How Rush Limbaugh Damaged The GOP Brand

By MARC McDONALD

When Rush Limbaugh first began spewing his daily dose of bigotry, lies and GOP propaganda back in the mid-80s, Republican leaders rejoiced. In Limbaugh, the GOP had a powerful spokesman who managed to persuade working-class white men to vote against their own interests.

In Limbaugh, the GOP also had a powerful political weapon. In the 1990s, they needed to tarnish President Clinton's reputation. And Limbaugh was on the case, sliming Clinton on everything from Vince Foster to Whitewater. No facts or truth was required, just smears.

Limbaugh's success spawned an entire industry of like-minded right-wing talk radio propagandists, each more extreme and outrageous than their predecessors. They proceeded to take over the AM radio dial. Then Fox News appeared, as well as the likes of Drudge and other right-wing Web sites.

Limbaugh, however, remained the King of GOP Propaganda. And millions of ditto-head listeners across the nation lapped up everything he dished out.

Throughout the 1990s, Limbaugh appeared to be an invaluable asset to the GOP.

But it was all a mirage. In reality, Limbaugh was a growing problem for the Republican Party. And today, he's become a serious liability that continues to damage the GOP brand.

The first signs that Limbaugh was poison for the GOP occurred during the administration of George W. Bush. Of course, Bush was a disaster for the GOP. Which made things decidedly awkward for Limbaugh, the de facto spokesman of the GOP.

With Bush, Limbaugh had two options. The first was that he could criticize Bush and retain whatever few shreds of credibility he had left. The second was that he could support Bush.

Limbaugh, of course, chose to continue backing Bush. In desperation, Limbaugh continued to cling to the faint hope that the long train wreck that was the Bush presidency would eventually turn itself around and that Bush's approval ratings would halt their long descent. Of course, that never happened.

Bush never regained favor with the public. And since he blindly supported Bush to the very end, Limbaugh lost whatever credibility he had left.

Since the 2008 election, Limbaugh has relentlessly pounded away at President Obama every day. But Limbaugh's attacks on Obama are increasingly toothless and impotent and often reach the point of self-parody.

Today, Limbaugh has become a clown and a laughingstock to the general public. Sure, the shrinking numbers of ditto-heads continue to lap it all up. But nobody else takes seriously anything that Limbaugh says.

In short, Limbaugh is no longer converting anyone to the GOP's cause these days. And his once-powerful ability to spread GOP propaganda has been greatly weakened.

Even Limbaugh's once-formidable smear tactic skills have all but vanished. Over the years, Limbaugh has promoted so many discredited smears that nobody takes him seriously any more, outside of the ditto-head base.

Today's Limbaugh has become a pathetic shell of his former self. But for the GOP, it actually gets much worse. The fact is, these days, Limbaugh has become a major liability for the party.

This became evident around the time of the Sandra Fluke controversy. For years, Limbaugh had possessed a special talent to use sexist, racist speech and somehow not pay a serious price for it. But all that came crashing down when Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute."

Unlike previous Limbaugh controversies, the Fluke case didn't simply go away after a couple of news cycles. The controversy dragged on and on for months. It wounded Limbaugh deeply and led to a massive exodus of advertisers.

Of course, the Fluke case didn't merely damage Limbaugh. It damaged the GOP brand. After all, Limbaugh has been GOP's most powerful and high-profile voice for over two decades. Try as they might, GOP leaders were unable to effectively distance the Republican Party from Limbaugh's remarks.

It was one thing for Limbaugh to alienate African-Americans with his racist comments. It was quite another to alienate women (who, of course, make up a majority of U.S. voters).

I suspect that around the time of the Fluke controversy, the GOP's party leaders began to realize that they had a big, big problem on their hands with Limbaugh.

And it's a problem that's not going to go away. For all the talk about Republicans trying to become more mainstream, the fact is, Limbaugh today is as extremist and offensive as he's ever been. What's more, there's now an entire army of radical right-wing talk show hosts on the radio dial, along with the likes of Fox News and Drudge.

The right-wing propaganda apparatus shows absolutely no sign of moderating its extremist views. Listen to today's talk radio and you'll find hosts like Glenn Beck and Mark Levin, who are even more extremist and crazy than Limbaugh.

Besides damaging the GOP brand, the likes of Limbaugh and his talk radio clones are also a powerful force in pushing today's GOP to maintain its hardline, extremist positions. If any individual GOP politician dares to step out of line, he or she can expect torrents of abuse from the likes of Limbaugh.

I suspect today's Republican leaders realize that, in Limbaugh and his ilk, the party has created a Frankenstein that is doing far more damage to the GOP than it ever did to the Democrats.

It's hard for me to conceive of how the GOP will ever solve this mess. Even if they ever somehow persuade Limbaugh to tone down his extremist hate speech, a dozen other right-wing talk hosts will immediately step up to fill his shoes.

Indeed, I suspect Limbaugh realizes this dilemma himself. He likely knows that, if he tones down his radical views, he'll lose his audience to the other right-wing talk radio sharks who are circling in the water. On the other hand, surely even Limbaugh has grasped the fact that his extremism has severely damaged his beloved GOP in recent years.

Why Bill Maher Is Wrong About Rush Limbaugh

MARC MCDONALD

I never thought the day would come when I disagreed with Bill Maher over a free speech issue. I've been a big admirer of Maher for years and I feel he speaks brave truths that can often be heard nowhere else in America.

But I think Maher is wrong to oppose the ongoing efforts to remove Limbaugh's program from the airwaves.

On his Real Time with Bill Maher program on HBO, Maher said he is no fan of Limbaugh, who he called a "stupid fat f*ck." But he decried efforts to silence Limbaugh.

"I don’t like it that people are made to disappear when they say something, or people try to make them disappear when they say something you don't like. That's America. Sometimes you're made to feel uncomfortable, okay?"

In a way, it's understandable that Maher would defend Limbaugh over a free speech issue. After all, Maher's previous program, Politically Incorrect was canceled over controversial comments Maher made after 9/11. Free speech is an issue near and dear to Maher's heart.

But on this issue, I disagree with Maher. I strongly support efforts to remove Limbaugh's program from the airwaves.

The problem that we progressives have always had with Limbaugh has little to do with his politics. In fact, our main gripe with him isn't even the sexist, bigoted, racist remarks that he regularly spews on the nation's airwaves.

Rather, our opposition to Limbaugh is that he is a serial liar, who routinely poisons the nation's airwaves with his outrageous falsehoods.

Personally, I never have understand how Limbaugh can spew out his toxic filth year after year and not get slammed by a libel lawsuit. I worked as a reporter for newspapers for years, and I recall how we all walked on eggshells and lived in constant fear that anything we wrote might attract a libel lawsuit. Libel lawsuits, after all, have shut down many newspapers in the U.S. and ended the careers of many journalists.

But Limbaugh is able to spew out his toxic lies and nonsense and viciously attack and smear people, day after day--and bizarrely, he's able to somehow escape libel lawsuits. I don't claim to be a libel law expert. But frankly, I can't understand how Limbaugh doesn't regularly get sued. Perhaps would-be suers are intimidated by the powerful corporate broadcasting interests behind Limbaugh.

I fully agree with Maher that in a true democracy, we need a wide range of viewpoints. Everyone needs to be able to speak their minds. In fact, I believe the U.S. political spectrum is actually way too narrow. There are a lot of viewpoints that Americans never get exposed to: including actual, real progressive viewpoints. (On the other hand, we do get constantly exposed to the Crazy, Extreme Far Right that is the today's Republican party).

My own opposition to Limbaugh has nothing to do with his political views, or the fact he's a "Conservative." It has to do with the fact that he is a f*cking liar. He routinely makes up lies to promote the Republicans and he routinely makes up lies to viciously smear the Democrats.

He is not a political commentator. He is a liar.

He is not even a "Conservative." He is a Republican party hack.

Political viewpoints from a range of sources belong on our nation's airwaves. But bald-faced outrageous lies do not. As Maher himself has said in the past, democracy simply doesn't work when people vote against their own interests. And nobody has conned the working class in this country to vote against their own interests than Limbaugh. (And it's not because he has any great oratory skills, or powers of persuasion---it's simply because he's a f*cking liar who gets away with it).

As far as I'm concerned, this is much more serious an issue than simply a bunch of gullible, working-class half-wits being conned into voting for the party of billionaires. It is an issue no less serious than the resulting decline and fall of America itself.

As long a fascist pigs like Limbaugh get to spew their lies, the increasingly extremist GOP will control more and more aspects of American life. This hurts America in numerous ways: from the decline of science and education standards to our nation's crumbling infrastructure to endless budget-busting tax breaks for billionaires to the endless insane trillion-dollar wars that the GOP keeps launching.

As far as I'm concerned, this is not a "free speech" issue. It's a Truth vs. Lies issue.

If you're fed up with Limbaugh and the daily toxic nonsense he spews on the nation's public airwaves, I urge you to take action.

Are You Fed Up With Rush Limbaugh? How To Take Action

By MARC MCDONALD

Rush Limbaugh got a lot of attention lately with his mean-spirited, vicious attack on Sandra Fluke, in which he called her a "slut" and a "prostitute" and suggested she post video tapes of herself online having sex. But really, Limbaugh has been doing this sort of thing for many years. Remember in 2006, when Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox's symptoms of Parkinson's disease?

If you're fed up with Limbaugh and the daily toxic nonsense he spews on the nation's public airwaves, I urge you to take action.

Go here to sign a petition to Clear Channel to discontinue Rush Limbaugh's show.

Go here to add your voice to a group of female veterans who are calling for the Armed Forces Network to drop Rush Limbaugh from its programming. (Armed Forces Network by the way, is funded with your tax dollars.

Go to BoycottRush.org and join the more than 100,00 people who've signed the petition there using Limbaugh's advertisers to drop him. Note: this site also includes an up-to-date list of Limbaugh's advertisers, along with contact information.

At this site, you can access the #StopRush Limbaugh Campaign, which rounds up news, info and resources on the various efforts across the Internet to pressure Clear Channel and advertisers to stop supporting Limbaugh.

Go here to file a complaint with the FCC about Limbaugh's show. (Remember, his program is aired on the public airwaves that are owned by We The People. Note: Left Leaning Liberal Lady offers a good suggestion: "contact the FCC to file a complaint against Rush Limbaugh for soliciting pornography via public airwaves."

At this site, you can find detailed information about the companies that are still advertising on Rush's show, as well as updates on those companies who've dropped their ads. Be sure to add your voice to those who are contacting these companies, asking them to stop sponsoring Limbaugh. (And until these companies do so, we should boycott their products and services).

Add your name to this Facebook page which is coordinating a boycott-Limbaugh effort (and which already has over 30,000 "Likes"). (Note: Twitter users can add their voices here at #boycottrush).

Today's Nazi Of The Day Award Goes To Rush Limbaugh

By MARC McDONALD

Today marks the inaugural edition of our Nazi of the Day Award. The first recipient of this award is: Rush Limbaugh.

True, any one of the right-wing talk show hosts that pollute our nation's airwaves with their toxic bile could be eligible for this award. (For example, Mark Levin is a truly creepy, twisted fascist who actually makes Limbaugh sound like a moderate and reasonable fellow at times, by comparison).

But let's face it: Herr Limbaugh is in a different league by virtue of the fact that he's been doing this so effectively and for so long. His racist, bigoted, Nazi ramblings long ago short-circuited the outrage meters of Liberals (and for that matter, anyone who isn't seriously mentally disturbed).

It's gotten so bad that Limbaugh can call First Lady Michelle Obama "uppity" and his use of that racially charged insult is only good for a moderate 12-hour news cycle before it is forgotten.

Quick question: in the past half-century has anyone ever used the word "uppity" in anything other than a Ku Klux Klan-like context? Has anyone ever used the word "Uppity" who wasn't a angry white bigoted male who was slamming African-Americans? If so, I've certainly never heard about it.

But using racially charged language is what Limbaugh excels at. His brief, after all, is to act as a matador of sorts for the Rich and Powerful in America. As a matador, he waves a red flag as a distraction to trick millions of gullible angry white working class people into voting against their own interests.

But how does Limbaugh achieve this feat of manipulating his audience into voting for the party of billionaires? It's simple. He does it by shamelessly scapegoating African-Americans.

Hence, tens of millions of Limbaugh's listeners are convinced that the source of all their problems is that the government supposedly is stealing their hard-earned dollars and handing it out to lazy black people who don't work.

Never mind that America's social safety net for the poor is already embarrassingly threadbare for a First World nation. Never mind that millions of low-income people never receive a dime of welfare in this country. Never mind that corporate welfare and welfare for the rich and powerful is vastly more costly than our nation's skimpy programs for the poor.

I've long believed that, for all his hundreds of millions of dollars in income, Limbaugh has the easiest job in America. All he does is sit on his fat ass and spew lies into a microphone for three hours a day.

The Pig-Man does zero research and zero fact-checking. Of course, none of this matters, as his audience laps it all up with a spoon. They dismiss Media Matters and other fact-checking sites that expose Limbaugh's many daily lies and his blatant racism.

"It's all a Librul conspiracy to hurt Rush," the Ditto-Heads claim.

But while Limbaugh has an easy job, one thing he does do very well is the way he skillfully dances around the "N" word. Although he doesn't actually ever use the "N" word to demonize blacks, he very artfully dances around saying the word "n*gger" on the air.

In doing so, Limbaugh can use the language of the KKK in calling First Lady Michelle Obama "uppity" and then claim with a straight face that he is no racist. (This, despite, an established decades-long track record of making outrageously racist and bigoted statements).

You know, on a certain level, I think I actually have more respect for the likes of the KKK than I do for Limbaugh. After all, the KKK openly admits its racism. It doesn't try to hide anything. Give the KKK credit for one thing: they're honest and upfront about it. By contrast, Limbaugh truly sickens me the way he uses KKK-like language and then disingenuously claims that he not a racist.

So in addition to being a racist, he's also a liar.

Oh, and he's also a Nazi. In fact, I have no doubt that Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels would find much to admire in Limbaugh's technique.

After all, Limbaugh is scapegoating African-Americans in much the same manner that Goebbels scapegoated the Jews.

Just as Limbaugh manages to convince his gullible audience than black people are somehow to blame for their problems, Nazis like Goebbels managed to convince millions of people that the Jews were the cause of many of Germany's woes. (The "stab-in-the-back legend" in which people like the Jews were blamed for Germany's World War I defeat is a good example of the latter).

Like Goebbels, Limbaugh is spewing his toxic nonsense in a decaying, declining nation. And I believe that, as was the case in the Third Reich, it's a situation that could eventually turn tragic.

After all, the more Limbaugh convinces his audience to vote against its own interest, the more we'll see the U.S. increasingly turn into a Third World nation. And the more the latter happens, the angrier and more bitter Limbaugh's audience will become. It's a vicious circle---and I believe it could someday lead to serious violence. These people are already heavily armed and they're very bitter and angry.

After all, America already has a sinister history of racial violence (although most Americans remain unaware of tragedies like the deadly 1921 Tulsa race riot).

Thanks to the legacy of three decades of increasingly extreme GOP policies, the U.S. today is a fading power. America's corrupt political leadership and the criminals run many of our largest corporations and financial institutions have driven this nation into the ground. Although the Top One Percent have never been a bunch of angels, I believe that today, they're more corrupt than ever. And, tragically, they now exercise total control over our government more than they ever have in our nation's history, thanks to Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United.

In previous decades, America's rich realized that while it's OK to gorge themselves at the banquet table, it's smart to occasionally brush off a few crumbs onto the floor for the rest of us. Today's wealthy elite don't even bother to do that. I mean, why bother when you have the likes of Limbaugh to poison the minds of millions of working-class people and to persuade them to vote against their own interests?

As Bill Maher once said, democracy doesn't work when people vote against their own interests. So, in addition to his other crimes, Limbaugh is playing a key role in the dismantling of democracy in America. Clearly, Limbaugh, with his outspoken support for wars of aggression, stolen elections, state-sponsored torture, and his contempt for democracy, would feel right at home in the Third Reich.

So there you have it: today's Nazi of the Day Award goes to Rush Limbaugh. I'm sure that Adolf Hitler would be proud.

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: 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).

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).

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.

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.

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."

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.