View this email in your browser

A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

Limbaugh, and Associated Outrages
Among which, those in mainstream media who've kowtowed to him

"Do you know who Eric Alterman is? The left may treat him as a giant. I
know that they do. He's a kook! He's a far-left fringe kook. But do
you know who he is? Do you?" -Rush Limbaugh, July 20, 2010

Well, hello. Contra El Rushbo, I'm a historian who, for the past 30 or
so years, has written about the media
,
American liberalism
,
and presidential lying
.
Lately, I've gotten interested in the history of American Jews,
especially their relationship to Israel, and will be publishing a book
on that one of these days. It will be my 12th. All are, in one way or
another, about history, politics, liberalism, and the media, except for
the one about Bruce Springsteen

(though that sort of is, too). Music is another obsession of mine, which
you will discover if you stick around. Old movies, too. Finally, I teach
literature (though as a historian) at Brooklyn College and for 25 years
wrote a column called "The Liberal Media" for The Nation. Beginning in
2002 and for a decade or so afterward, I also published a blog called
"Altercation," which originated on MSNBC.com, before it migrated over to
Media Matters and The Nation. Now (almost exactly like Updike's Bech
),
it's back, and here every Friday.

So, anyway, Rush Limbaugh provided one final-maybe his only-service
to the republic by timing his death perfectly to the first iteration of
this newsletter. Rush's death was a big story. True, almost all of the
obituaries that had been prepared in advance soft-pedaled

both his egregious character and horrific effects on American society.
(The Washington Post's

was notably bad in this respect. For instance, it does not contain the
word "race" or "racism.") The Times was quite a bit better, but only
after someone fixed it
. (The paper
also ran this quite good "political memo
.")
But let's try to be generous. Limbaugh's obit writers had three main
problems. The first is that it's extremely rare for a major newspaper
to publish a critical obituary. In the Times, for instance, you almost
have to be a Palestinian, a leftist, and perhaps the most famous
intellectual in the world

at the time of your death to reach the heights of a genuinely critical
retelling of your life story. Second, when writing about Limbaugh, one
has the same problem one does with Trump. He was so horrible, in so many
ways-and for so damn long-one can be paralyzed by choice. Does one
focus on the racism or the sexism or the vulgarity or the dishonesty or
the sadism or the hypocrisy or the incitements to violence or the
stupidity, and so on? (It would be too much work to provide links for
each of the above, but here
is just a
tiny collection of his greatest hits.) Finally, there is the problem of
America itself; another one that Rush shares with Trump. Put simply, it
is "What does it say about a country that such a transparently evil,
stupid, hypocritical, sadistic, racist, sexist, dishonest-see what I
mean-nightmare of a human being can become the most influential person
in all of media and stay that way for so long?" Short answer: Nothing
good.

Like anyone who's been writing about media during the past 30 years,
I've had no choice but to spend a great deal of time contemplating
Limbaugh's role in our national discourse. At his height, he boasted
(literally) 650 stations and anywhere from 15 to 20 million listeners,
which was, and is, more than all three network evening newscasts
combined. What interested me more than Limbaugh himself, however, was
the role of the mainstream media in promoting him, covering for him, and
oftentimes even celebrating him as he consistently sought to undermine
everything journalists like to imagine that they stand for. That's
been the story I've been writing ever since I noticed the guy. (For
the earliest in-depth consideration of what Limbaugh "meant," see this
fine May 1994 piece

by James Fallows in The Atlantic.)

In my 2008 book Why We're Liberals
,
I noted the following: "William Bennett, who frequently decries the loss
of standards of decency and civility among liberals, calls Limbaugh
'possibly the greatest living American' and 'extremely
sophisticated, extremely smart. ... He's very serious
intellectually.'" Limbaugh was invited to join the Meet the Press
roundtable as an honored and respected expert on politics by NBC's Tim
Russert, and to air his views on race relations by Jake Tapper on ABC
News. When Katie Couric introduced her "free speech" segment during her
debut performance in the anchor chair at CBS Evening News, she had
Limbaugh on during her first week (and then waited nine full nights
before speaking with a liberal). Even ESPN wanted a piece of him

for its Sunday NFL show, until it became clear that he could not contain
his racist bile long enough to get through even the first few weeks of a
season.

Laudatory profiles of Limbaugh were a staple of the MSM, in Time

(which was probably first), Newsweek, and this stomach-turning profile
in The
New York Times Magazine by the author of an embarrassingly hagiographic
account of Limbaugh's life
.
And these were not one-offs. Before he admitted to being the right-wing
hack he had always been by jumping to Fox, Howard Kurtz acted as a
one-man public relations outfit for Rush in his media "reporting" for
The Washington Post
.
There's a larger point here, as it happens, that goes beyond just the
embrace of this "big fat idiot
":
A great deal of attention is paid to the power of the far-right media,
but nowhere near enough to its gravitational effect on the mainstream.
The networks and MSM publications lusted after Rush's listeners, and
many proved willing to prostrate themselves before him, if necessary, to
try to reach them. If that meant helping to feed them the same sort of
bullshit Rush was serving up, well-as with Trump-business was
business.

Two other Rush-related points: First, everyone likes to talk about how
the transformation of the Republican Party began with Gingrich and
reached Trump-like heights of neofascistic lunacy with an enormous
assist from Rush (among others, like Murdoch, Ailes, and their ilk). But
hey, who was it that invited Rush to sit in the presidential box for his
1991 State of the Union

address, right next to the missus? That's right, everybody's
favorite old-fashioned "moderate" Republican, George H.W. Bush.

Second, let's give the guy credit for one thing and one thing only:
He's the only talk radio pundit-or pretty much the only pundit of
any kind-to try to bring the thinking of my favorite extremely
difficult-to-read philosopher, the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci
,
to the masses.

OK, one last thing: Bibi is also sad
.

A few odds and ends: TCM , which, aside
from the Mets channel, is the only reason I still have cable (and is
more than worth it for just that reason) is showing a double feature of
two Barry Levinson masterpieces this weekend: Diner, which is one of my
favorite movies of the past 40 years, and Avalon, which is one of the
best depictions of American Jewish life ever put to so-called celluloid.
Both are on early on Sunday morning, so you may have to tape them.
(Weirdly, WNET, the NYC public TV station, is broadcasting Avalon at the
same time.) The films follow "Noir Alley ,"
which is hosted by one of my heroes, Eddie Muller
. And Eddie is showing a restored version
of the formerly heavily censored movie Native Son
, from 1951, based on the Richard
Wright novel, Saturday night at midnight and again at 10:00 Sunday
morning.

Also, there will be a lovely "Willie Nelson and Family" show from 2019
this weekend on PBS from Austin City Limits -that
is, if you have electricity.

Finally, that sonofabitch Limbaugh, who suffered from drug addiction
himself, once called Jerry Garcia "just another dead doper
."
Here is Jerry with the late, great Clarence Clemons, playing "They Love
Each Other ."

And finally, finally, for those of us mourning the loss of Chick Corea,
Ryan Reed of the Times was good enough to collect these 12 performances
.

See you next week.

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Donate to The American Prospect

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 11 books, most
recently Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie-and Why Trump Is Worse
(Basic, 2020). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal Media"
column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman

[link removed]

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: This is the first edition of "Altercation," a
newsletter on the media and politics, which will publish on Fridays. You
are receiving it because you signed up to receive newsletters from The
American Prospect. To update your inbox preferences, please log in to
"My Account " on our site and
click the "Manage Newsletters
" link.

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States