Rush Limbaugh has started the predictable “I’m back” media blitz, with this Howie Kurtz piece and a Washington Post story, both claiming that ratings are up and his losses are in the mere single digits.
Rush’s real ratings aren’t out yet, but let’s give a known liar the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s right, because the people who were listening to Rush, or were inclined to listen to Rush, aren’t going to give a shit about a boycott or what he said about Sandra Fluke. And, as planned from the start, Rush’s “barter” ads, which were suspended for two weeks, are back. Those are ads that local stations have to run during the Limbaugh show in order to get access to Rush’s show.
Doug Mataconis–who is to stupid as Foxconn is to Apple: a reliable supplier–thinks this means that the boycott has failed and that it was dangerous to start it in the first place. Maybe there was some smack-talk about Rush getting off the air during the height of the boycott, but I don’t remember anyone here writing that Rush would actually have his show cancelled over this. What I expected was that Rush would become even more toxic to mainstream advertisers, that his advertising base would become even more low-rent, and that this would hurt Rush where it matters, the wallet. As far as I can tell, most of that has happened. To this day, if a national brand advertiser’s ad accidentally appears on the Limbaugh show, then they immediately have to apologize.
I had an old Philosophy prof whose rejoinder to the Nietzsche aphorism “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” was “what about a double amputation?” Rush didn’t get killed here, but he’s anything but stronger, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s how you keep score in the Culture Wars.
WereBear
Perhaps we must “kill kings with a single blow” but for something like Limbaugh, dissolution works well enough.
MattF
Wingers understand that doubling down is a winning strategy, as long as there’s no house limit. We should expect that they will keep coming back, that they will keep testing the limit– it’s their strategy, and it works if we let it.
JPL
@MattF: This week with George is allowing Ann Coulter to sit at the round-table. There is no limit.
c u n d gulag
I hear “Ol’ Virginy’s Vaginee Probes” has started advertising.
Also, “Rent A Maid/Drug-mule.”
Can NAMBLA be far behind?
Let me rephrase that one…
gnomedad
Feh. Let him bloviate. I hope he gives the keynote at the GOP convention. He’s the canary in the coal mine of crazy.
Heh, heh, heh. Apologizing about Rush rather than to Rush. Me like.
mai naem
Rush is on his way down. He lost a lot of advertisers. They are hoping for Huckabee to replace Limpballs. There’s too many others out there who want that spot. He’s done. Stick a fork in it.
Omnes Omnibus
Damn, the Mataconis piece is dumb. Hell, it is dumb even compared to the standard he himself set.
NotMax
Sort of OT, but also a palliative to the stupid:
All-day TEDx event being streamed live today – each talk about 18 minutes.
schrodinger's cat
I may be wrong about this but hasn’t OTB been linked to approvingly on the front page before? Isn’t James Joyner supposed to be a “serious conservative”, whatever that means.
Serious blog is serious.
Citizen_X
Cae in point: remember some guy named Glenn Beck?
lamh35
OT, wow, so there is a rallying London for #justice4trayvonmartin!!! Wow. From what I understand, the Black churches inLondon are gonna rally outside the USembassy.
Joseph Nobles
Rush will be fine. I just had a nutty relative post a picture on Faceook of Barack Obama reading a Fareed Zakaria book and then launch into the most outlandish rant about how he was trying to destroy America. I posted a link to the Snopes article and said, “Calm down.”
Her reply? “I Snoped it before I posted it.”
Rush is going to be fine.
Baud
@WereBear: Agreed. It’s called a war of attrition, and our side needs to do a better job engaging in that type of battle.
JGabriel
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No one wants to advertise with Limbaugh because his listeners are the customers who start fights in bars and restaurants, undertip, and harass retail workers.
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beltane
@JGabriel: Limbaugh listeners are also notorious for overstaying their welcome at all-you-can-eat buffets across the nation.
JGabriel
@beltane: That’s just homage.
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Ed in NJ
Keeping Rush from the mainstream is a much more important victory than keeping adverstisers off his show. You won’t see Romney sitting in on his show during the campaign, because Rush is too toxic. You won’t see Scott Brown pandering for votes on Rush’s show, because now everyone knows what that show is, and no one wants to be associated with it. That will have a lasting effect.
JGabriel
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mistermix @ Top:
I suspect Nietzsche was being ironic with that one, but I’m not a 100% certain.
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daveX99
I’m not sure, but in this instance, the metrics run backwards… Ordinarily, ratings are used by advertisers to quantify the value of running ads during a particular program. That’s why he’ll talk ratings all day long. They don’t really mean anything, though. That talk is for the benefit of his advertisers.
In Rush’s case, he shat in the punchbowl, and while maybe his ratings haven’t changed (we are talking about the dead-ender 23% here…), he has attracted enough negative attention that his advertisers have to pay attention.
Many more people don’t listen to Rush than do. It’s these people who have made themselves known to Rush’s advertisers – they outnumber his actual listeners, and to major advertisers represent more business than do Rush’s fans.
Rush’s ratings could actually rise, but he could remain so toxic to the wider public that most corporations would rather just avoid him altogether.
His ratings are irrelevant. For our purposes, a pain-inducing boycott, the appropriate metric is “How much money is Rush bringing in via advertising”. I’m sure that it’s in free fall. A number of big advertisers have left for good, and I’m sure that the prices for all those open spots have fallen to near zero.
Rush’s ratings can go through the roof, but if he’s not making any money for the network, he’s useless.
Joseph Nobles
Rush will be fine. One of my nutty relative’s friends just rushed to her defense, and I quote:
“Snopes, like Wikipedia, hardly passes muster as a reliable and unbiased source. Point of information; Obama is neither Muslim or Christian but a believer in something called “Black Liberation Theology”, an offshoot of Marxism. Practically speaking however, he seems to mostly worship himself.”
mistermix
@schrodinger’s cat: The rule of OTB is that Taylor, who’s quite good IMO, is 10X Joyner, who is about 5X Mataconis. But Mataconis does most of the posting.
danielx
Could be my imagination, but I’ve seen more than a few pics of Rush Limbaugh over the past few weeks, and he seems to appear more swollen and pustulent in each one. Which is in keeping with what he spews forth over the airwaves…
Rush Limbaugh, Ambulatory Zit.
SenyorDave
@JPL: This is somebody who I believe still uses the term “raghead” to describe Muslims. “This Week” has been a joke for a long time, this reinforces it.
They can’t find a non-racist who hates Obama?
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
This is considered a badge of honor in states with your ground laws.”
The GOP needs Rush, and he will be back with a roar, especially if the Supreme Court decision goes against the Obama administration. And Limbaugh will be needed to goad reluctant voters into backing Romney.
Rush, unfortunately, will do fine, even if SuperPAC type advertisers have to prop him up.
Birthmarker
Well, I suspect there is still the settlement with Ms Fluke to take care of.
vernon
Wow, your philosophy prof was a real idiot.
honus
People who embrace ideological hacks like Dinesh D’Souza and Charles Murray find an actual journalist like Fareed Zakaria somehow toxic? Is he a pariah to them for no other reason than he has an Arabic-sounding name? I mean, he’s Indian, for FSM’s sake.
Kathy in St. Louis
The only way that a Rush Limbaugh is ever really “killed”, ever really done is if you bury him at a crossroads with atake through his heart. He’s the ultimate vampire, feeding off the blood of old undereducated, angry people who want a world that never really existed, with the “man” callin all the shots, women, stupid simple beings that they are, just sleeping with them and fixing their meals and having no rights and no opinions.
He’s just a fat, unhappy, creep with an anti-social personality spouting smack all day to other fat, unhappy anti-social types.
Kathy in St. Louis
@gnomedad: He’s the canary in the coal mine of crazy. Fabulous line….may I use it?
Bubblegum Tate
@Joseph Nobles:
Probably the weirdest thing I’ve seen in the past couple weeks: One paranoid wingnut using Snopes to shoot down another wingnut’s paranoia. It was so unexpected that I was completely baffled.
hitchhiker
His ratings are up because the Rs smell blood with the Supreme Court thing. They love winning, those 27%. I’m the same way, actually . . . when we’re about to stomp something beloved by true idiots, I can’t hear the story enough.
(hangs head in shame)
ppcli
@JGabriel: Yeah, if I recall correctly, the quote comes in an indirect context, where FN isn’t obviously stating it as part of his own code. Something like: “The code of the soldier: What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Now FN had great admiration for martial virtues, and for people like Caesar, but as with all of his attitudes, he shows a lot of complexity. In short, it requires argument to show that this was something FN thought was (even figuratively) true, as opposed to characteristic of a very particular martial viewpoint as FN understood it. (Understood it from afar, of course, given that he was a stretcher bearer briefly during the Franco-Prussian war and got sent home when he got sick.)
So I think mistermix’s philosophy professor should go back to the text and maybe actually read it this time.
gnomedad
@Kathy in St. Louis:
Sure, why not? It’s a bit dodgy as a metaphor anyway – if it were precise, Rush would have keeled over a long time ago. More like he feeds on the crazy.
Brachiator
@honus:
D’Souza and Zakaria were both born in India. D’Souza was born to Catholic parents, Zakaria to Muslim parents.
D’Souza chose the path to conservative hacktitude early:
Wingnuts love hacks, the more despicable the better.
Joseph Nobles
@Bubblegum Tate: I’m sorry. I hope that I’m mistaken, but did you just call me a paranoid wingnut?