Rush’s Low Point

It has been a few days now since Rush Lim­baugh insult­ed the George­town law stu­dent for three days run­ning and then gave the non-apol­o­gy apol­o­gy. And spon­sors have been dump­ing him in response to the social media tsuna­mi (I can not believe I spelled that right the first attempt).

I am still see­ing blog posts about the trou­ble Rush is in (now the music group Rush has demand­ed that Lim­baugh stop using their music on his show.)

Rush is not in trou­ble. He knew he was going low when he went there. He under­stood there would be an out­sized reac­tion to what he said. This is inten­tion­al on his part. The reac­tion proves his con­tin­ued rel­e­vance (which makes one won­der if he was begin­ning to doubt his con­tin­ued relevance).

There will still be spon­sors. His show will con­tin­ue. His audi­ence will remain.

The best response would have been to ignore his state­ments, but even if every­one man­aged that it would sim­ply result in Rush say­ing even worse things.

What he said was bad enough. I sus­pect he will say some­thing as bad or worse some­where down the road. It is what he does.

Don’t Remind Us. We’re Trying to Forget!”

I would seem some con­ser­v­a­tives are all up in arms* over the com­mer­cial Chrysler aired dur­ing the Super Bowl halftime.

Karl Rove does not like it.

Rush Lim­baugh does not like it.

Why? One reason.

Oba­ma saved Detroit. If not for Oba­ma, there would be no Chrysler to air that ad. There would be no GM. And there is a good chance there would be no Ford.**

Oba­ma took con­trol and saved the domes­tic auto indus­try. At lit­tle or no cost to the tax­pay­er (or maybe a profit…final tal­ly is not yet in), Oba­ma saved the domes­tic auto indus­try. The Chrysler ad sub­tly ref­er­ences that fact.

While I watched the ad, I half won­dered if it would turn out to be a polit­i­cal ad, clear­ly pro Oba­ma (though I was expect­ing it to be a Chrysler ad since it is so in keep­ing with many of their ads of late).

Rom­ney says he would have allowed GM and Chrysler to fail. Oba­ma saved them.

This is not just bad news for con­ser­v­a­tives polit­i­cal­ly, it is bad news ide­o­log­i­cal­ly. Oba­ma accom­plished the “impos­si­ble.” Many con­ser­v­a­tives said it would be a dis­as­ter. “Social­ism!” was the cry. Gov­ern­ment can­not inter­vene and expect a good outcome.

But gov­ern­ment did inter­vene. Things did improve. Detroit was saved!

This com­mer­cial reminds us of that fact. Con­ser­v­a­tives want us to for­get it. Maybe more impor­tant­ly, con­ser­v­a­tives want to for­get it them­selves. Facts that con­tra­dict their world­view are intolerable.

Do you think Chrysler is enjoy­ing the noto­ri­ety of the ad? I’m sure they planned on it.

** If GM and Chrysler went under, many of their sup­pli­ers would have gone under, too. Many of those sup­pli­ers also made parts for Ford. Ford would have been in a world of hurt with no source for parts with which to build cars.

Hat tips to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has a nice quick take on the ad, and Ann Alt­house.

Actually, I Had The Same Thought Myself

Ezra Klein cites Lim­baugh­’s com­ments on the sunken oil drilling plat­form.

Rush is won­der­ing about the tim­ing of the event and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sab­o­tage by envi­ro-extrem­ists. Ezra says “Is there lit­er­al­ly noth­ing this man can say that will con­vince Repub­li­cans to dis­avow him?”

I will be shocked and appalled if that event was the result of delib­er­a­tive sab­o­tage, but I would con­sid­er the author­i­ties to be remiss in their job if such a pos­si­bil­i­ty is not at least in the back of their minds while inves­ti­gat­ing the event.

Accord­ing­ly, I can not fault Rush for say­ing what he said.