Proving the direction she intended to take right off the top Goodman starts with a fat joke. She says she caught Limbaugh's CPAC speech as she was on a flight. Goodman quips that he "filled -- and I do mean filled -- the screen" before her. Yes, one can sense the high caliber of analysis about to assault the eye when reading this first paragraph. Goodman is obviously an intellectual giant.
After the high class fat joke, we get Goodman's first lie:
Dressed in a style David Letterman later labeled as "Eastern European Gangster," Rush Limbaugh delivered a rousing 85-minute sermon to conservative true believers that included an unapologetic hope that Obama will fail. Ah yes, a talk-radio host who'd rather be (far) right than have his country rescued. Charming.
This "he'd rather be right than have his country rescued" claim is a straight out lie. Goodman probably knows she is lying, but wants to stick with her spittle specked rant, anyway. Limbaugh has said over and over that he does not accept the Obama claim that his policies will "rescue" the country and that it is these same policies that he wants to fail. Limbaugh has repeated ad nauseam that it isn't the country he wants to fail, it's the policies he deems bad for the country he wants to see fail. The difference between the two is clear and important.
The third paragraph starts with another mischaracterization:
Limbaugh was not only a counterpoint to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who delivered the hapless Republican response to the president.
Does Goodman know how the word "counterpoint" is defined? A counterpoint is a contrast or an opposition. Limbaugh did not oppose Bobby Jindal's points. He essentially agreed with them and added to them. (By the way, I'd like to also point out that this is an incomplete sentence by Goodman here. Sort of a counterpoint to good grammar, if you will)
Next Goodman warmed to her central theme.
Despite watching Limbaugh's rant at 30,000 feet, I read glowing reviews saying that "it will be talked about for years and even decades." And so I am forced to return to the subject our man Rush implied just days earlier: "Why don't women like me?"
What "forced her" to say that is not clear. One can only wonder what Limbaugh's female audience has to do with the current Limbaugh news? In fact, it has nothing at all to do with the current news but does serve as a way for Goodman to indulge in some more bashing because after this the Boston Globe columnist begins to rehash Limbaugh's past "feminazi" cracks.
Goodman says that Limbaugh's feminist jokes explain why women don't listen to him. But then she promptly contradicts herself with this:
Now a touch of reality here. Women don't tune in to talk radio as much as men. Talk radio has been the forum of the "angry white man" since the 1990s. Women have had quite enough men yell at them, thank you, and Rush is more than vaguely reminiscent of the boss from hell.
So what is it Ms Goodman? Is it Rush's supposed attacks on women or is it that his venue naturally attracts fewer female audience members just as it does for all talk radio?
But, here is her point, such as it is, for the piece. Goodman is trying to develop the theme that Rush is no Oprah (as her piece is headlined). She goes on to imagine that Rush would never listen to a woman and that is why he can't attract female listeners.
And, then she warms to her final point. Limbaugh, you see, won't change for women. And, since he is the "voice of the GOP" that means the Republicans won't change, either. And, the GOP can't win unless they "change."
You see, it's all about the "change." But, like her compatriots on the extreme left, she has no notion of what "change" even means. The word is but some panacea, some shadowy happy talk. Change what? None of them know. Like good little lemmings, they only know how to chant "Obma, change, Obama change" but have no clue what it means.
Goodman ends with one last little misrepresentation to her readers.
Yes, our pinup boy has a following of about 20 million listeners. But last time I looked, Obama won with nearly 70 million voters. At this rate, The Party That Won't Change is going to have to rename itself the Grand Old Ditto Heads.
Sorry, Ms Goodman, but Obama did not win by 70 million votes as your rhetoric tries to cajole the reader into imagining. The popular vote was 69,456,897 for Obama (52.9%) and 59,934,814 for McCain (45.7%). The simple fact of the matter is, that if Rush Limbaugh truly could wield the power of the votes from his 20 million listeners, he would be a power to be reckoned with and not someone easy to discount as you attempt to do here.
This column shows the intellectual laziness and uncivil comportment that Rush Limbaugh inspires in the extreme left in this country and Ellen Goodman serves as the poster child of that unhinged left.
