It has been my extreme pleasure to listen to Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin this week here in New York on right-wing hate station 770WABC. Especially today, these three blowhards were pleading with their listeners to NOT vote for McCain!
For years now I’ve been listening (for ten minutes here, ten minutes there) to Limbaugh complain about how in some states — like New Hampshire — independents and Democrats are allowed to vote in Republican primaries, thus helping to determine who the party’s candidate will be. This year, Iowa and New Hampshire went AGAINST the blowhards’ desired candidate, Mitt Romney. So what happened when the GOP primaries were locked out to Independents and Democrats? Hmmm… McCain yet again! Gee, Rush… Gee, Hannity… Gee, Mark… What happened? What happened to your influence? All those claimed listeners not voting for Romney? Your annointed one? What happened?
Limbaugh has been riding McCain so hard that it prompted none other than Bob Dole to send a public letter to him stating that he should ease up on the relentless attacks. Limbaugh responded, of course, that the McCain camp was “using” Bob Dole and convinced him to write the letter for McCain.
Then around 3pm, Hannity came on and started pleading with his listeners to not fall for the fact that Huckabee and McCain were in it together to defeat Romney, that McCain had promised something to Huckabee should McCain win the nomination. I’m sitting here watching the CNN results at around 9pm and I can now reveal that Hannity trying to describe some nuanced scenario just didn’t work for his listeners, because McCain is already projected to win quite a few states, and Huckabee looks to have done very well in the more religious zones of the country.
All this time Hannity has been trying to convince his audience based on fear and now when he tries to explain something that’s happening behind the scenes (something which happens all the time behind the scenes in these races) in intellectual terms, there’s a big communication gap.
Then when I was driving home, I tuned into Levin for a few minutes. He really is, as Alec Baldwin once called him, “Hannity’s butt-boy.” Just amazing how the exact same talking points are echoed in Levin’s desperate crying spells over the airwaves. He continues to call Huckabee “Hucka-phony” and McCain, “McLame.” You’re SO CLEVER, Mark! He screams into the microphone, trying to convince everyone that “Huckabee and McCain HATE real republicans! They got Bob Dole to write a letter supporting McCain! They hate the Limbaughs, the Hannitys, the Levins, and therefore they hate YOU — my listeners! They think you’re stupid!”
Oh man, you just gotta love it. These guys are losing it bigtime, and it’s great to hear it on the radio — the absolute desperation. As the returns come in, and McCain and Huckabee trounce Romney in state after state, Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham, Levin, and all the other haters will finally have to admit that they’re completely out of touch with the rest of the nation. They’ve bought their own hype for way too long, and the severe ratings drop of Faux News, and the failure of the Fox Business Channel is just more proof that the right-wing media’s influence isn’t 10 percent of what they’d like to believe it is.
I blame the mainstream press as much as they do, but for different reasons. Personally, I’m sick of hearing about the “straight talk express” and how much “integrity” McCain has. This guy has very long history of flip-flopping. Yet Al Gore is the one who’ll say anything to get elected. John Kerry is the one who changes position on every issue. Yeah, right. Sure.
I’m hoping that the rejection of Mitt Romney against the hopes and wishes of Faux News and all the right-wing haters means something more than just the mainstream press succeeding in its attempts to label McCain as a man of honor and integrity. I guess only time will tell.