To Defend Bush's Low Poll Numbers, Limbaugh Lies About Clinton, Reagan and Carter
This from JABS blospot
It often amazes me how conservative pundits create alternate realities for their listeners. These fact-challenged realities make great radio -- no one lies to weaken an argument -- but ultimately do listeners a great disservice.
Case in point: On the June 6 edition of his popular radio show, Rush Limbaugh so desperately wants to defend President Bush's continued unpopularity that he offers a "parallel" to former Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter that simply doesn't exist.
LIMBAUGH: The latest USA Today/Gallup update on George W. Bush's presidential job approval rating finds 36 percent of Americans approving of the job the president's doing; 57 percent disapprove. This represents a modest improvement in that measure from recent weeks, a finding mirrored in several other national surveys. In early May, just 31 percent approved of Bush, marking the low point of his administration to date. ... (I)f you went back and looked at several other second-term presidents at this time in their terms, you'd find almost parallel poll results. We know that Bill Clinton was down in the 20s at one point. Jimmy Carter was way down. Reagan was down. This is really -- really not unique.
Let's look at the stupidity of this argument. First, of course, is that Jimmy Carter never had a second term.
But what about Clinton and Reagan? Did Americans ever give them approval ratings of 36% -- the poll figure Limbaugh cited -- in their second terms? No.
According to the polling archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Clinton's lowest approval rating was 36% -- in his first term. In his second term, Clinton's approval rating never dropped below 52% in any poll. And in the "parallel" year -- the second year of his second term, or 1998 -- Clinton's approval ratings ranged from 53% to 73%.
What about President Reagan? His lowest approval rating was 35%, in 1983 -- again, in his first term. In his second term, Reagan's approval rating never dropped below 43% in any poll. And in the "parallel" year -- the second year of his second term, or 1986 -- Reagan's approval ratings ranged from 47% to 64%.
Limbaugh has long praised himself as being among the most influential players in politics today, and has been given credit for providing momentum to help usher in the "Gingrich Revolution" of 1994, when Republicans took 75 seats to gain control of the House of Representatives.
Roughly 13.5 milion people listen to Limbaugh daily -- more than the number watching the nightly news on any of ABC, CBS or NBC. Want to know why surveys have found that listeners and viewers of "conservative media" are consistently less informed than, say, listeners of NPR or viewers of PBS? Limbaugh's "parallel year" argument is a clear example why.
There are thousands of such instances where Rush Limbaugh and his like have deliberately misled American listeners. 13.5 million Americans here in the states don’t realize that they are being lied to, and keep in mind that under the Bush Administration only right wingers like Rush can be broadcast to our troops oversees on Armed Forces Radio. They are afraid to let our troops hear moderate or progressive talk radio. Only right wingers like Rush Limbaugh. Now that Americans have challenged this practice the Bush Administration is planning on removing all talk radio from Armed Forces Radio and replacing it with rap and hip-hop because they can’t afford to let our troops hear another viewpoint than the right wing. Aren’t our troops fighting for Democratic ideals like Free Speech? Over 2,500 Americans have already died in Iraq. More than 20,000 have been wounded with half of those crippled for life. Why is the Bush Administration afraid of the very freedoms our troops are fighting and dying for?
Joe
It often amazes me how conservative pundits create alternate realities for their listeners. These fact-challenged realities make great radio -- no one lies to weaken an argument -- but ultimately do listeners a great disservice.
Case in point: On the June 6 edition of his popular radio show, Rush Limbaugh so desperately wants to defend President Bush's continued unpopularity that he offers a "parallel" to former Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter that simply doesn't exist.
LIMBAUGH: The latest USA Today/Gallup update on George W. Bush's presidential job approval rating finds 36 percent of Americans approving of the job the president's doing; 57 percent disapprove. This represents a modest improvement in that measure from recent weeks, a finding mirrored in several other national surveys. In early May, just 31 percent approved of Bush, marking the low point of his administration to date. ... (I)f you went back and looked at several other second-term presidents at this time in their terms, you'd find almost parallel poll results. We know that Bill Clinton was down in the 20s at one point. Jimmy Carter was way down. Reagan was down. This is really -- really not unique.
Let's look at the stupidity of this argument. First, of course, is that Jimmy Carter never had a second term.
But what about Clinton and Reagan? Did Americans ever give them approval ratings of 36% -- the poll figure Limbaugh cited -- in their second terms? No.
According to the polling archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Clinton's lowest approval rating was 36% -- in his first term. In his second term, Clinton's approval rating never dropped below 52% in any poll. And in the "parallel" year -- the second year of his second term, or 1998 -- Clinton's approval ratings ranged from 53% to 73%.
What about President Reagan? His lowest approval rating was 35%, in 1983 -- again, in his first term. In his second term, Reagan's approval rating never dropped below 43% in any poll. And in the "parallel" year -- the second year of his second term, or 1986 -- Reagan's approval ratings ranged from 47% to 64%.
Limbaugh has long praised himself as being among the most influential players in politics today, and has been given credit for providing momentum to help usher in the "Gingrich Revolution" of 1994, when Republicans took 75 seats to gain control of the House of Representatives.
Roughly 13.5 milion people listen to Limbaugh daily -- more than the number watching the nightly news on any of ABC, CBS or NBC. Want to know why surveys have found that listeners and viewers of "conservative media" are consistently less informed than, say, listeners of NPR or viewers of PBS? Limbaugh's "parallel year" argument is a clear example why.
There are thousands of such instances where Rush Limbaugh and his like have deliberately misled American listeners. 13.5 million Americans here in the states don’t realize that they are being lied to, and keep in mind that under the Bush Administration only right wingers like Rush can be broadcast to our troops oversees on Armed Forces Radio. They are afraid to let our troops hear moderate or progressive talk radio. Only right wingers like Rush Limbaugh. Now that Americans have challenged this practice the Bush Administration is planning on removing all talk radio from Armed Forces Radio and replacing it with rap and hip-hop because they can’t afford to let our troops hear another viewpoint than the right wing. Aren’t our troops fighting for Democratic ideals like Free Speech? Over 2,500 Americans have already died in Iraq. More than 20,000 have been wounded with half of those crippled for life. Why is the Bush Administration afraid of the very freedoms our troops are fighting and dying for?
Joe
posted by Joe | 6/18/2006 02:50:00 PM
3 Comments:
We Democrats need to pound home the message that people like Limbaugh speak for the Republican Party. We need to make sure that the GOP is tarred with their lying racist mouthpieces (Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Savage, etc.).
We need to make the GOP come out and say that these people don't speak for them and that will kill the Right Wing echo chamber.
How hard can it be to discredit a drug-addled racist like Limbaugh? Even Monday Night Football didn't want him!
Conservatives Fear No God ---
Ann Coulter and her ilk (Russ Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, George Bush and other so-called compassionate conservatives) are the biggest liars and hypocrites in American history.
Coulter talks about the outlawed religions of Christianity, Judiasm etc. The is humourous. Christian churches are on street corners all over America, on the radio and cable and Internet. Almost any one with a mouth and a heartbeat can proclaim themself a preacher and open a church or start a religion with nothing more than a business card. It is harder to open a beauty shop than a church.
This is what Coulter calls illegal? Religious institutions don't even pay taxes. The average citizen lands in jail for that.
Ann bases much of her premise that liberals are "godless" because many believe Charles Darwin is correct about evolution. She and Limbaugh obviously don't understand the simplest concepts of evolution.
To wit --
"If we were baboons, you know, if we evolved from that, what happened to them? Why didn't they evolve, how come they got stuck still being idiot gorillas and stuff and we got to be humans?" - Rush LimbaughMay 21, 2004
Rush apparently thinks a single gorilla is suppose to evolve into a human and then all gorillas become human. Rush does not know the meaning of the word "evolve." He apparently does not know the difference between a shitzou and a schnauzer, either.
What astounds me is that there are so many seemingly intelligent people who believe clowns like Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and Bush.
And if any people are believers in Darwin's principles, it is convervatives like Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity and Bush.
They believe in Darwin's most primal law -- survival of the fittest. It is the Republicans and conservatives who believe the strong, not the meek, shall inherit the earth and everything on it and in it. Conservatives pillage the economy and the planet every time they are in office. Why? Because they can.
They have no conscience. They are not at all God-fearing. Most of them don't even believe in the God of the Bible or in Jesus or anything he taught. They only thing Republicans and conservatives fear are liberals.
Well said!
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