Limbaugh’s comedic talent, his mimicry, his use of music, and his buffoonlike boast that he is taking on the Left with “half my brain tied behind my back” led the New York Times to describe him as a “vaudevillian.” When Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, described the radio talk-show host as merely “an entertainer” who stirred up his audience with “incendiary” and “ugly” comments, he found himself deluged with rebukes from the Rush “ditto heads” and threatened with a loss of financial support for the party. So despite Steele’s political standing within the party, he bowed his head, offered a personal apology to “El Rushbo,” and appeared chastened, even abject, when he beseeched the entertainer to go easy on him. As President Obama entered the White House at a time of war, terror threats, and economic crisis, Limbaugh baldly said, “I hope he fails.” He later tried to explain that he was talking only about the president’s liberal policies, but the unapologetic comment, indifferent to the needs of the nation but crafted to grab attention, fit Limbaugh perfectly.
Limbaugh’s sharp tongue has made him the most successful radio broadcaster of all time. His eponymous radio show, which began in 1988, now has an estimated weekly audience of fifteen million listeners. According to a Newsweek report last year, he is by far the highest-earning political personality, earning $59 million annually. For reference, Glenn Beck came in second at $33 million. In third was Sean Hannity at $22 million. Limbaugh’s stature is all the more impressive when you consider that his show saved the AM radio frequency from irrelevance. Conservative talk-radio hosts ever since have copied the Limbaugh model.
The success of right-wing talk radio in shaping national political opinions and policy eventually prompted the question, Why don’t liberals have their own talk shows? The answer was that liberals did not feel alienated from what conservatives called the “mainstream media.” The older, white majority of conservatives had long complained that they were ignored or marginalized as religious extremists, sexual prudes, and bigots by the major newspapers and broadcast networks. And the liberal tilt in Hollywood produced popular liberal-leaning TV sitcoms going back as far as All in the Family, in which a conservative blue-collar worker was presented as uneducated, full of blustering resistance to treating women and blacks as equals. The movies promoted liberal themes, including racial integration, premarital sex, and disdain for the American military, from M*A*S*H to Platoon. On the radio dial, NPR got its start in the early seventies as a network of college stations. Its first big news story was the Watergate scandal and the congressional hearings that followed, with President Nixon as the villain. NPR was immediately adopted by the campus protest crowd and liberal intellectuals.
Conservatives had complained for decades that liberals tended to win tenured faculty positions at the nation’s top universities. NPR became an extension of liberal campus counterculture. To conservatives, the arrival of right-wing talk radio on the AM dial created a singular outpost for their views in a liberal media landscape. But to liberals and Democrats the success of conservatives like Limbaugh and their power to push national politics to the right was maddening. Liberal counterprogramming finally hit the airwaves in 2004 with a new radio outfit called Air America Radio. And its star, the Left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh, was the comedian and satirist Al Franken.
Unlike Limbaugh, Franken was a top-notch student who graduated from Harvard with a degree in political science. And he had been a star on a hip, liberal-leaning TV show, Saturday Night Live, for fifteen years. In 1996 Franken wrote a New York Times best-selling book with the insulting, scathing title Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. In 2004 Franken was selected to host Air America’s main show. He was seen as the man to take on Limbaugh as well as the successful Fox News Channel and its lead personality, Bill O’Reilly. Franken initially called his show The O’Franken Factor. But the show’s preoccupation with mocking conservative radio and cable personalities did not lead to ratings success. Franken left it within three years as the network struggled to pay its bills and then collapsed.
But Franken found another outlet in real-life politics. He had written a second book, titled Why Not Me?, a satirical account of a fictional Franken campaign for president. And in one of those bizarre moments when life imitates absurdist art, Franken actually ran in 2008 for a real U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Minnesota and won in a very close race over a Republican incumbent. In the Senate, he made news when he rolled his eyes and made faces of disgust while Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell spoke in opposition to a Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court. That prompted McConnell to rebuke him with the comment “This isn’t Saturday Night Live, Al.” (Franken later wrote a handwritten letter of apology to McConnell for using his comic training on the floor of the Senate when real issues were being debated.) But what was astounding was the elevation of Franken, a man best known for clowning and political satire, a man with no prior political experience, to a seat in the U.S. Senate. Franken may now be maturing in the job, but his background is as a heckler and provocateur.
There is a vast constellation of stars like Limbaugh and Franken now blanketing the media and politics. On the Left there is Michael Moore, the most successful documentary filmmaker of all time. He is a folk hero of the American Left who is praised on college campuses, on the liberal cable channels, and in the progressive netroots community. Arianna Huffington, the Republican pundit turned liberal firebrand, created an incredibly successful Web site, the Huffington Post, which provides liberals with news and opinion. The Huffington Post has been so successful that she was able to sell it to AOL for $315 million earlier this year. Lawrence O’Donnell, one of MSNBC’s most popular liberal commentators, now hosts the network’s 8:00 p.m. show, which competes with Bill O’Reilly.
On the Right, Rush Limbaugh’s legacy has spawned a plethora of conservative talk-radio hosts who have followed in his path: Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Neal Boortz, and Mike Gallagher. Each one has achieved success by parlaying his or her radio show into television appearances and book deals. Perhaps the most fascinating example is Glenn Beck, who attracts the third-biggest audience in conservative talk radio, behind Limbaugh and Hannity. Like Limbaugh, Beck never graduated from college and had a checkered career as a disc jockey playing pranks and hit records. Beck began his political talk show in 2000 on a Tampa, Florida, AM station, mixing conservatism and conspiracy theories. In dark, whispered voices he claimed liberals were plotting to destroy America, while also confessing to his life as a recovering alcoholic and conveying occasional religious messages.
In addition to his radio show, with a weekly audience of about ten million listeners, Beck had a 5:00 p.m. show on Fox News that garnered higher ratings than the combined ratings for prime-time programs on CNN and MSNBC. His books instantly catapult to number one on the New York Times best-seller lists. Though not as partisan as Limbaugh, Beck’s message is clearly conservative and highly critical of the Democrats and President Obama. He famously remarked that the president was a “racist” who had a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” In fairness, he apologized and retracted that remark later. But he routinely calls the president a socialist, a communist, and a Marxist and has likened him to Adolf Hitler. He often compares the agenda of Obama and the Democrats to Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and Russia under the Soviets.
The philippics and outlandish tirades against the Obama administration form the engine for Beck’s success. Without them, no one would pay attention to his warmer, fuzzier, and sometimes legitimate claims about history, morals, and values. But rather than spark a genuine debate, Beck seeks to ignite our ire and go on the attack. There is no progressive conspiracy to destroy the United States of America from within, and it is absurd to suggest that there is. Although to Beck and those who follow him, it may well seem as if I am dismissing the idea because I am a part of the conspiracy. For that matter, you must be too, if you agree with my ideas. I can see the chalk-board diagram
now.
These provocateurs cross the political spectrum and are paid salaries normally associated with Las Vegas entertainers. Personality is key here. Anyone can say provocative things and voice controversial opinions. The people whom I have mentioned are effective because they are always skating on the edge of outrageous controversy, always pushing the limits of supportable facts, logic, and respect for people who hold opposing political views. Their audiences want to see how far they can go without crashing. Perhaps they share the sense that the rest of the world is crazy and they are not going to take it anymore—they are going to set the record straight and tell it like it is. And our hosts deliver daily jeremiads that confirm we are not the only ones who believe these politicians and world leaders and corporate moguls and pampered movie stars and athletes are a bunch of thieves, liars, and idiots. The iron fist hammering the table with the microphone belongs to a man or woman—conservative or liberal—who is not interested in talking with people. He or she is in the business of talking at people. The closest these dominating radio and TV personalities come to an exchange of ideas is attacking their rivals on another network. The insults fly, and then their respective audiences are roused to defend their heroes, and the ratings climb even higher as more and more people tune in for the spectacle.
Now, there is nothing wrong with talk radio being dominated by conservative personalities or Hollywood being dominated by liberal writers and actors. Competition among political ideas is essential to American democracy. It might be hard to find a liberal radio show as influential as Rush Limbaugh’s program, but there is no absence of liberal ideas and personalities elsewhere in the political universe and the media. At the height of their powers, the conservatives on talk radio could only watch as perhaps the most liberal member of the Senate, Barack Obama, was elected president. That is why I will stand side by side with Rush and Sean in opposing attempts to manipulate that marketplace with the return of the Fairness Doctrine. President Obama has also said he opposes the return of a government-imposed mandate that each individual station provide equal time to all sides of a political issue. At this point that kind of legislative response to the provocateurs will not serve to disseminate more ideas and opinions. It amounts to a liberal strategy designed to take down Limbaugh and the other conservatives who dominate one format—talk radio. I am for the government offering tax breaks to support more programs with local talk and news. Having been muzzled myself, I don’t think muzzling other voices or having the government dictate programming decisions is in keeping with the First Amendment promise that Congress will make no law restricting freedom of the press.
The real danger here is beyond the scope of government’s power. The excess of provocateurs corrupting public dialogue in America sets up a fight on every issue for every American. This rebellion against the provocateurs will have to be done in the tradition of colonial patriots, who came out of their homes and formed private armies to fight British tyranny. Individual Americans are going to have to turn away from the entertainment associated with extremist, at times buffoonish, demagogues on the air and their imitators who are now running for public office. They will have to personally raise the bar for conversations about important social and political issues. In other words, we have to take matters into our own hands. Ordinary Americans need to join the fight against the scourge that is undermining our essential American belief in letting people speak their minds. The dominance of the paid agitators has led to a loss of critical-thinking skills by American citizens—we need to think for ourselves. The screamers, the self-righteous, and the arrogant on radio, on TV, in print, and on the Internet create an environment in which a lot of people in the middle don’t bother speaking up because it’s hard to shout above the bombast and noise. A lot of us, I suspect, feel an urge to take cover until all the shouting and name-calling stop. We are waiting for someone else to tell the provocateurs that their fifteen minutes are up.
I fear that a backlash against the provocateur culture is creating cynicism about the entire political process. Revulsion for politics and debate is now common among Americans, especially young people. And that path leads to political apathy. Two thirds of the American people tell pollsters the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet increasingly, politicians themselves begin to act like the provocateurs in the media, resorting to the same crass schoolyard bullying and name-calling. In one of the most offensive campaign ads of the 2010 political campaign, a Florida Democrat, Representative Alan Grayson, referred to his Republican opponent, Daniel Webster, as “Taliban Dan.” Labeling someone, even in hyperbole, a member of a brutal regime that slaughters its own people, and Americans for that matter, is bad enough. But on top of that, the vitriol behind the statements was based on a lie. Grayson used a video clip that showed Webster telling women to “submit” to their husbands in keeping with the tenets of an extremist interpretation of the Bible. But Grayson had edited the clip to distort what Webster had actually said. In reality, Webster had cautioned religious men not to use literal translations of some Bible texts to oppress women.
The independent political watchdog group FactCheck.org was appalled by Grayson’s blatant attack on his opponent and the truth. “We thought Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida reached a low point when he falsely accused his opponent of being a draft dodger during the Vietnam War and of not loving his country,” reported FactCheck.org. “But now Grayson has lowered the bar even further. He’s using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said.”
The 2010 election also saw Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for a Nevada U.S. Senate seat, tell a group of voters that she would employ gun violence—“Second Amendment remedies”—to deal with members of Congress who did not go along with her ideas. She made headlines with the sensationalist but totally false charge that her Democratic opponent, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, wanted to give Viagra to sex offenders. Angle also ran ads suggesting Reid was giving tax breaks to illegal immigrants. Those TV ads depicted the people crossing the border to come into the United States as thuggish, threatening, and dark skinned, in a crass attempt to stir up voters’ fears and win votes.
This low level of political discourse is chasing away talented people who would otherwise put themselves forward as candidates for office. Who wants to be subjected to shrill and malicious attacks? Who wants to be called names and verbally kicked around by opponents who are not held to account?
In every democracy, no matter what the era, the language of politics is often personal, often harsh, and at times down in the gutter. This was true of political opponents of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln. But the proliferation of media through high technology in the last twenty years has led to 24-7 stabs from sharp voices, and I fear the body politic is bleeding to death. There is no off-season for political attacks, especially around election time. We now live with a permanent campaign; it is a year-round sport. From terrorism to budgetary crises to immigration to the war in wherever, the talk-show static is so loud that voices of elected officials trying their best to resolve thorny political issues can barely be heard. The result is that a genuine dialogue about important issues gets put off far too long. The urgent need for solutions, combined with our anxiety over a faltering economy, multiple wars, and demographic shifts that have raised the number of racial minorities and immigrants, has created a political pressure cooker. The only sound to be heard is the angry steam venting from overheated people.
That is what happened during the debate over health-care reform in 2010. America’s great tradition of town halls where citizens can express concerns to elected officials devolved into circus-tent spectacles, in which every shriek mimicked the harsh rhetoric, angry tone, and personal insults that typify the media provocateurs Americans listen to and watch daily. And the hostile tenor of the meetings was set by those provocative personalities. During a debate on health care, freshman Senate Democrat Al Franken, sitting as presiding officer of the Se
nate, cut off Senator Joe Lieberman, the senior senator from Connecticut. “Wielding Gavel, Franken Shuts Lieberman Up!” is how the incident was delightedly described in the liberal-leaning Huffington Post. Given that a request to finish a brief ten-minute speech is commonly granted in the Senate, the decision had the flavor of disrespect. And the fact that Senator Franken, a former entertainer, was the lead actor prompted Senator John McCain to lament the demise of civility even among senators. “I’ve been around here for more than twenty years,” McCain said, “and yesterday on the floor of the Senate, the senator from Connecticut was finishing his remarks … and was objected to by the newest member of the U.S. Senate—and in the most brusque way.” Later he added: “That’s how the comity in this body has deteriorated. We got to stop—we got to stop this kind of behavior.”
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