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Leading Nowhere

Yes, he is an entertainer — you have to be to keep an audience for 3 hours every day — but he is also a leader in thought. This may make the more nuanced among the right uncomfortable, primarily because he doesn’t confer with anyone before making his thoughts known. He’s unpredictable. It is because […]

Yes, he is an entertainer — you have to be to keep an audience for 3 hours every day — but he is also a leader in thought. This may make the more nuanced among the right uncomfortable, primarily because he doesn’t confer with anyone before making his thoughts known. He’s unpredictable. It is because Rush does not confer with others that he is a leader. It is because Rush is independent that he sets himself apart. ~J.P. Freire

We [conservatives] are what is. ~Rush Limbaugh, February 28, 2009

I wasn’t sure what I should say about Freire’s post, but fortunately I was able to confer with my advisors. Oh, wait, I don’t confer with anyone before making my thoughts known, either. I guess I must be a leader, in which case the word doesn’t mean very much. Seriously, why do intelligent conservative journalists (and Freire deserved the recognition he received last week) feel compelled to say such things?

If there is one thing Limbaugh is not, it is unpredictable. Maybe that’s the smart move for someone in his business. He is very successful at what he does, so I’m sure he knows what the formula is for drawing a regular listening audience, but one thing that you can rely on with Limbaugh is that you can be sure that you know exactly what you are getting when you turn on his show. Is Limbaugh independent? Independent of what? He very reliably serves up ready-made opinions, affirms his listeners’ beliefs, flatters their wisdom and very rarely challenges them. The same might be said of many people, and it isn’t the end of the world, but why pretend that one of the most predictable men around is the opposite of what he is? In what way is he a “leader in thought”? Perhaps you could allow that he popularizes and distributes ideas for mass consumption, but this makes him a simplifier of thought, not a leader. It is a thin line between a simplifier, who makes ideas more accessible to a broader audience, and a terrible simplifier, who distorts and mangles them in service to another goal.

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