in his campaign speeches. See Martin Amis {631017} for a serious critique of the meaning of the quotation.
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was an American radio personality, conservative political commentator, author, and television show host. He was best known as the host of The Rush Limbaugh Show, which was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations.
