So by now you’ve probably seen or heard about Rush Limbaugh’s unrestricted 30-minute rant about President Obama on that paragon of news virtue, Fox News, this past Sunday.
And if you’re anything but a ditto head, you’re probably asking yourself (or anyone else within earshot) “What qualifies a thrice divorced, draft dodging college dropout, who’s never had a job in his life that took place outside of a radio booth, to pass judgment on the President of the United States?”
Actually, that’s the question I ask every time I hear an utterance from the great El Rushbo.
But the REAL question is why do we care? Because he’s a genius at making us care.
The fact Rush has little or no formal education has nothing to do with the phenomenon he has become, and rather than let the idea that he has no diversity in his work or life experiences be a hindrance, he has leveraged his ignorance to his great advantage. It makes it much easier for him to believe the things that he says. If he believes it, his audience believes it.
Witness Hannity and Beck who are also self- taught disc jockeys made good with cleverly crafted niche opinions. They don’t got to show you no stinking degrees. To Hannity’s credit, he does have carpentry experience he could fall back on.
No, qualification has no relevance here in the blurry lined world of punditry, news and entertainment. And certainly marital success has no place concerning ones expertise in politics, business, or opinion, (unless of course one is a marriage counselor or something).
Speaking of Rush’s three failed marriages, I’ve heard the term “beard” bandied about on the net quite a bit lately, which seems interesting given his alleged homophobia. But I digress. (Did you see what I just did there? I just inserted a baseless innuendo!)
The point is, Rush is quite a lot like another great American, PT Barnum. No, I’m not referring to the obvious, shopworn maxim “There’s a sucker born every minute.” I’m talking about the genius of Barnum’s ability to find a need and fill it, his ability to package himself as commerce dictated, and the gift of being the kind of self promoter that only comes along every hundred years or so.
That my friends is what it takes to be able to say whatever you want, about whomever you want, and ultimately getting a four hundred million dollar contract to do it. One must give the devil his due.
But… on second thought, owing to the fact that PT Barnum had a much more rounded career (Did you know that Barnum was elected to a two year term as a Connecticut legislator and the mayor of Bridgeport?), I think a comparison to the titular movie character Rain Man is far more apropos. If you recall, in the film Dustin Hoffman’s character was an idiot savant who lived in a world of his own. He was totally incapable in every aspect of his life except one thing. He was a genius at card counting. He had the gift of memorizing and manipulating any card deck in any casino.
Likewise Rush is a genius at only one thing: making us think about him. It doesn’t matter if we love him or hate him, as long as we’re thinking of him, he’s making the big money.
It doesn’t matter if we believe in him or care about his ideology. It doesn’t matter what we think of his qualifications, his ethics or his humanity. It really doesn’t matter that Rush probably doesn’t give a flying crap about what his audience thinks or feels about anything.
What matters is that Rush has the gift of manipulating an audience. That’s the gift that counts above all else when you live in a world where laissez-faire capitalism is the be-all and end-all of life.
All right, there is one other thing that matters… motivation.
People who are altruistic or at least have real ideological beliefs (whether I like them or not) take risks and run for office.
People who don’t, have radio shows…
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