So Many Outrages, So Little Time

[filkertom]

I think we could go on for days and days about the Senate health care compromise, including the fact that Joe Lieberman is apparently going to join the Republican filibuster against it -- can't have them common folk gettin' something they need, and all that, ya might take profit from somebody we go to parties with or somethin' -- but there is one glorious bit of sunshine today, truly a defining (in the dictionary sense) moment of right-wing fucktardedness.

You might've heard that, last week, Rush Limbaugh and others got pranked. The gist of it is, a satirical site made up a phony thesis that Barack Obama had supposedly written in college, and Rush believed it. And then it was exposed as a hoax, while he was still on the air Friday.

Well, here's what Rushbo said about it:

So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway.

I would say "you can't make this stuff up", but obviously you can.

Thoughts on any and all of this? Political open thread. Please keep it civil.

Comments

[ardent-firesong.livejournal.com]

I have but one thought.

Ow.

That is all.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Neoconservatism - because Party unity is more important than the nation.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, Sen. Schumer - chairman of the Senate Rules Committee - seems to be in favor of using reconciliation. I.e. he can tell Lieberman and any other wavering conservaDems to fuck right off, because the reconciliation process makes filibusters impossible.

Somehow, I still hold out hope.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

So now you can be quoted for something you didn't say because someone thinks you think it anyway.

Remember in 2000 when Rush played that phony quote about Gore claiming he invented the internet? Gore didn't say that and Rush still doesn't care about telling the truth.

So how would he feel if someone made up false quotes about him?

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

So how would he feel if someone made up false quotes about him?

We'll never know, because we don't have to.

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

Apparently some of the quotes that were circulating about him during the whole "RL wants to own part of the St. Louis Rams" thing a couple of weeks ago were, in fact, proven to be false.

He immediately went on a rampage because "The liberals have to make up quotes to get anything on me" and insisted that the existence of a couple of false quotes invalidated the majority of quotes that were accurate and not only incredibly racist, but also incredibly insulting to the NFL. (Your opinion of sports and the NFL aside, it's usually not considered good form to insult an organization you then try to join.)

So, apparently, according to Rush, a false quote or two (which, by the way, were completely in line with the other things that he did say) attributed to him is not only a grave insult, but negates the accurate evidence that accompanies it. A false quote attributed to President Obama and regurgitated as fact by him, though, is OK because "we know he thinks it anyway."

Another example of IOKIYAR, I suppose.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

In this case, IOKIYR ("...you're Rush"). :-P

[danceswithlife]

Icon love.

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

Thanks!! :-)

It's one of the ones I made, so go ahead and snag it; all I ask is that you credit me in the comments.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

No one should have false quotes made about them, even Rush. Quote mining is pretty bad too and I see that used pretty often on the right. One of the worst I saw was by the Heritage Foundation. A scientist and Democrat was running for a partial term in Congress. At a public meeting he said, "The idea that you can solve problems by throwing money at them is insane. The Heritage Foundation took the middle part out and played that many times. He won by the way.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between mistake and deliberate indifference. The post-disclosure statement crosses the line.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

"So now you can be quoted for something you didn't say because someone thinks you think it anyway."

They've been doing that for years to Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

"Remember in 2000 when Rush played that phony quote about Gore claiming he invented the internet? Gore didn't say that and Rush still doesn't care about telling the truth."

The real outrage is that the phony quote was perpetuated not by Rush, but by the "respectable" "journalists" at the Washington Post and New York Times, no matter how often that quote and the other lies were debunked. Even when such disparate people as Newt Gingrich and Vint Cert asserted that Gore did deserve credit for making the Internet possible (by sponsoring legislation that allowing the network to be expanded into the public domain), the original lie was repeated and repeated and repeated.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I think it's pretty pathetic that the conservatives are complaining that the OTHER SIDE was slamming the constitution, when the Bush administration was the one using the constitution as toilet paper for the last 8 years.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I find it kind of awesome that they're getting unhinged enough to be consciously and deliberately believing known lies because they feel good politically.

I want to see that kind of ... is "honesty" the appropriate word here? ... a little more often from them, out in the open in front of cameras and microphones.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

The rightwing philosophy can be summarized in one word: Truthiness.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Clearly, we need to write the paper that Rush wrote in high school, if that's how he feels about proper citations. I mean, holy cow! I'm sure he wrote papers supporting the slavery of Hispanics and women (that is, they should be banned from working for pay outside the home), and forbidding same to own property. Didn't he?

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that wildly digressive third paragraph where he describes how physically attracted he is to Jimmy Carter. "My lifelong dream is to become Jimmy Carter's monkey love boy," I believe is the exact quote.

C'mon gang, let's DO THIS!

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

I've re-checked my sources in my head, and the quote was actually "monkey love GIRL." My mistake.

[ebenbrooks.livejournal.com]

As much as health insurance needs to be reformed, I am against the bill in its current form. Why? Because, starting in 2013, it will mandate insurance for everyone. People will have to buy some kind of health insurance plan or face a stiff penalty. I blogged about it here: http://ebenbrooks.livejournal.com/295484.html

Mandatory coverage is WRONG. But no one's talking about it. All the debate has been on the public option, which I strongly support, but no one mentions the fact that, should this bill pass, the insurance companies are going to get millions of involuntary customers.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I know. The idea that you have to buy insurance or you will be fined is beyond insane. People who can't afford insurance can't afford the fines either.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Last time I did the math, this current bill may very well ruin my husband and I. Our through work insurance is 700 a month. BCBS wanted to charge us over 800 a month... eight years ago. I can't imagine with it would be now, if employers no longer cover part of the cost. And at that "low" cost, the government will not help pay for it, even though 700 a month at our income bracket is crippling. The fine is less damaging then the insurance.

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

they are doing this in massachusetts and from what i hear people are not happy with it.
i wish we could just pass tiny bills with only one thing on it. e.g., public option, nothing else; insurance companies can't drop people once they get sick, nothing else. and so on.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

there were was a NPR piece about how President Obama's administration has decided to not treat Fox News as a legitimate news outfit.

One of the moderate/conservative commentators said the he believed Obama was at a disadvantage because his administration was required to make fact-based arguments, and that Fox News wasn't (and hence would lose the media war).

No found any irony in this. No one disputed this. No was shocked or horrified that this could be an actual argument against treating Fox News as not legit - that they would make stuff up.

I can't handle US politics anymore. I just can't. If they think Fox News is going to lie, then by golly, they too should not treat it as legitimate news source.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Neal Boortz came clean on the subject once. What he and Rush and SeanBob and Ann Coulter do is NOT JOURNALISM.

It is ENTERTAINMENT.

It's not to inform. It's to SELL ADS.

You could argue that a heck of a lot of the non-talking-heads shows qualify for that these days too, including all of Faux Snooze. The fact that said shows have any factual content atall is pure coincidence and definitely unintentional.

(Sure, I'm being over-the-top here. But only in the last sentence of the previous graf. The rest of it? I'm quite serious. Boortz was very explicit about it, telling folks not to quote him, but to check his sources and use their own - basically engage in responsible citizen journalism... wow, what a concept.)

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

It's good that Neal Boortz knows that. Rush seems to switch between claiming that he is The Only Source Of Truth and claiming that he's an entertainer depending on which position is advantageous at the time.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Joe Lieberman lost his mind (if he ever had one) about a decade ago. I am not sure he can screw up more in my mind. He's kind of past the limit for blatant, stupid idiocy already.

RushyBoy the drug addict, and how it's ok to make stuff up because he "thinks" (again with the word thinking... these guys don't know what that means anyway) it would be true anyway. He is living in an alternate universe with Bill the Loofah. Unfortunately, it is a dangerous alternate universe, bent on doing us harm. I seriously do not get it.

[kayshapero]

Plergb.

[nomaddervish.livejournal.com]

Good for Lieberman!

Granted, I disagree with his position on health care reform[1], but it's nice to see someone voting their beliefs (or at least saying they plan to) instead of blindly toeing the party line.

[political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community - George Washington

Political parties are bad ju-ju. Voting against your own ideology or against the interests of your constituents in the name of party loyalty is fucking evil. (Yes, I realize that, in this case, Lieberman's ideology is most likely opposed to the interests of his constituents. Hopefully they'll remember that at the next election and fire his ass in favor of someone more appropriate to represent them.)


[1] It really would be nice to see more focus on health care reform, by the way, rather than everyone just talking about health insurance reform. Personally, I'd really like to see a system emerge which makes basic care cheap enough that you don't need insurance at all outside of major emergencies.

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't the FBI have placed Rush in protective custody by now? If he knows what Obama thinks, he is certainly a national security risk. Enemies of this country could make good use of that knowledge. In fact, if Rush is a true patriot, he will turn himself in for the good of the country.

[turk187.livejournal.com]

actually, you can make this stuff up. I don't listen to Rush, but I sometimes read the interesting stuff on his website and the transcript of that segment was one of them. He was talking about how he is often misquoted (or people run with stuff that is just made up) and said that if the press reported on Obama the same way they reported him (Rush) that this was how they would handle the story. He also said, once he had said the quoted line, that the quote would be taken out of context and reported on by the, so called, main stream press - which is exactly what happened.