By now you've all probably read about, or at least heard about, NPR's Steve
Inskeep's epic sanewashing of Tucker "Mothertucker" Carlson's deservedly
monstrous reputation.
NPR faces wave of pushback for helping MAGA star 'rebrand': 'Stop
sane-washing fascists'
NPR's Steve Inskeep faced thunderous criticism for interviewing a
seemingly contrite Tucker Carlson, who's been trying to distance himself
from President Donald Trump.
However, critics were not interested in hearing Carlson attempt to
rehabilitate his image.
"Apology not accepted," declared attorney Bradley P. Moss...
"Earlier this year, Tucker Carlson said that 'the defining fact of our
lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated,'" reminded
Media Matters' Matthew Gertz. "Journos who don’t watch his show are
helping his effort to rebrand so he isn’t a liability for his protege JD
Vance’s 2028 run."...
"The long awaited antiwar left-right coalition is gonna happen this time
I can feel it," groaned author Eoin Higgins, posting a photo of Charlie
Brown charging toward a football...
"NPR is the latest to rush in & give white supremacist Tucker Carlson
a mainstream media boost, helping to normalize him as he floats creating a
third party and running for president," observed podcaster Brittany Page.
"I listened to the whole thing. Not one single question about his constant
promotion of racist conspiracy theories."...
And the most striking thing about the tone of the critics is what it
wasn't. It wasn't shock. It wasn't confusion or bafflement.
It was a kind of battle-weary "Here we fucking go again" cynicism
inflected disgust that of course the legacy media is going to jump on
any opportunity to rehabilitate the reputation of any conservative blackguard
who dangles a faintly contrition-scented scrap of sucker-bait in the water.
For the sake of fairness, don'tcha know. And balance. And feeding
the tote-bag Centrist the narcotic they crave.
And the reason for the collective eye-roll from us independent outsiders is
that we've seen this kabuki before. Over and over and over again.
One of the earliest Trump-era examples was the media's determination to mistake Glenn Beck's tactical disagreement with Donald Trump for a moral awakening. They rushed to embrace the
then-newly "repentant" Glenn Beck during that brief interlude when he was
cosplaying as a Never Trumper -- a blindingly obvious con about which I a
wrote a great deal back in the day.
For example, in this here post -- Glenn Beck: Canary in the Never Trump Mineshaft
-- which you are free to read or not as you please. The gist is that in 2016 he
got the full treatment -- the door jamb wiping, triple foam wax
and the aromatherapy air fresheners -- from everyone from
The New York Times to NPR because he and Trump, swear to God, were never ever getting back together.
Glenn Beck dons MAGA hat: I will 'gladly' vote for Trump in 2020
Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck appeared to have a change of heart
about President Trump on Friday, vowing to vote for him in the 2020
presidential election. “I will vote for him in 2020! Gladly!” Beck said on his radio show. The
longtime NeverTrump pundit donned Trump’s signature red “Make America
Great Again” hat. Beck pointed to the media's negative coverage of Trump
for spurring his decision. Beck directed a message to the president: “I will tell you — the things
that you have done as the president are remarkable! Remarkable!”..
Glenn Beck: Here’s the real reason the left is coming unhinged, ‘You are
winning’
The same thing happened with Bill Barr. The minute Barr decided to cash in by pretending that his objections to Trump's January 6th conduct somehow erased four years of service as Trump's chief legal enabler, the prestige press was there with a warm towel and a mint on the pillow.
And the
same Steve Inskeep jumped right on the Bill Barr Reputation Rehab bandwagon back in 2022
when Barr was making the rounds, pimping his shitty book,
"Fuck You All, I Got Away With It" "One Damn Thing After
Another."
...if I were to suggest that most Republicans should be eliminated?
Most, but not all.
Would that kind of eliminationist rhetoric ignite the fury of the Moderates
and Centrists?
Denunciation from corporate Dems?
Would it get me a stern lecture from our Never Trump supervisors to propose
that, after we save this country from the Right, we might want to leave some
Republicans alive, but in a safe enclosure. Like a zoo. So
that we will never forget what these people were like?
Perhaps keep one MAGA and a couple of America Firsters on the staff of every
university as living fossils that you can show your children?
Pretty horrid shit...except I'm not the one who said it, and that language of
annihilation was not directed at Republicans.
That, with the poles reversed, is essentially what Rush Limbaugh said in a
speech to the victorious Republicans after they swept to power in both houses
of Congress in 1994.
It’s Rush Night for GOP’s Lawmakers-in-Waiting : Republicans: Congress’
incoming conservatives enjoy red meat, apple pie at orientation dinner.
But main course at love feast is talk show host Limbaugh.
The orientation for incoming freshman Republican members of the 104th
Congress culminated Saturday night with an oratorical dance by the man
they said helped get them to Washington: conservative talk-show host Rush
Limbaugh.
In a remarkable display of appreciation and loyalty, they first made him
an honorary member of the House of Representatives and declared themselves
part of the “Limbaugh Congress,” saying he had given the Republicans“the courage to take back our country.”He responded by suggesting that after they change the country, they might
want to “leave some liberals alive.”
'So you will never forget what these people were like ... keep one Marxist
and two liberals on the staff of every university so you can show your
children ... living fossils. Living fossils.'"
Remember, this was deep, deep into the Before Time. More than a
generation ago. An entirely different century. An era which both
the legacy media and Never Trump media have repeatedly portrayed as a lost age
of civility and comity between the parties, with Donald Trump treated as some
freak anomaly who came out of nowhere.
If that were true -- as the legacy media's and the Never Trump media's
constant
“O tempora, o mores!” handwringing
would have us believe --
then consider
what Limbaugh's words should have looked like against the supposedly
decorous backdrop of 1994.
Such frankly exterminationist language by the most popular talk-show host
in America should have stood out
even more starkly than it
would today.
So, did the Tone Police come out in battalions to issue ringing denunciations
of Limbaugh? Was this such headline news that the normies and Centrists
and Moderates and "independents" were collapsing into the fainting couches in
their millions? Did demands that every single Republican publicly
denounce Hasan Piker Rush Limbaugh become a media
ritual? Did Republican party leaders flee Limbaugh in horror?
Oh fuck no. Instead...from The New York Times, December 12, 1994:
The freshman class, which included not a single "femi-Nazi," one of Mr.
Limbaugh's favorite epithets for supporters of women's rights, whooped and
applauded, proving itself one big fan club of the man it believes was
primarily responsible for the Republican avalanche in November.
Mr. Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the class as its members
tonight finished a three-day orientation here sponsored by the Heritage
Foundation and Empower America, two conservative Washington research
organizations.
Barbara Cubin, an incoming freshman from Wyoming, told Mr. Limbaugh that
because 74 percent of the nation's newspapers had endorsed Democrats,
"talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide." On behalf of
the women in the class, she gave him a plaque that said, "Rush Was Right."
He also received a pin like the ones the freshmen wore, saying, "Majority
Maker."
"Rush is as responsible for what happened here as much as anyone," said
Vin Weber, a former Representative from Minnesota, now of Empower America.
Citing a poll taken after the election by Frank Luntz, a Republican
pollster, Mr. Weber said that people who listened to 10 hours or more a
week of talk radio voted Republican by a 3-to-1 margin. "Those are the
people who elected the new Congress," he said.
A little more history. By 1994, Limbaugh commanded a massive multimedia
empire and operated as one of the most powerful political forces in the United
States. You will recall that, in 1992, the President of the United
States -- George H. W. Bush -- was so thirsty for Limbaugh's support in the
coming election that he invited him for an overnighter at the White House and
personally carried Limbaugh's baggage for him
By 1994, The Rush Limbaugh Show was syndicated on roughly 659 radio stations.
According to industry reports at the time, his program brought in an estimated
20 million unique listeners weekly, making it the most dominant talk-radio
program in the country. And beyond AM radio, Limbaugh hosted a
late-night television show syndicated on 225 stations that pulled in
competitive ratings. His books, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and
See, I Told You So (1993), remained massive national bestsellers
throughout 1994.
And yet, despite the overwhelming evidence that Limbaugh was becoming the
future of the GOP, and of how incredibly dangerous and destructive that future
could be, all of the savviest pundits in the land continued to pretend that
Hate Radio and Fox News either didn't exist or barely mattered.
All these clowns knew of America was what they could glimpse from the windows
of the Acela corridor express, or what they could glean from their fellow
savvy pundits as they passed around legends and fairy tales about America as
they wished it would be, n the belief that, if they all used their
privileged positions in the media to mythologize hard enough, they could
manifest the America they wanted to believe existed.
Very Straussian.
And fifteen years later, the same basic argument was still being made by one
of the most prominent conservative voices in the American media
establishment. Of all the wildly overpaid, savvy pundits playing Hide
The Salami with the real state of the Republican Party, no one worked the
salami harder than...
So what is the theme of our history lesson? It is a story of remarkable
volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to
represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even
in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of
grand illusions and small men behind the curtain…
Over the years, I have asked many politicians what happens when Limbaugh
and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls
come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not
move. There is no effect on the favorability rating or the re-election
prospects. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he’s
not.
But this is not merely a story of weakness. It is a story of resilience.
For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still
reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming
to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they
are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical
Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They
are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than
with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the
slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of
Middle America.
So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation,
everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest
possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican
politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They
pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.
They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real
voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s
more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is
leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid
parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity.
The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s
niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s
coalition-building strategy...
And yet, even in the face of the roaring, racist rise of the Fake Tea Party,
and the groveling apologies RNC chairman Michael Steele was forced to make to
Limbaugh, Brooks went right on pretending that the Republican Party was
something which any idiot with two eyes and a brain unclouded by pundit
delusions could see it was not.
Whatever the reason -- financial, social, psychological, or whatever -- Brooks
went right on pretending and by now he was well into what I've dubbed his
Great Project:
Spoiler: He did, in fact, get away with it, and continues to get away
with it.
So fine. Brooks' strategy for dealing with the explosion of racism,
fanaticism and conspiracy mongering was to bury his head in the sand and
pretend that none of it really mattered because Rush's "millions" were
just imaginary, and not "real voters."
Well history has shown that, like virtually everything else, David Brooks was
completely wrong about this very important fact of American politics.
That he had no fucking idea what he was talking about...and continued spouting
absolute delusional nonsense year after year until Donald Trump slapped
Brooks' toxic Pollyannaism right out of his mouth.
For about five minutes.
However, that does not negate the fact that the rhetoric from the Right during
this time had become increasingly unhinged, conspiracy-addled and bigoted, and
if there is anything the Tone Police profess to hate above all else it is
unseemly language.
So how did that vigilant league of linguistic-propriety enforcers react to the
explosion of madness and racism that the Right directed at Barack Obama every
goddamn day?
I'm glad you asked. This is from the late Michael Gerson
(Dubya's "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" speechwriter
and advisor) writing in The Washington Post on April 7, 2009.
Which, if you do the math, you will notice is barely three months into the
Obama administration:
The Most Polarizing President
Barack Obama is the most polarizing new president in recent history.
In fact, like the rest of the Tone Police, Gerson spent the Obama
administration complaining about how snobbish and foolish Obama was —
everything right up to, and sometimes including, the word “uppity” — and about
what louts and potty-mouths Obama's supporters were.
The most darkly hilarious aspect to frantic denialism about the true condition
of the Republican base (bigots and imbeciles) and their obsession with piling
on Obama and the Left for any slight misstep, whether real or just invented
out of thing air...was how absolutely slobberknockered they were by the rise,
nomination and election of Donald Trump.
How overnight they became a mass of groping blindworms, flailing around for a
theory -- any theory -- about how this could have happened...as long as that
theory met two vital criteria.
First, it could not contradict all the bullshit they'd spent decades spinning
about the noble, yeoman-farmer base of the GOP who all cared deeply about the
deficit and read their kids stories about Edmund Burke before bed every
night.
Second, and of paramount importance, it absolutely could not even hint at the
fact that the Left had been right about the Right all along.
And thus the Never Trump Entertainment Industry was born.
By now the news that Karl Rove spontaneously grew a conscience overnight and
was mortally offended by a racist pig named Bo French has largely come and
gone. From The Guardian:
Republicans criticize racist social media post by Texas member running
for office
Karl Rove, a respected GOP consultant, further said he would vote for
‘bigot’ Bo French’s Democratic opponent after post
A senior Republican has called a party colleague running for office in
Texas “a bigot” over a racist social media post attacking college football
fans – and said he is so outraged by the comments that he will vote for
the candidate’s Democratic rival.
Karl Rove, who was former president George W Bush’s longtime political
adviser and is a respected Republican consultant in Texas, told a private
event in Austin on Sunday that he could not support Bo French’s candidacy
for a seat on the state’s railroad commission, the Texas Tribune
reported.
Instead, he said, he will vote for Houston Democrat Jon Rosenthal over
French, breaking a 32-year run of exclusively backing Republicans...
But it's worth sticking with this story for a minute longer to explore what it
really tells us about Rove, about Rove's Republican Party, and about what the
future of that party looks like.
First, there exists no sum of money large enough for me to use this little
blog of mine to posit that, just maybe, Rove has suddenly developed a conscience
and that he was so deeply disgusted by French's out-in-the-open bigotry that
he would vote for a Democrat. Rove's superpower has always been his
complete amorality. It's the reason the people who hire him, hire him:
there are no depths to which he will not sink to win.
So a story about Jiminy Cricket showing up on his shoulder at this late date
and whispering "Racism is bad" into his ear is as likely as a story about
growing orchids in asphalt. The fucker will probably write in "Lee Atwater" and cackle to himself all the way home.
Second, let's be very clear about this. It is ludicrous on its face to believe that Turd Blossom is objecting to French's racism. What he's objecting to is French's tradecraft. Politicians are supposed to job their filth-mongering out to dirtbag third parties like Rove or Rick Wilson or Matthew Dowd, who, in turn, spread the work around to enough anonymous and deniable sources that there are no traceable fingerprints. Just hundreds of disgusting, lie-riddled fliers that happen to appear under the wiper blades of churchgoers one Sunday.
Or a push-poll asking what you think about John McCain fathering a black baby out-of-wedlock.
Or gay-bashing ballot initiatives showing up in areas where Republicans really, really need to guarantee that large numbers of Bible-thumping homophobes to get to the polls.
Or ads comparing a quadriplegic veteran to the world's most wanted terrorist.
Does anyone remember where and when this one ran?
This has always been the very, very profitable circle of life for Republican political consultants. And with the rise of Trump, more and more Republican politicians are seeing the efficacy and economy of cutting out the middlemen and wholesaling their bigotry and stupidity directly to the base. Which is taking food out of the mouths of scumbags like Rove so, duh, he objects.
Third, if news from this "private event" got out it's because Rove put it
out. Put it out in a way that guaranteed this non-story a couple of days worth of headlines. Rove can see the abyss into which his party is sinking: an abyss towards which he spent his entire career pushing his party.
But now the monster he helped create is eating its creators.
The system of carefully laundered prejudice Rove spent decades perfecting is being replaced by politicians who simply say the quiet part out loud, which is perhaps why Rove picking an obscure, state-level race over which to publicly clutch his ersatz Indignation Pearls
Because that sure looks to these tired eyes like a man laying down the keel of a career-salvaging lifeboat. One which, one suspects, Rove hopes will eventually carry him to a comfortable berth among the Never Trump rebranding industry.
