BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Limbaugh's Remarks About Jews Echo "Mein Kampf"
By MARC McDONALD
Rush Limbaugh's recent remarks about Jewish people gave me a sense of deja vu. Where, I wondered, have I heard this sort of thing before? Then, it struck me: Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf.
Take, for example, Limbaugh's Jan. 20 remarks about Jewish liberals:
"Anyway, if you've--if you have often asked that question, if you've been puzzled by so many Jewish people vote liberal or vote Democrat, you--give (Norman Podhoretz's) book a shot."
Here, Limbaugh trots out the "Jews are liberal" stereotype. Hitler did the same thing in Mein Kampf:
"But even more: all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave about the necessary progress of mankind."
Limbaugh's recent remarks also drew criticism when he talked about Jewish bankers:
"To some people, bankers--code word for Jewish--and guess who Obama's assaulting? He's assaulting bankers. He's assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish."
Of course, the topic of "Jewish bankers" was also an obsession of Hitler. In 1939, Hitler famously made a prediction:
"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
Rush Limbaugh's recent remarks about Jewish people gave me a sense of deja vu. Where, I wondered, have I heard this sort of thing before? Then, it struck me: Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf.
Take, for example, Limbaugh's Jan. 20 remarks about Jewish liberals:
"Anyway, if you've--if you have often asked that question, if you've been puzzled by so many Jewish people vote liberal or vote Democrat, you--give (Norman Podhoretz's) book a shot."
Here, Limbaugh trots out the "Jews are liberal" stereotype. Hitler did the same thing in Mein Kampf:
"But even more: all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave about the necessary progress of mankind."
Limbaugh's recent remarks also drew criticism when he talked about Jewish bankers:
"To some people, bankers--code word for Jewish--and guess who Obama's assaulting? He's assaulting bankers. He's assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish."
Of course, the topic of "Jewish bankers" was also an obsession of Hitler. In 1939, Hitler famously made a prediction:
"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
Labels: GOP bigotry, Nazis, Rush Limbaugh
Thursday, December 24, 2009
And the Wacky Wingnut Quote of the Year Goes To:
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"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term"
---former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, Nov. 24, 2009.
.
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As Media Matters has documented, 2009 was a rich year for wacky, creepy, racist, and downright bizarre quotes from America's wingnuts. And one of the strangest came from former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.
On the November 24 edition of Fox News' Hannity program, Perino made the jaw-dropping comment that America "did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."
Runners-up in the "Wacky Wingnut Quote of the Year":
"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black"---Rush Limbaugh on President Obama.
Obama is "biggest liar in the history of the presidency," and he's "getting away with it... because he's a man of color"---Michael Savage.
"This has been a country built, basically, by white folks"---Pat Buchanan.
"The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America"---Michael Savage.
"[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it ... there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."---David Feherty.
"Barack Obama has yet to have to prove he's a citizen. All he'd have to do is show a birth certificate"---Rush Limbaugh.
More 2009 wingnut quotes at Media Matters, here.
"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term"
---former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, Nov. 24, 2009.
.
.
As Media Matters has documented, 2009 was a rich year for wacky, creepy, racist, and downright bizarre quotes from America's wingnuts. And one of the strangest came from former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.
On the November 24 edition of Fox News' Hannity program, Perino made the jaw-dropping comment that America "did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."
Runners-up in the "Wacky Wingnut Quote of the Year":
"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black"---Rush Limbaugh on President Obama.
Obama is "biggest liar in the history of the presidency," and he's "getting away with it... because he's a man of color"---Michael Savage.
"This has been a country built, basically, by white folks"---Pat Buchanan.
"The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America"---Michael Savage.
"[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it ... there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."---David Feherty.
"Barack Obama has yet to have to prove he's a citizen. All he'd have to do is show a birth certificate"---Rush Limbaugh.
More 2009 wingnut quotes at Media Matters, here.
Labels: HateWing radio, Rush Limbaugh, wingnuts
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Rush Limbaugh: America's Biggest Welfare Recipient
By MARC McDONALD
The OxyMoron, Rush Limbaugh, is always bitching and moaning about welfare recipients (and, indeed, he slams any working person who gets any kind of assistance from the government).
Limbaugh's hysterical screeds about the evils of "welfare" seem to get more extreme with each passing year. Indeed, on Sept. 1, 2005, Rush even blamed "the welfare and entitlement thinking of government" for the humanitarian disaster that hit New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
But note that Rush only has a problem with poor people who get welfare. Exempt from his criticism are the rich, the politically-connected, and the corporations, who really collect most of the welfare in this country.
Indeed, the military war profiteers get vastly more welfare than all America's poor people combined. I mean, how many billions of dollars in closed, no-bid contracts did Halliburton alone receive in the Iraq War? And they're merely one of the pig-like, greedy corporations with their snouts at the trough of the bloated, wasteful Military Industrial Complex.
Of course, Rush also exempts himself from his screeds about welfare. After all, the Pig-Man gets loads of welfare himself. Indeed, Limbaugh's entire business is dependent on complete and total free usage of the public airwaves that we the people OWN.
Rush and his backers don't pay a penny for using OUR property. The airwaves we own are every bit as much a tangible asset as real estate or gold.
And Rush gets to use it to spread his NeoNazi hate speech for free.
And it's not like Rush's corporate backers are so broke that they couldn't afford to pay at least a small nominal fee to use our airwaves. (After all, these people just recently signed Rush up for a new contract that will pay him an eye-popping $400 million, on top of the tens of millions Limbaugh has already pocketed over the years).
If Rush's free ride on the public airwaves ain't welfare, then nothing is.
And, of course, this isn't the first time in Rush's life that he's gotten a handout from the government. After all, in his 1996 book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken noted that Rush once admitted on his radio show that he'd been receiving handouts from the government dole back when he was struggling in the 1980s. And now this fat piece of sh*t has the gall to blast any and all government programs that offer a helping hand to working people.
Oh, and to all you wingnuts who constantly bitch and moan about poor people getting a "free ride" off the taxpayers: obviously, you've never been poor, yourselves. If you were, you'd know that America's skimpy, Scrooge-like social safety net hardly offers much of a helping hand to poor people. We're not living in Sweden, for Chrissakes. The vast majority of poor and working-class people in America get ZERO help from the government. Frankly, if you're poor in America, you're on your own these days.
The fact is, Rush Limbaugh is America's biggest welfare recipient (both in a literal and figurative sense).
The OxyMoron, Rush Limbaugh, is always bitching and moaning about welfare recipients (and, indeed, he slams any working person who gets any kind of assistance from the government).
Limbaugh's hysterical screeds about the evils of "welfare" seem to get more extreme with each passing year. Indeed, on Sept. 1, 2005, Rush even blamed "the welfare and entitlement thinking of government" for the humanitarian disaster that hit New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
But note that Rush only has a problem with poor people who get welfare. Exempt from his criticism are the rich, the politically-connected, and the corporations, who really collect most of the welfare in this country.
Indeed, the military war profiteers get vastly more welfare than all America's poor people combined. I mean, how many billions of dollars in closed, no-bid contracts did Halliburton alone receive in the Iraq War? And they're merely one of the pig-like, greedy corporations with their snouts at the trough of the bloated, wasteful Military Industrial Complex.
Of course, Rush also exempts himself from his screeds about welfare. After all, the Pig-Man gets loads of welfare himself. Indeed, Limbaugh's entire business is dependent on complete and total free usage of the public airwaves that we the people OWN.
Rush and his backers don't pay a penny for using OUR property. The airwaves we own are every bit as much a tangible asset as real estate or gold.
And Rush gets to use it to spread his NeoNazi hate speech for free.
And it's not like Rush's corporate backers are so broke that they couldn't afford to pay at least a small nominal fee to use our airwaves. (After all, these people just recently signed Rush up for a new contract that will pay him an eye-popping $400 million, on top of the tens of millions Limbaugh has already pocketed over the years).
If Rush's free ride on the public airwaves ain't welfare, then nothing is.
And, of course, this isn't the first time in Rush's life that he's gotten a handout from the government. After all, in his 1996 book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Al Franken noted that Rush once admitted on his radio show that he'd been receiving handouts from the government dole back when he was struggling in the 1980s. And now this fat piece of sh*t has the gall to blast any and all government programs that offer a helping hand to working people.
Oh, and to all you wingnuts who constantly bitch and moan about poor people getting a "free ride" off the taxpayers: obviously, you've never been poor, yourselves. If you were, you'd know that America's skimpy, Scrooge-like social safety net hardly offers much of a helping hand to poor people. We're not living in Sweden, for Chrissakes. The vast majority of poor and working-class people in America get ZERO help from the government. Frankly, if you're poor in America, you're on your own these days.
The fact is, Rush Limbaugh is America's biggest welfare recipient (both in a literal and figurative sense).
Labels: corporate welfare, GOP hypocrisy, Rush Limbaugh
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Infamous Episodes in GOP History: Rush Limbaugh Mocks Michael J. Fox
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The OxyMoron, Rush Limbaugh, has done a lot of despicable things in his time. But one of the most infamous occurred on Oct. 23, 2006, when Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox's symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Limbaugh mocked and imitated the symptoms that Fox displayed during a TV ad that supported political candidates who favor stem cell research.
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," the Pig-Man told his delusional listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act....This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."
As we all know, taking medication is something that the Pig-Man knows quite a bit about.
You know, watching Limbaugh bouncing around as he does in this video, reminds me of the "bowl full of jelly" line in the classic yuletide poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas."
Indeed, I guess you could even think of the plump Limbaugh as a Santa Claus of sorts (that is, if your image of Santa is an obese, thrice-divorced, serial lying, cowardly chickenhawk, hillbilly heroin-guzzling, NeoNazi piece of shit).
.
The OxyMoron, Rush Limbaugh, has done a lot of despicable things in his time. But one of the most infamous occurred on Oct. 23, 2006, when Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox's symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Limbaugh mocked and imitated the symptoms that Fox displayed during a TV ad that supported political candidates who favor stem cell research.
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," the Pig-Man told his delusional listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act....This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."
As we all know, taking medication is something that the Pig-Man knows quite a bit about.
You know, watching Limbaugh bouncing around as he does in this video, reminds me of the "bowl full of jelly" line in the classic yuletide poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas."
Indeed, I guess you could even think of the plump Limbaugh as a Santa Claus of sorts (that is, if your image of Santa is an obese, thrice-divorced, serial lying, cowardly chickenhawk, hillbilly heroin-guzzling, NeoNazi piece of shit).
Labels: GOP bigotry, Republicans, Rush Limbaugh
Friday, October 09, 2009
Would Black NFL Players Refuse To Play For Limbaugh's Rams?
By MARC McDONALD
"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering"
----Rush Limbaugh, Sept. 15, 2009.
There's growing speculation brewing now that black players will refuse to play for the St. Louis Rams, should hatemonger Rush Limbaugh succeed in his bid to buy the team.
I hope to God this is indeed the case, and that black players will indeed boycott the Rams. I cannot fathom how any African-American football player could play on a team owned by a Nazi asshole like Limbaugh. I mean, this is a man who has essentially built his career by denigrating and mocking black people, with one racist comment after another.
Furthermore, I believe the Rams, and the NFL in general have even more to lose, should they allow the OxyMoron to buy the Rams. I would wager that a lot of fans (like myself) will boycott the NFL. The NFL allows this fat piece of shit a seat at the owners' table at its own financial peril.
"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering"
----Rush Limbaugh, Sept. 15, 2009.
There's growing speculation brewing now that black players will refuse to play for the St. Louis Rams, should hatemonger Rush Limbaugh succeed in his bid to buy the team.
I hope to God this is indeed the case, and that black players will indeed boycott the Rams. I cannot fathom how any African-American football player could play on a team owned by a Nazi asshole like Limbaugh. I mean, this is a man who has essentially built his career by denigrating and mocking black people, with one racist comment after another.
Furthermore, I believe the Rams, and the NFL in general have even more to lose, should they allow the OxyMoron to buy the Rams. I would wager that a lot of fans (like myself) will boycott the NFL. The NFL allows this fat piece of shit a seat at the owners' table at its own financial peril.
Labels: GOP bigotry, HateWing radio, Rush Limbaugh
Monday, March 02, 2009
Steele Attacks Limbaugh's Show As "Incendiary," "Ugly"
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Today's Republican Party is a sinking ship. And now the rats are turning on each other. As Politico reports, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has attacked the OxyMoron's HateWing radio program. Steele called Limbaugh an "entertainer," whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."
I'm sure that GOP pressure will eventually force Steele to backtrack on his comments. For now, I'm really loving this. And I have to admit: at least for the moment, I do have some respect for Steele, for daring to speak up against this vicious hate-mongering NeoNazi, whose fascist spewings have long been embraced by so many in the GOP establishment.
Here's the report from Politico:
On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."
Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.
But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.
More here.
Today's Republican Party is a sinking ship. And now the rats are turning on each other. As Politico reports, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has attacked the OxyMoron's HateWing radio program. Steele called Limbaugh an "entertainer," whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."
I'm sure that GOP pressure will eventually force Steele to backtrack on his comments. For now, I'm really loving this. And I have to admit: at least for the moment, I do have some respect for Steele, for daring to speak up against this vicious hate-mongering NeoNazi, whose fascist spewings have long been embraced by so many in the GOP establishment.
Here's the report from Politico:
On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."
Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.
But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.
More here.
Labels: HateWing radio, Republicans, Rush Limbaugh
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Why Is The MSM Afraid Of Scrutinizing Rush Limbaugh?
By MARC McDONALD
The New York Times Magazine's recent ridiculous puff piece on Rush Limbaugh continues a trend in which the mainstream media has shied away from any serious scrutiny of the nation's top-rated talk radio host.
It's a courtesy that Limbaugh has never reciprocated. After all, Limbaugh spends day after day on his radio program, demonizing The New York Times in the harshest language imaginable. After listening to Limbaugh's ramblings, you might well be under the impression that the Times is working closely with Al-Qaeda.
But the Times is hardly alone in treating Limbaugh with kid gloves. For such a major celebrity, Limbaugh has never faced any sort of real scrutiny from the mainstream media in his two decades as a national radio star.
It wasn't the MSM, for example, that broke the 2003 story of how Limbaugh was being investigated in connection with illegally obtaining OxyContin. It was the tabloid media (specifically, the National Enquirer).
Amazingly, in 20 years, there has really only been one in-depth look at Limbaugh (and it didn't come from the MSM). It came from author Al Franken's 1996 book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.
Franken's best-selling book exposed Limbaugh for the fraud he is. For the first time ever, the book brought to light Limbaugh's astonishing hypocrisy (such as the fact that he once collected government jobless benefits and the fact he never voted for GOP hero Ronald Reagan) as well as his crude, vicious hate speech (such as calling then 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog").
Big Fat Idiot also revealed how Limbaugh's program peddles outright lies and misinformation on a daily basis. Until Franken's book appeared, little of this information had ever been revealed to a broad audience, thanks to the MSM's silence.
Frankly, if the MSM had been doing its job, there would never have been a need for Franken's book in the first place. Readers appreciated Franken's job in exposing Limbaugh (sending Big Fat Idiot soaring to the top of the best-seller lists).
The MSM has always given Limbaugh a pass. To this day, he serves up a daily helping of outright lies, GOP propaganda and misinformation to his Ditto-Head audience of 14 million.
And Limbaugh isn't the only Right-Wing Hate Spewer treated with kid gloves by the MSM.
Recall how in 2005, Time magazine did a puff piece on Ann Coulter. The article's author, John Cloud, stunned many readers with his cover-story valentine to Coulter, as well as his contention that he "didn't find many outright Coulter errors" in her unhinged, rambling books. (In reality, watchdog sites like Media Matters have documented loads of outrageous lies in Coulter's shoddily researched writings).
And radio host Glenn Beck is yet another nutcase fringe right-wing extremist who gets a free pass from the MSM. In fact, in Beck's case, the MSM rewarded this hate-spewer with his own daily hour-long program on CNN's "Headline News." This, for a right-wing talk show host who once called Cindy Sheehan a "slut."
The New York Times Magazine's recent ridiculous puff piece on Rush Limbaugh continues a trend in which the mainstream media has shied away from any serious scrutiny of the nation's top-rated talk radio host.
It's a courtesy that Limbaugh has never reciprocated. After all, Limbaugh spends day after day on his radio program, demonizing The New York Times in the harshest language imaginable. After listening to Limbaugh's ramblings, you might well be under the impression that the Times is working closely with Al-Qaeda.
But the Times is hardly alone in treating Limbaugh with kid gloves. For such a major celebrity, Limbaugh has never faced any sort of real scrutiny from the mainstream media in his two decades as a national radio star.
It wasn't the MSM, for example, that broke the 2003 story of how Limbaugh was being investigated in connection with illegally obtaining OxyContin. It was the tabloid media (specifically, the National Enquirer).
Amazingly, in 20 years, there has really only been one in-depth look at Limbaugh (and it didn't come from the MSM). It came from author Al Franken's 1996 book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.
Franken's best-selling book exposed Limbaugh for the fraud he is. For the first time ever, the book brought to light Limbaugh's astonishing hypocrisy (such as the fact that he once collected government jobless benefits and the fact he never voted for GOP hero Ronald Reagan) as well as his crude, vicious hate speech (such as calling then 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton a "dog").
Big Fat Idiot also revealed how Limbaugh's program peddles outright lies and misinformation on a daily basis. Until Franken's book appeared, little of this information had ever been revealed to a broad audience, thanks to the MSM's silence.
Frankly, if the MSM had been doing its job, there would never have been a need for Franken's book in the first place. Readers appreciated Franken's job in exposing Limbaugh (sending Big Fat Idiot soaring to the top of the best-seller lists).
The MSM has always given Limbaugh a pass. To this day, he serves up a daily helping of outright lies, GOP propaganda and misinformation to his Ditto-Head audience of 14 million.
And Limbaugh isn't the only Right-Wing Hate Spewer treated with kid gloves by the MSM.
Recall how in 2005, Time magazine did a puff piece on Ann Coulter. The article's author, John Cloud, stunned many readers with his cover-story valentine to Coulter, as well as his contention that he "didn't find many outright Coulter errors" in her unhinged, rambling books. (In reality, watchdog sites like Media Matters have documented loads of outrageous lies in Coulter's shoddily researched writings).
And radio host Glenn Beck is yet another nutcase fringe right-wing extremist who gets a free pass from the MSM. In fact, in Beck's case, the MSM rewarded this hate-spewer with his own daily hour-long program on CNN's "Headline News." This, for a right-wing talk show host who once called Cindy Sheehan a "slut."
Labels: GOP lies, mainstream media, Rush Limbaugh
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Rush Limbaugh Article Shows Wikipedia's Conservative Bias
By MARC McDONALD
I will give the conservatives credit for one thing: they are simply more aggressive than liberals in fighting for what they want.
We all saw this during the 2000 election. Mobs of GOP thugs ferociously fought for George W. Bush, while the Democrats passively sat around, waiting for the phone to ring.
We've also seen this with the Democratically controlled Congress since 2006. Despite facing a White House occupant with approval ratings in the toilet, the Democrats seem impotent and unable to truly challenge Bush and force an end to the disastrous Iraq War.
The GOP's tendency to fight tooth and claw for what they believe in extends to the popular online Wikipedia encyclopedia.
Although Wikipedia is open to edits from anyone and everyone, a casual glance at the site's political articles reveals a distinct right-wing bias.
How can this be?
It's because conservatives are simply more aggressive and are willing to spend the time and effort into putting a right-wing slant into Wikipedia's articles.
I first noticed this trend a year ago. I was casually browsing through Wikipedia and I came across the main article on Bill Clinton.
Out of curiosity, I did a search for how many times Osama bin Laden appeared in the article. Although Wikipedia is an organic entity and articles change, day by day, on that particular day, bin Laden's name was mentioned 26 times in Clinton's article.
I then did a similar search on the main article for George W. Bush. The number of times bin Laden's name was mentioned: a grand total of zero.
I brought this topic up in the "discussion" area of the two articles and the problem has since been rectified.
But I'm sure my experience is not unique for anyone who has spent any time, browsing through Wikipedia's articles.
There is a definitely right-wing slant to most politically oriented articles at Wikipedia. And personally, I think it's simply because the right-wingers are more aggressive in their efforts to edit the site.
Many of these right-wingers apparently spend countless hours on Wikipedia, carefully sanitizing the articles of their heroes. A current case in point: Wikipedia's main article on Rush Limbaugh.
Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the news lately is aware that Limbaugh is currently in hot water over idiotic remarks he made on his radio show on Wednesday in which he called service members who oppose the war in Iraq "phony soldiers."
It's probably one of the biggest controversies of Limbaugh's career (in a career that has been full of controversies from idiotic, bigoted, racist comments Limbaugh has made over the years).
But while Limbaugh's comment has created a firestorm of controversy, you can't read about it on his Wikipedia article. Although one contributor added the "phony soldier" episode to Limbaugh article on Friday, it was promptly deleted by another contributor, who explained his move by saying, "one out-of-context quote is definitely not encyclopedic," (an explanation, by the way, that reflects Limbaugh's own back pedaling attempts to distance himself from his idiotic remarks).
Although Wikipedia features fluid, dynamic content that can change at any time, the "phony soldier" comment has been absent from Limbaugh's article since Friday (even as it has become one of the most-discussed stories in America everywhere from workplace water coolers to the media to the halls of Congress).
But my point in writing this piece isn't necessarily to take Wikipedia to task for having a right-wing slant in its articles. Rather, I would hope that Liberals and Independents (as well as any fair-minded, intelligent, rational adults) get busy and not allow the Bush-loving NeoCons to turn Wikipedia into an online version of AM hate radio.
I will give the conservatives credit for one thing: they are simply more aggressive than liberals in fighting for what they want.
We all saw this during the 2000 election. Mobs of GOP thugs ferociously fought for George W. Bush, while the Democrats passively sat around, waiting for the phone to ring.
We've also seen this with the Democratically controlled Congress since 2006. Despite facing a White House occupant with approval ratings in the toilet, the Democrats seem impotent and unable to truly challenge Bush and force an end to the disastrous Iraq War.
The GOP's tendency to fight tooth and claw for what they believe in extends to the popular online Wikipedia encyclopedia.
Although Wikipedia is open to edits from anyone and everyone, a casual glance at the site's political articles reveals a distinct right-wing bias.
How can this be?
It's because conservatives are simply more aggressive and are willing to spend the time and effort into putting a right-wing slant into Wikipedia's articles.
I first noticed this trend a year ago. I was casually browsing through Wikipedia and I came across the main article on Bill Clinton.
Out of curiosity, I did a search for how many times Osama bin Laden appeared in the article. Although Wikipedia is an organic entity and articles change, day by day, on that particular day, bin Laden's name was mentioned 26 times in Clinton's article.
I then did a similar search on the main article for George W. Bush. The number of times bin Laden's name was mentioned: a grand total of zero.
I brought this topic up in the "discussion" area of the two articles and the problem has since been rectified.
But I'm sure my experience is not unique for anyone who has spent any time, browsing through Wikipedia's articles.
There is a definitely right-wing slant to most politically oriented articles at Wikipedia. And personally, I think it's simply because the right-wingers are more aggressive in their efforts to edit the site.
Many of these right-wingers apparently spend countless hours on Wikipedia, carefully sanitizing the articles of their heroes. A current case in point: Wikipedia's main article on Rush Limbaugh.
Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the news lately is aware that Limbaugh is currently in hot water over idiotic remarks he made on his radio show on Wednesday in which he called service members who oppose the war in Iraq "phony soldiers."
It's probably one of the biggest controversies of Limbaugh's career (in a career that has been full of controversies from idiotic, bigoted, racist comments Limbaugh has made over the years).
But while Limbaugh's comment has created a firestorm of controversy, you can't read about it on his Wikipedia article. Although one contributor added the "phony soldier" episode to Limbaugh article on Friday, it was promptly deleted by another contributor, who explained his move by saying, "one out-of-context quote is definitely not encyclopedic," (an explanation, by the way, that reflects Limbaugh's own back pedaling attempts to distance himself from his idiotic remarks).
Although Wikipedia features fluid, dynamic content that can change at any time, the "phony soldier" comment has been absent from Limbaugh's article since Friday (even as it has become one of the most-discussed stories in America everywhere from workplace water coolers to the media to the halls of Congress).
But my point in writing this piece isn't necessarily to take Wikipedia to task for having a right-wing slant in its articles. Rather, I would hope that Liberals and Independents (as well as any fair-minded, intelligent, rational adults) get busy and not allow the Bush-loving NeoCons to turn Wikipedia into an online version of AM hate radio.
Labels: GOP, Republicans, Rush Limbaugh
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