Life on Planet Limbaugh
Rod Dreher January 19th, 2012
Limbaugh now discussing Newt/ABC News: “Everybody’s had an angry ex-spouse.”
Yes, everybody. Man of the people, that Rush. It’s so hard to get good help wives these days.
Sheesh.
UPDATE: Rush favorably quotes friend calling Newt a “victim” of the Sexual Revolution. Rush adds that Newt is victim of liberal media, and insists that Newt’s asking Marianne for permission to have a mistress is not the same as asking for an “open marriage,” as Marianne claims.
Really.
The majority [60%] of American marriages fail. Is it because man [woman] is essentially non-monogamous? No? The stats certainly reflect that we are a nation of serial monoganists at best. So it seems there is sometimes an over-lap of the ‘new’ wives or husbands. At least Newt -the other Newt – didn’t want to discard wife No. 2 without a decent try out of wife No. 3. Perhaps we should not start throwing stones for don’t we, like a majority of us, live in glass houses?
Shouldn’t we be more concerned about Newt’s conservative philosophy and the type of government he proposes to lead
as President?
OK, I think most criticism of Rush is overblown and unfair, but this is just plain hilarious.
On twitter last night I saw this:
“If you think Marianne Gingrich is angry, just wait until you see Callista’s interview during Newt’s 2016 campaign.”
To paraphrase Animal Farm, “everybody’s had an angry ex-spouse, but some have had more than one.”
Ruh-roh. I think Newt can kiss the female vote goodbye.
Seeing as how I will never divorce, I think the only way I’ll gain an angry ex-wife is by needlessly taunting the dynamite monkey at the local zoo.
I love that culture of personal responsibility. I am responsible for all of my own choices: what I studied in school, whether I keep my job, how I invest, whether I come down with an inherited chronic disease, everything. Unless Hollywood told me to fire my family and sleep around, in which case I can’t be blamed for following my “cultural marching orders”.
I guess he would know… Is Limbaugh on wife #3 or #4 now?
Really, this is just as tone-deaf and culturally clueless as when some feminist – I forget who – quipped that George H.W. Bush reminded every woman of her first husband….
Newton, I hope your post is sarcastic, but in any case that statistic is less clear than you think:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/divorce.htm
http://www.divorcereform.org/nyt05.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1989124,00.html
I’ll grant that too many American marriages fail, but the stats are a little better than they appear at first glance.
I sincerely doubt 60% of marriages end in America. But the simple point is a man who cheats on his terminally ill wives and lives an alternative lifestyle while chastising others for doing the same is unfit to lead anything. He is a hypocrite and an oath breaker.
But I’m not surprised a drug addict womanizer like Limbaugh defends him. I guess Rush’s love of Newt is identity politics.
“Everybody’s had an angry ex-spouse.”
Not Obama
One place I worked I got told that you would only become a fully accepted member of the innermost circle of the place after your second divorce. The person from whom this came received a Nobel Prize a few years later, shortly before he and his wife celebrated their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Rush, sadly along with Sean and as Sean calls him for reasons I can’t determine “The Great One” Mark Levin, have come to clearly represent the neocon side of conservatism. Rush had me literally screaming at the radio last week when he referred to Abu Ghraib as little more than fraternity hazing even though when you look at the prosecution brief for the Captain Medina trail, they cited “humiliation” as one of the many things prohibited under Geneva 3. Rush’s act is becoming stale, his references to Loma Linda or whatever town in California should have ended decades ago along with the way he pronounces Jesse Jackson’s name.
But is he even relevant any more? When WFB died there was arguably a question as to who would succeed him as the philosphical head of the conservative movement. Rush seemed the likely choice. But Rush is just too neocon, too shrill, too uninformed, lacking in a real guiding philosphy any more and sadly who really is out there now?
My foreign born wife and I as we discuss this increasingly dispair wondering how many “real” conservatives, defined as a general adherence to the principles of the Founders there really are any more. By that definition, none of the republican candidates with the exception of maybe Ron Paul fit the bill. And none of the major talking heads on radio or TV do either, outside one or two on Fox Business.
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/01/19/407289/limbaugh-on-gingrich-cheating-on-his-ex-wife-newts-a-victim/
I don’t listen to Limbaugh. I am just not a talk radio guy. But I am with Newton on this. I usually think people lambasting him are probably going overboard.
But wow.
It sounds laughable, but I have to ask is Rush being serious? He’ll often satirize a position by arguing an extreme and ridiculous version of it. It sounds like he’s mocking social liberalism. I’ve found more than a few times that people using these “shocking” quotes against Limbaugh were doing little more than taking an Onion article seriously, including this blogger once back at Belief.net. So, is Rush being serious? Seriously.
and insists that Newt’s asking Marianne for permission to have a mistress is not the same as asking for an “open marriage,”
Technically Rush is correct here. If Newt really wanted an “open marriage”, it would mean that his wife could have a lover, too. Can’t have that!
I meant I agree with MC!
“Shouldn’t we be more concerned about Newt’s conservative philosophy and the type of government he proposes to lead as President?”
Much as I admire President Obama’s devotion to wife and children, I would agree that the number of women he slept with did not make John F. Kennedy a bad president.
What I discern from Newt’s multiple infidelities is that he doesn’t even try to pretend to live up to the principals he castigates others for abandoning. Newt has no discernible principals that he feels he himself is bound to even try to adhere to. Therefore no voter could have any confidence they have any idea what they are voting for.
This is the man who sought to impeach the President of the United States for having an affair with one intern, while remaining married to his wife, even as Newt was having an affair and preparing to divorce a wife dying of cancer (“…for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part”???)
That said, his callous remarks about janitors making way too much because some make $13 an hour rather than $7.75 strikes me as a much better reason not to elect him.
I’ll believe it’s Rush’s bizarre sense of irony when he takes a piledriver from Jerry Lawler.
KXB wrote:
‘ “Everybody’s had an angry ex-spouse.”
Not Obama’
zzzzzzzzinggg!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Abu Ghraib went far beyond humiliation.
I’ll also point out that you can’t make a marriage or relationship retroactively “open,” which is what Gingrich wanted to so.
KXB:
ZING!
Yeah, I heard some of that while scanning through the radio today. I stayed just long enough to use the old (completely wrong) myth of “50% of marriages end in divorce anyway” excuse for Newt’s actions.*
Beck, on the other hand, was raking Newt over the coals and saying this all showed him unfit for office, if Republicans really believe “character matters” as they claim.
* Reality is that ~30% of first marriages end in divorce, and the overall divorce rate in the US topped out at ~40% and then declined through the ’00s.
So I guess that Rush making fun of Ted Kennedy for his personal life was just to gain rating points. Newt is a low life and as far as voting for him I’ll remember what is said about laying down with dogs. Sure seems like Palin and Perry have picked up some fleas today. Newt is the only candidate that could make me vote for the big O. Reminds me of that race in LA between Edwin Edwards and David Duke. You just had to gag and vote for Edwards.
Nathan,
I agree with you. I’ll admit that I love listening to Rush lambaste democrat politicians. He has, however, proved increasingly neocon in his positions. His professed love for Santorum and the ridiculous waterboy role he took on during the Bush years really show a lack of adherence to real conservatism. I would suggest you give Jason Lewis a try if you haven’t already. He’s the only “real deal” out there anymore in my opinion.
I would argue that it does and should make a difference–to conservatives. Liberals probably don’t care quite so much about ones’ domestic living arrangements. But if you call yourself a conservative, that should mean that you hold yourself, and the people you support, to a higher standard. That doesn’t mean that divorces should be illegal or that Newt should be thrown in jail. What it does mean is that anyone who takes their conservatism seriously should take his personal dealings with those who he chose to make vows with seriously. You talk about the sanctity of marriage and getting Constitutional Amendments to ‘protect’ marriage from homosexuals…and then you choose to vote for someone who is a quite frankly a disgrace to the very sacrament of marriage.
Taken to a different level, we know that many of his Congressional colleagues found him difficult to deal with. We know that his staff fled the scene of his campaign last year. And we know that he has some difficulty keeping commitments to people he claims to have loved.
So, explain to me: why would any self-described conservative vote for this man?
Peace be with you.
Ordinarily I’d chalk this up to knee-jerk tribalism, but Limbaugh actually has a long record of blaming the behavior of cheating husbands on either “liberal values in society” or (even more unbelievably) asserting that this behavior is the fault of their wives. The same pattern emerged after the John Edwards affair, and after the Tiger Woods revelations. Limbaugh certainly didn’t have partisan motivations for defending either of them (certainly not Edwards!), but he still gravitated instinctively toward looking for excuses for adultery. It transcends his partisanship, which suggests a deeper level of pathology. It’s one more bit of evidence for the theory that Limbaugh isn’t a sincere conservative at all, but someone pretending to be a right-winger as a form of extremely lucrative postmodern performance art.
Rush is also an entertainer who consistently says whatever he thinks is the most outrageous thing possible, since that’s his gimmick. In that sense he’s a little like Christopher Hitchens without the education. He has a great deal of talent for doing what he does, he’s a consummate entertainer, and occasionally he skewers a deserving target. But he’s certainly no role model, and even if he’s only pretending to be a outsized defender of immorality as a sort of running gag, at some point that gag swallows the rest of his life and becomes the reality.
I’m still inclined to believe the “society made me do it” schtick in that “email from a friend” is another joke that Rush is trying to make as a satire of liberalism, but at some point it becomes a joke he’s playing on his own listeners at their expense, and a rather cruel one. They aren’t laughing along with it. They’re actually gullible enough to go out and vote for Newt. I imagine Rush, in his amoral and not-particularly-partisan private thoughts, thinks that’s completely hilarious.
Meh, I don’t really care.
Gingrich is toast.
I find it highly amusing that more “conservative” voters would vote against Romney because he transported the family dog on a cage firmly attached to the roof of his family car 30 years ago (the dog safely made it to the vacation destination) than would vote against Gingrich because he screwed his mistress (now third wife) while married to his second wife in the same bed he shared with his second wife. It must all have something to do with those “family values” I keep hearing about. I realize that in one case we are talking about a dog, which everyone agrees is “part of the family,” and in the other case we are talking about Callista, who everyone with eyes agrees is . . . .
BTW I understand that Newt actually gave thought to converting to Mormonism until the great historian learned that Mormons had formally abandoned polygamy more than 100 years ago. He then decided to convert to Roman Catholicism, “the other white cult,” after reading about all the dispensations JFK received for his extracurricular activities. Chris Mathews in his current biography of JFK actually gives JFK a pass on his philandering due to his wartime experence. I understand that Mrs. Mathews is not exactly pleased or in agreement with her husband.
Also BTW I hear Newt saying he asked God for forgiveness for his sins, but I was talking to God just the other day, and He strenuously denied forgiving Gingich for his sins.
Anglican, same here which paradoxically allows new to enjoy the theater of this election much more.
I’m enjoying the theater too–nothing more satisfying than seeing a big ol’ hypocrite publicly embarrassed, but the adultery story isn’t as important as the shady financial dealings. He got caught once before when he was in the House, and now it looks like he’s up to his old tricks again:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/newt-gingrich-charity-paid-cash-gingrich-profit-business/story?id=13804431#.TxjEE6X2a8A
And here’s the excellent piece written about him in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/features/newt-gingrich-0910?click=main_sr. This quote should scare the hell out of anybody:
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”
If this country is STUPID enough to elect Newton Leroy Gingrich to the Presidency, I’m moving to Canada for the duration.
Fortunately for me, I just don’t see it happening.
It’s gonna be Obama for 4 more years.
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”
Deeds above words…
This is the man who sought to impeach the President of the United States for having an affair with one intern, while remaining married to his wife, even as Newt was having an affair and preparing to divorce a wife dying of cancer (“…for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part”???)
Actually, Siarlys, the wife who had cancer was his first wife, from whom he was divorced in 1981. (Though, as has been remarked elsewhere, the oft-quoted story of his asking her for the divorce while she was in the hospital is untrue). His second wife, to whom he was married during the Clinton impeachment business, had (has?) MS.
[...] new meaning to the term “the audacity of hope” regarding his political ambitions) but I read the following tweet—“If you think Marianne Gingrich is angry, just wait until you see Callista’s interview [...]
Limbaugh saying everyone’s got an angry ex-spouse and quoting his friend’s e-mail favourably I took as ironic humour.
David J. White, aside from the recently-discovered “fact” that Newt asked his first wife for divorce a little while BEFORE visiting her in the cancer ward, and that it was his second wife he was cheating on while prosecuting Clinton, the first travesty being already history, I hardly see how your clarifications significantly elevate the morality of Newt over the morality of Bill… which we can all agree is a low bar.
“‘ “Everybody’s had an angry ex-spouse.”
Which I’m sure Rush is familiar with.
In ancient times, gods, goddesses and demi-gods (I think all of them were male) directly reflected the faults and foibles of mortals. Admirers of, for examples, Greek drama and the Homeric writings can see the evidence of that first-hand. If those literary traditions are off-putting, Edith Hamilton or Bullfinch are easy entries.
Fast forward two or three millenia, and the old pantheons are the quiet concern of a very few Pagan reconstructionists. Mortals have long since lost their mirrors of abstraction, and instead have settled on the simplistic sin-redemption model. Where else can they settle their sights than on the new demi-gods of politics and entertainment?
The problem I always had with the glass house metaphor was that we all live in one.
The Wikipedia definition of the term “neo-conservative” (neo-con) varies widely from the way commenters used it here, and seems to have nothing in common with the position of Limbaugh on anything:
>i>Neoconservatism is a variant of the political ideology of conservatism which rejects the utopianism and egalitarianism of modern liberalism but sees a role for the welfare state…
Neoconservatism was developed by former liberals, who in the late 1960s began to oppose many of the policies and principles associated with President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs,