Frank Luntz, the media-friendly Republican consultant and word wiz, told a group of college students this week that Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio are “problematic” for the GOP and partly responsible for the stark polarization within the nation’s political discourse. He only dared to speak so candidly about Limbaugh and other conservative hosts off the record. A secretly recorded video, though, captured Luntz’s remark.
In case there was any doubt that Luntz is a fucking douche, he’s cancelled a scholarship he was funding at Penn because the student, Aakash Abbi, recorded him. Abbi explains his side of the story:
I made the choice to share my recording with Mother Jones because Luntz’s comments are important. They illustrate one of the largest schisms within the GOP and expose the hypocrisy of Luntz’s willingness to place blame for his party’s division upon a media establishment he has helped build. Further, his request to be taken off the record was never one to which I acquiesced. The reporter who was present was right to oblige Luntz, but in a room filled with scores of independent students, “off the record” is not a Patronus charm. Luntz may have felt that he was invited to speak candidly by acclimation, but I disagreed entirely.
Who’s the bigger fool: Luntz, who thinks that he can go “off the record” in front of an audience of university students, or the people that pay him for his advice?
“Off the Record” is Not a Patronus CharmPost + Comments (150)