Boss Limbaugh: We Do Not Need a Listening Tour, We Need a Teaching Tour
By Heather Wednesday May 06, 2009 4:30am
Boss Limbaugh disses the GOP's listening tour and all but gets dissed himself by the panel on AC360. He thinks the GOP needs a "teaching tour" rather than a listening tour. That's almost as ridiculous as the idea that the GOP is going to listen to anyone to begin with during these town halls. As they note during this discussion, the religious right isn't going away any time soon, so it's obvious none of them think that strangle-hold over the party is going to change. And despite all of David Gergen's happy talk about Jack Kemp, what does he really say about him? He wasn't "grumpy". And even though most of his ideas were about tax cuts, he managed to make the poor and the down and out believe he cared about them. He doesn't actually say that he cared about them at all. Just that he managed to get them to believe he did. I thought Gergen's parsing of words here was rather odd if he does actually believe Kemp cared about the poor.
What Limbaugh fails to realize is that the public has pretty well figured out the GOP for themselves with no need for any "lessons" from Limbaugh or anyone in the GOP, and their actions as well as his are already teaching us all we need to know about them. Anyone that's buying the snake oil they're selling already listens to his radio show, or one of his buddies' radio shows, or they're watching Fox Noise, or reading Michelle Malkin and her ilk, or they are getting their political views from their church where they're fed a healthy dose of right wing propoganda each and every week.
Transcript below the fold.
COOPER: Kevin, I want to play something that Rush Limbaugh said about these town-hall meetings essentially, this listening tour that Republicans are on. Let's take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Look, folks, it's this simple. We do not need a listening tour. We need a teaching tour. That is what the Republican Party/conservative movement needs to focus on. Listening tour ain't it. Teaching tour is more apt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So, I mean, are Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush going about it the wrong way, in your opinion?
KEVIN MADDEN, FORMER ROMNEY SPOKESMAN: No, look. I would actually disagree with the idea that it's a rebranding. I think it has more to do, Anderson, with reconnecting with a lot of voters.
Look, the reason we lost in 2008 was because we lost not only Democrats and independents that had long been, you know, members of this grand Reagan coalition, but we lost a lot of Republicans, and we lost a lot of Republicans because of our positions on issues like spending and taxing. And I think those are the reasons why we are seeing an effort like this.
We're going out and reconnecting with a lot of these voters. And especially those voters in the middle class. If you go and do a data discovery of the voters and their opinions after this last campaign, Republicans had failed to win the middle class on issues and ideas that really mattered to them.
COOPER: Joe Johns, is it too simple to make the breakdown in the Republican Party between those who want a big tent and those who want, you know, more sort of social or economic conservatives? I mean, a lot of big-tenters would be economically conservative, but social conservatives? Is that where the fissure is?
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's true. I talked to one Republican who used to work in the House of Representatives during the Tom DeLay days, not Kevin Madden, of course. And he told me, you know, you can't really choose social conservatives versus everybody else in the party.
His point is, you're not going to get rid of the social conservatives. They're going to be there for good. What you can do is try to inject some balance so that the voters out there, the swing voters that this tour is trying to reach, don't end up alienated because it looks like you just have one issue, whether it's abortion or gay rights or what have you. A little bit more balance they want to try to interject.
COOPER: David, what do you make of this listening tour or town- hall meetings, whatever you want to call it?
GERGEN: Well, I think it is a good idea for a party to listen, especially when it's taken a couple of pastings. And Hillary Clinton had a listening tour. These are -- these are good ideas in politics.
But equally important for the Republicans to, in my judgment, to consult their own past. And this weekend seems to be a particularly important time to remember what Jack Kemp was all about and why he was such a popular figure.
In the first place, Jack Kemp was the Republicans' happy warrior. He was -- you know, there's a grumpiness now among some Republicans that Jack Kemp never had, and it attracted people to him.
Jack Kemp was also very, very concerned about how do we find policies that make a difference for the poor and the down and out, the downtrodden? I remember walking the streets of Buffalo with him. And blue-collar people came up to him from all over, because they thought he cared about them.
And finally, Jack Kemp was constantly a source of ideas. Usually around tax cuts, but he had many other ideas, too, about private enterprise zones and the like. And I think that there is a lot about what Jack Kemp represented that, if remembered well, would help to revive the Republican Party.
And it just seems to me, this is a time when you remember the Jack Kemps, the Ronald Reagans and others who had been successful and what it was that made them successful.
COOPER: All right. We're going to have to leave it there.
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Found it interesting that David Gergen actually gave the Republican party legitimate advice - he didn't mock, smear or pile on them. Such actions are commendable. I may not like the direction the Republican Party has gone the past - oh, say, 100 years - but it is good to see some friendly discourse for once. Maybe Rachel Maddow rising popularity is having an effect on TV pundits? (I'm refering to her often interesting and genial conversations with Pat Buchanan among others).
'leading wingnuts' is that shoving ideology at people has gotten them to the this low point...No one wants to be preached at especially when the facts are proven to be lies...
Delusional and selfish!!!
they should implement the waterboarding tour and they can just torture people into siding with them? On a laughable note, Limbaugh could not educate anyone about anything, except perhaps how to obtain prescription medications without a prescription, the best places to go for man/boy sex and how to carry water for the party.
epic dicks
Hey everyone !! Rush is gonna teach us all how to be fat hypocritical drug addled racist pricks. Oh Joy....
there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that I could learn from that worthless bag of goo. It's pretty laughable that he even suggests it.
lets see fatboy wade into the general public and see how that goes for him.
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I was just thinking this morning about that kid that said at the town-hall thingie with Jeb Bush and those other clowns that listening to Rush was more educational then high school or college. Maybe the Republicans can start a new 'charter' school where they just sit and listen to Rush all day. That seems about right for the new Republican party, the anti-law, anti-education, anti-labor; pro-crime, pro-ignorance, pro-corporations party.
I thought they called it home schooling.
but obviously they're thinking of branching out more.
have that, the Morton Blackwell Leadership Institute
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/...
I welcome the input of Rush Limbaugh into the Republican Party.
His insights can only lead to further clarification of the objectives of the GOP, and reinforce the desire for and committment to a more focused and pure Republican Party.
Keep it up, Rush.
do they hate Americans who think for themselves?
won't go on a teaching tour. A tour means lots of cities. Flush has trouble going between his rant chair and the toilet.
Actually its probably the same one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtZJC_4YmE&fe...
This grotesque, sex offending junkie has done more for Democratic popularity than anyone other than Obama. Keep up the great work Rush/whore.
and next to (formerly employed) Dr. Dean, he's the best thing the Democrats have to further the party.
I wonder how much more money he made off this speaking tour ? Hell of a way to make a living......
but the conflict it has to generate within his head would explain why he uses food, drugs and little boys to try to make it go away.
How about the GOP do a "pay attention one damn minute" non-tour.
Do they want to know what Americans want? Just look at what they voted for last November. They didn't vote for the bs the republican party stands for. If the public isn't buying what you're selling, perhaps you have a lousy product.
... they weren't paying attention, and now they have a warehouse full of crap.
You can put it in different boxes, it's still crap.
You can discount it, it's still crap.
You can give it away, it's still crap.
Well, you could analyze your product and see what element of it makes it crap. Remove that element or elements and see if that improves the product.
Teaching people they should like your product will do no good. Listening to people tell you why they don't like your product is a good idea if you can listen without being defensive and don't allow your pride to get in the way. The GOP is so entwined with the religious right now that if they lose them, they are toast...burnt toast.
They have allowed the right to be the host to their parasitic need for votes and now they can't affore to kill the host.
That's a perfect description.
Thanks! :)
I'm in a perfectly good mood this morning.
I'm hoping they take along large scale full color pictures of their torture TREASON.
Pictures of the living and the dead.
I know it would be a couple of tractor trailers loads of pictures but no picture of them would be complete if they overlook the kids in a box covered with bugs.
I nominate george bush as Charlie Manson's cell mate.
Remember when repubs use to say progressives were un-American!
Love the boss limbo meme. What a perfect poster boy for the failed rethuglican party, a fat, greedy, corrupt turd. Americans aren't buying that deception of caring for the working man anymore. Only left wingers care for the working man, that is a fact.
..the only Republicans will be Rush Limpball listeners. They may think he has a lot of listeners but there are a lot more voters than listeners. Let him rant away and chastise his party. More yuks for the rest of us.
the suits.
The crazies are not giving the power up even if it destroys the party.
Good Riddance.
... is facing change with traditional values / principles as guidance, as opposed to hewing to no change and insisting this static, unyielding state is the traditional value that needs to be preserved.
is that the whole idea of "traditional values" never existed. Small village mores were driven by gossip, hearsay, innuendo, etc. People conformed to avoid being ostracized.
With the dissolution of the "small village" by globalization, mass transportation, cheap travel and increased migration...the "melting pot" of the "big city" has extended itself into even the smallest enclaves, particularly in the form of mass media (think...backward females huddled in the dark giggling as they watch "Sex In The City").
The "traditional" world that the dittohead inhabits doesn't exist, and frankly...it never did.
Maybe they should learn the word "authoritarian."
I thought Limbaugh did a great job of expressing the GOP position. Basically what I heard was "we don't care what the American people want or find important. We will tell you what you need to know and you should be happy we are willing to do that. Go back to your miserable lives and leave us alone to to do what we want." Did I hear wrong?
The reason the GOP can't re-invent themselves or come up with new ideas, is their media audience is literally the old man screaming "get off my lawn." They saw John McCain as a young "whipper-snapper."
The average age of the Fox viewer is 65 years old, and the average ditto-head is 67 years old.
See: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/05/05/avera...
How can they can think of new things if their base keeps stroking out?
Rush Limbaugh is the Lincoln Town Car of the GOP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDR0OxVdsAo&eu...
Good interview with Ron Paul on the Racheal Maddow show. He speaks about the pizza tour, rebranding, and the lameness of both parties.
Rush is something to wreckon with, I have never seen anything like it, and his VOICE is creepy, have you seen him live (clips) while on air in his studio, he looks like a weeable whobble. (Remember those weeable whobble but they don't fall down LOL). His face, two chin/neck just nasty looking. He's going to have a heart attack all that hate inside of him.
Rush needs to demonstrate he has renewed his faith in Jesus.
Re-education? So who sounds more communist/fascist now Rush?
In Limbaugh's world the people are "EDUCATED" what to believe, quite Orwellian. The United States was founded on a principle that our government is OF the people, BY the people FOR the people. When our leaders "EDUCATE" us what to believe and how to believe it, that is a God Damn dictatorship. Limbaugh and his fucking asshole followers aren't Americans, they are residents of Oceania. Why can't people see this?
"What Limbaugh fails to realize is that the public has pretty well figured out..."
Stop right there. You give the American public way too much credit. Besides, the Cons will be back and despite the fact that they have put our country in the ditch time and time again, people will still vote for them. Mark my words.
While history teaches what you say is true, I can't help but wonder if maybe one political party stepped up to the plate and actually followed through on their promises to the American people, that they might actually sustain a majority for more than a decade.
Imagine if the democrats (or republicans) balance the budget, shore up our social safety net, fix our education and immigration system, limit the use of our military, and enforce our laws equitably. That could lead to at least 40 years of power before complacency swings the pendulum back, and at that point, it would be hard to undue the progress.
they'll screw it up
will never allow that to happen
but I doubt it.
I think in 10 years time enough ignorant old fuckers will have died off, which will be replaced by liberal and informed young people for the most part.
I think you may be witnessing the dwindling of the ignorant and misinformed - on a scale that should make a difference!
That's what we REALLY need. All those "dittoheads" who are completely clueless and boot licking LIMBOHEADS can all join forces against America, the Repugs, the Democowards who wouldn't know how to fight back if their lives depend on it.
They can all bring along their arsenals and live in pits together. The dems can make it a federal offense to raise children in pits so there won't be any growth and eventually they's become extinct.
But SERIOUSLY, all the LIMBO clones need their OWN PARTY. You can bet your LIFE no "librule" is ever going to vote for THEM OR the Repugnan G-NO-P so for at least the next 50 years we wouldn't have to listen to them all telling us WE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE NEED TO WORK AND WHY or that WE LOST OUR JOBS BECAUSE WE MADE BAD CHOICES and THE GOVMINT ISN'T GOING TO RIDE IN ON A MAGIC HORSE TO RESCUE US FROM THAT NASTY UNEMPLOYMENT CHECK WE DIDN'T EARN and on and on.
Better yet, get all the uneducated, scared, bedwetting, Dittoheads and get them to sign up to serve our country and fight the wars they love and agree with so much.
Rush personally needs a "Shut the hell up, and learn some humility" tour... but then we need him to keep flapping his lips to sustain the death of the GOP.
the desert for spiritual renewal. Rush has lost the lesons of the humble Christ. Call Rush's program and ask him why he has lost the lessons of jesus.
... congratulated Hannity for his help in sinking the repugs. Seems to me the more hate he spews, the lower the party sinks.
Isn't about the party listening to the little people, it's about the little people listening to the party. Trust me here. Each and every time some 'moderate Republican' speaks up, the party will come back with something else even further to the right. The 'party' will always try and 'out right' everyone else, much like christians always try to 'out christian' each other by saying that 'only they' are the true believers. It is great comedy to watch!
In order to gain the political control they've enjoyed over the last ten years, Republican moderates and fiscal conservatives made a pact with the devil (faux Christians, bigots and misanthropes) to achieve the numbers they needed to defeat Democrats. They made a strategic decision to manipulate and exploit the ignorance, fears and hatreds of dysfunctional and vulnerable voters in order to win elections rather than lose them by being intellectually and morally honest.
Today, those who conspired with the devil are caught between wanting to disassociate themselves with and or casting out the devil they empowered and the karmic reality that they don't have the numbers to hold on to or regain power without continuing to accept and "advocate" the immoral values, hypocrisies and corruptions that are dividing and destroying their party.
The survival of today's shrinking Republican Party has become so dependent on extremism that they have no significant power left WITH or WITHOUT the support of America's increasingly pernicious lunatic fringe.
The idiom "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea" is certainly appropriate as Republicans are facing the dilemma of choosing between two equally undesirable alternatives that both result in Republican impotence in mainstream American politics. They are suffering the consequences of their treachery.
Their irresponsible propping up of George W. Bush cost them their credibility, and their disgraceful and shameless licking of Rush Limbaugh's storm trooper boots is costing them their viability.
He has created such a 'huge' distraction for the Gop'ers and the Dems to continue doing their con job on the rest of us. We're all busy fretting over what Rush says and if it's relevant, and isn't he an asshole, etc., etc..
Meantime, the Congress and their corporate handlers are still sending our sons and daughters around the globe to kill innocents; they're still robbing our bank accounts and the US treasury; they're still sending jobs to China/India and importing cheap labor from Mexico and SA countries; they're still passing laws that steal our rights and freedoms; they're still taking away our homes and health care; and, we're still babbling about a blabbing blowhard.
I'd say their methods are working just fine.
The GOP is not going to lose the religious right if they stop bending over for them. Who are they going to vote for if not the Reps?
The Democrats have learned to throw there progressive base under the bus for the so called "middle", remains to be seen if the the GOP will throw their Christofascist teabagger base under the bus for the same reason.
They'll just suck it up and continue to vote for Republicans like we have to suck it up and continue to vote Democrat. Are we going to vote for the Republicans? No. And neither will they vote for a Democrat. There is no viable 3rd option. The Dems have figured that out, the Repugs obviously haven't.
rush's message is this:
It's not the republican party that is out of step with the American people they are there to serve.
It's the people who are out of step with the republican party they are there to fund.
I love a sense of righteous and wholly unearned sense of entitlement in the morning. It smells like...mid-term election victory.
and don't you forget it!
... I have blogged on this subject many times, and even emailed O'Liarly about the fact that right-wing bobble heads never - I mean NEVER - allow opposite views and feel the need to shout them down or cut them off.
O'Reilly had Jonathan Turley (law professor), Marc Lamont Hill (PhD), Paul Krugman (Nobel Laureate) and many others, experts in their fields, but would O'Reilly listen? Not in your life time!
O'Reilly will lecture them.
O'Reilly is not alone here. Notable others are Ingraham, Crowley, Hannity, Cavuto, van Susteren, Scarborough, even Matthews.
Notable exceptions are Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz, Shuster to name most of them.
... Michael Savage has been banned from the UK for his Hate-spewing. He vowed to sue them until the end of time - if necessary.
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Those that lick the Oxy sweat from their leader Limpballs are called (R)ushpublickin's...
... Those who refuse - get teabagged. Just like waterboarding but muskier.
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What could Limp-Dick, their Reslug leader, teach the few uneducated, hatefilled bigots left, except how to buy oxycontin illegally and where to have sex with little boys in the Dominican Republic??
Is the Baby Limp-Dick leaders, like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush etc., on their listening tour now starting with the pizza place yesterday?
Just hilarious from the party of NO and talking completely stupid.
Haven't the ignorant targets of Rush's Republican propaganda been taught enough lessons yet?
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