Limbaugh And The Right-Wing Nervous Breakdown
For a Republican Party already suffering from a yawning gender gap, Limbaugh's hijacking of the news cycle last week must have been unwelcome news. But this is what happens when Republicans sponsor an irresponsible media Noise Machine that's designed to offend and attack and is designed to dehumanize its political enemies. This is what happens when the wheels fall off in spectacular fashion, like Limbaugh spending three days smearing, by name, a Georgetown University Law School student as greedy nymphomaniac having so much sex "it's amazing she can still walk."
It's no secret Republican leaders live in fear of Limbaugh and over the years have found it almost impossible to publicly criticize even his most outlandish and hateful statements. Those few who did stop forward were often forced to then quickly reversed course and apologize to Limbaugh. Just like Republicans have had to bow down to kingmakers at Fox News and embrace their lowest common denominator programming.
The truth is the conservative movement in America has become a media-based one, delegating an absurd amount of influence to bloggers, cable channels and talk show hosts. In turn, that movement suffered a collective collapse last week. Incapable of self-reflection, player after player, including those at Fox News, rushed forward to condemn the law student and/or to insist the AM talker had done nothing wrong by, A) insulting the young woman, B) mocking her parents C) demanding she post videos of herself having sex online, and D) suggesting she was using condoms when she was in elementary school.
Large portions of the right-wing media complex saw nothing wrong with that kind of behavior; saw nothing wrong with the 53 bullying smears Limbaugh unloaded on the student in front of his national radio audience. Not only did they defend Limbaugh, they lashed out at anyone who suggested the titan talker lacked common sense. And then they stomped on Sandra Fluke's reputation some more.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203050003
There is a list of right wing insults aimed at the law student at Media Matters , our media should be asking every elected republican if they agree with their media representatives insults, not just Rush, of course no one will ask.