Rush Limbaugh

Michelle Obama’s Hashtag Mini-Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

mo_selfie_lg

The debate over Michelle Obama’s ill-advised foray into hashtag diplomacy–itself a misbegotten creature whose birth we will live to regret, if we don’t already–has turned nasty and stupid, and, of course, partisan, with the media, so incapable of objective analysis now that it hurts even to watch it pretend, rushing to defend the First Lady who walked right into this spinning blade, and should have known better.

Some observations and conclusions:

  • When the First Lady, any of them, presumes to wade into policy matters with the force of her husband’s office behind her, he is presumed to approve. When the policy matter involves international diplomacy, which, we hope, is carefully planned, whatever action or statement the First lady makes is indistinguishable from a Presidential action. Would the President of the United States appear anything other than weak and ridiculous if his response to any international crisis was to hold a sign in a photograph for Twiiter and make a frownie-face? No. Therefore, it was damaging to the President, the office and the nation for Michelle to tweet the same, but with her in his place, out to the world.
  • Two analogies, one real and one hypothetical, come to mind. In his short term of office, President Gerald Ford’s major domestic problem was exploding inflation, and he obviously had no idea what to do about it. His “program,” essentially, consisted of publicizing the mantra “Whip Inflation Now!,” most prominently embodied with the infamous “WIN” buttons. Ford was widely ridiculed by this exercise in futile gesture and magical thinking. He deserved it. Michelle’s stunt—it is a stunt—is redolent of Ford’s buttons.

The hypothetical: Imagine if the U.S. and the world’s (disgraceful and ) general policy of contrived ignorance of the Holocaust prior to our entering World War II was addressed by FDR having his “legs,” Eleanor, pose for a photo as she held up a sign reading “Save the Jews”…and frowning. Continue reading →

The Ethics Of Rush Limbaugh’s Fillibuster-Rape Analogy, And Why You Should Read Ann Althouse’s Blog

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

wolves-and-sheep…and also never, ever underestimate Rush Limbaugh.

Law prof-blogger Ann Althouse perfectly analyzes Rush Limbaugh’s virtuoso attack on the U.S. Senate Democratic majority’s much-criticized curtailing of the filibuster this week, to pave the way for President Obama’s stalled judicial nominations. Feminists and other knee-jerk Rush-bashers are furious, and, of course, knowing exactly what to say and how to say it to annoy the hell out of them is part of his mission in life, and one which he does very, very well. If you missed it, here’s what Rush said in response to a caller (though if he hadn’t planned on this, I will be shocked, as well as very impressed)… Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fat-Bashing Film Critic Rex Reed

/ Jack Marshall / 68 Comments

melissa_Elle

Actress Melissa McCarthy stole the film “Bridesmaids” right out from under its better known stars, including the screenplay’s author, Kirsten Wigg. In that film, her hit CBS sitcom “Mike and Molly,” and subsequent films (of varying quality), McCarthy has shown that she is s versatile, appealing comedienne with deep dramatic resources. Film critic Rex Reed, however, is mostly concerned with her weight, which is usually a component of the characters she plays and the quality, other than her talent, that sets her apart from the standard issue, impossibly thin, fit and sexy Hollywood actress.

In his withering review of her latest comedy “Identity Thief,” Reed causally refers to McCarthy as a “female hippo” and reduces her career to this: “Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) is a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.” Called on his fat-bashing, Reed responded, “I have lost entirely too many friends to obesity-related diseases to pretend Ms. McCarthy’s alarming obesity is anything to applaud.”

There are two aspects of this that are striking. One is that Rex Reed, who played the pre-op Myra Breckenridge in the awful movie version of Gore Vidal’s gender-bending, and considered scandalous at the time, satiric novel (Raquel Welch, now over 70, was post-op), is still alive and reviewing, albeit obscurely until, as now, he writes something outrageous. At one time—40 years ago? Longer?— Reed was considered the most quotable and one of the most influential film critics; now, to say he is passé would be a compliment.

The other striking aspect of this incident is this:  while the culture will turn with unforgiving venom on any public figure who derides individuals for their color, sexual orientation, malady or disability, any of which would be considered cruel, bigoted, and hateful, deriding individuals because their weight doesn’t meet with aesthetic norms—among which are now out-sized breasts on otherwise fat-free frames and sharply chiseled abdominal muscles, a look that was literally freakish until the dawn of Nautilus and personal trainers—-still is largely regarded as justified and acceptable. Continue reading →

See, Rush, This Is Why A Lot Of People Don’t Trust You

/ Jack Marshall / 65 Comments
It doesn't matter what you do, Bob...there's no pleasing Rush.

It doesn’t matter what you do, Bob…there’s no pleasing Rush.

This afternoon, Rush Limbaugh was mocking Bob Shieffer, of all people, for calling out White House lackey Dan Pfeiffer for his various attempts to deflect the Obama scandal barrage.  During the appearance of Pfeiffer as a White House spokesman on “Face the Nation,” Shieffer said,

“You know, I don’t want to compare this in any way to Watergate. I do not think this is Watergate by any stretch. But you weren’t born then I would guess, but I have to tell you that is exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took. They said, “These are all second-rate things. We don’t have time for this. We have to devote our time to the people’s business.” You’re taking exactly the same line they did….and I don’t mean to be argumentative here, but the President is in charge of the executive branch of the government. It’s my, I’ll just make this as an assertion: when the executive branch does things right, there doesn’t seem to be any hesitancy of the White House to take credit for that. When Osama bin Laden was killed, the President didn’t waste any time getting out there and telling people about it. But with all of these things, when these things happen, you seem to send out officials many times who don’t even seem to know what has happened. And I use as an example of that Susan Rice who had no connection whatsoever to the events that took place in Benghazi, and yet she was sent out, appeared on this broadcast, and other Sunday broadcasts, five days after it happens, and I’m not here to get in an argument with you about who changed which word in the talking points and all that. The bottom line is what she told the American people that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where four Americans were killed….But what I’m saying to you is that was just PR. That was just a PR plan to send out somebody who didn’t know anything about what had happened. Why did you do that? Why didn’t the Secretary of State come and tell us what they knew and if he knew nothing say, “We don’t know yet?” Why didn’t the White House Chief of Staff come out? I mean I would, and I mean this as no disrespect to you, why are you here today? Why isn’t the White House Chief of Staff here to tell us what happened?”

I’ve given Shieffer Ethics Hero status for this. Admittedly, in a competent, ethical journalistic environment, such a response to an obvious flack job like what Pfeiffer was peddling would be standard operating procedure, and with a Republican scandal-ridden White House, it might be. The news media’s pro-Obama bias is so strong, however, that Shieffer’s words are welcome, unusual and praiseworthy. So what were Rush’s objections? Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rush Limbaugh

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments

“Speaking of global warming…which has now been proven to be a hoax”…”

—-Rush Limbaugh, riffing today on his radio show regarding the evils of liberals from Obama to Bloomberg.

No, actually, Newsweek is now a hoax.

Actually, Newsweek was the hoax.

This an outright ethics foul, even if Rush believes it. If he doesn’t believe it, it’s a lie. If he does believe it, it is still a reckless, incompetent and irresponsible thing to say to millions of listeners who trust him to tell them the truth.

Global warming, or climate change, is not a hoax. Its exact extent may not be known, or as conclusively known as some scientists and commentators claim. It may be difficult to measure, and the historical data it is being measured against may be flawed. Its researchers may have biases, and have strayed too far over the line into advocacy. They may also have been too willing to stifle dissenting voices in the scientific community. How serious global warming will be, when its effects will be fully felt and how long it will last are all matters of projection and speculation, subject to error. Projections have been, and will continue to be, unreliable, and arguably, too unreliable to justify costly public policy measures. Remedies are speculative, and cost-benefit ratios are in doubt.

It is also true that many of the most vocal and visible supporters of the most dire projections by climate change researchers, as well as the most vociferous attacker of climate change skeptics, literally don’t know what they are talking about. Their fervor is driven by ideology and faith rather than actual expertise and scholarship, and anything they say on the subject should be given no weight whatsoever. This groups includes journalists, columnists, bloggers, celebrities, academics not in the sciences, public officials and leaders, including, depressingly, Barack Obama, whose State of the Union speech comments on climate change were outrageous and irresponsible: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Mitt Romney

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Mitt, Mitt, Mitt…

Ah, Mitt, Mitt. We know you’re disappointed. We know you don’t like to lose, especially when you feel smeared and misunderstood.We know its got to hurt.

There is only one way to lose a Presidential election, though, and it is to smile, say that the winner ran a tough campaign, that the people have spoken, that Americans are lucky to live in a democracy, and that’s it. Hell, Richard Nixon had this act down in 1960, when he lost to Mayor Daley, the Mob, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr, the Texas machine and JFK. He didn’t challenge the integrity of the process or the wisdom of the voters. He just resolved to fix his own Presidential election as soon as he had the chance.

But Mitt, for you to say, as you did yesterday, Continue reading →

Yes, Reporters Engaged in “Collaboration” On Questions For Romney. Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Hidden Camera: The mainstream media meets to plot against Mitt Romney…

Yesterday, the Right Scoop blog breathlessly announced that it had acquired a recording of what an open mic had caught in the discussion among reporters prior . to Mitt Romney’s press conference:

CBS REPORTER: “Yeah that’s the question. I would just say do you regret your question.”

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: “Your question? Your statement?”

CBS REPORTER: “I mean your statement. Not even the tone, because then he can go off on …”

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: “And then if he does, if we can just follow-up and say ‘but this morning your answer is continuing to sound …”

CBS REPORTER:  “You can’t say that.…”

CBS REPORTER: “I’m just trying to make sure that we’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on, we’re covered on the one question.”

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER:  “Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?”

This is it!, proclaimed Rush Limbaugh and, like echoes in a grotto, every other conservative talk show host and blogger, and of course Fox News, bleated the same. The smoking gun! The proof! The mainstream  is engaged in a conspiracy to destroy Mitt Romney and to re-elect President Obama! Just let George Stephanopoulos and the rest try to deny media bias now! Continue reading →

Weather Wars: How the Media Is Trivializing Democracy

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Everybody talks about the weather but…wait a minute!  Why is everybody talking about the weather during the election year political conventions? First we had the liberal media trying to shame the Republicans into cancelling their Tampa convention entirely on the theory that it would be heartless and, yes, racist to “party” while Hurricane Isaac was “drowning black folks” in New Orleans. That was disgraceful and stupid, and now the conservative media, led by Rush Limbaugh, is claiming that there is a conspiracy by Democrats to blame the weather in Charlotte—and even to get liberal media outlets to falsely forecast a storm–to provide cover for the change of venue for President Obama’s speech from a 70,000 seat open stadium to a 20,000 seat arena. I’m not kidding—all the conservative talk shows were blatherings about this all day, as were many of the red blogs. Their point: Obama couldn’t fill the 70,000 seat stadium, so this is a face-saving measure that the media is assisting by hyping the threat of storms. And maybe that is why the speech is being moved—WHO CARES?

There is a duty on the part of those who engage in high-profile coverage of politics, not merely to be fair and accurate, but not to degrade the process and trivialize our elections in the process. No wonder so many Americans, indeed a majority, are so alienated by the political process and its coverage that they can’t be bothered to vote. With all the issues, critical, nation-defining ones, that the two parties need to clarify and articulate their view on to the nation, pundits are attacking the parties because of their responses to the weather?  The conservative weather nonsense is less offensive than the race-baiting over Isaac, but at least twice as stupid. What does the size of Obama’s audience have to do with employment, Iran, Afghanistan, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, immigration reform, the deficit, the debt..anything? This is playground-level nonsense, babies throwing sand in the sand box, and it hurts America. If this kind of utter garbage is going to decide our elections, then why should anyone care about issues or the real abilities and character of the men running for office?

America needs to care and pay attention, yet our trivial, petty, polarized, biased, incompetent, arrogant, nasty, silly, partisan media is going out of its way to make the campaign so sordid and absurd that soon only sordid and absurd voters will be able to stomach it.

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Spark: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin

Sources:

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Did Any Journalists Actually READ Obama’s Autobiography?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Today Rush Limbaugh was fuming over a Politico report that the President had admitted to biographer David Maranis that “Genevieve Cook,” the New York girlfriend depicted in his 1995 autobiography “Dreams From My Father,” was not a real person but a composite of several girlfriends. Rush’s point: the book was widely represented, by the President as well as others, as true. What else in the book is a lie?

Politico, however, did something novel: its reporters went to the book itself. They found that Obama had written, right up front, that some characters were composites, though he didn’t say which. Limbaugh’s larger point is still valid: if it contained fiction, and composite characters are that, the book is not reliable, and is not truly a work of non-fiction that can or should be trusted. Obama did not hide that fact, however…if anyone had been paying attention. Continue reading →

Integrity Test For The Left

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

So...how many progressives and Democrats agree with Voltaire? I wonder.

It should be obvious by now that the furious indignation leveled at Rush Limbaugh for his denigrating rhetoric against activist Sandra Fluke has been expropriated by those who want to limit free speech to their own standards of what constitutes acceptable discourse….and opinion. This has made itself evident both by the strained efforts of eager Limbaugh boycotters to distinguish his use of misogynistic words and the same or worse language used by friendly boors and misogynists against conservative targets. There is a distinction: Rush was engaging in illogical below-the-belt bullying of a barely-public figure for the offense of disagreeing with him, while Bill Maher, for example, was just showing his contempt and disrespect for women generally, which is what anyone who uses the terms “twat” and “cunt,” as he did, is doing. The argument that this ethical divide is so great that it justifies boycotts on one side and complete apathy—or even appreciation!—on the other is unsustainable, which is why Limbaugh’s statement that the organized campaign to take him off the air is not based on the Fluke affair at all. “They’re not even really offended by what happened,” he said. “This is just an opportunity to execute a plan they’ve had in their drawer since 2009.” Continue reading →