Was It Rush Limbaugh Who Made Lying Acceptable?

[G_j]

old article posted in a former incarnation,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4938&forum=DCForumID38&archive=yes

Pants On Fire
(c) July 9, 2002
The Daily Brew

Why did corporate America decide it was OK to lie to their investors, the SEC, and the public? How did corporate America get the idea that they could tell huge whoppers without getting caught? Who is responsible for giving them the idea that deceit was a sure fire path to riches? That one's easy. Rush Limbaugh.

From 1992 until today, Limbaugh has been without question the single most influential political commentator in America. After making possible the GOP's 1994 congressional takeover, Limbaugh was named an honorary member. It was Limbaugh's GOP majority who then changed the law in 1995, shielding outside accountants, law firms, CEOs and directors from liability for false corporate reporting. Limbaugh and his 20 million listeners cheered them on every step of the way as they passed the bill over President Clinton's veto. In the past five years since the GOP congress made that law, over 1,000 public companies have been forced to restate misleading reports.

Today, Limbaugh's influence is equally felt among Republican lawmakers and their corporate sponsors. Limbaugh is the highest paid personality on the radio. His contract is reported to be worth over a quarter of a billion dollars. When a guy earns that kind of money, the corporations take notice. Especially the five or six global giants that control 95% of the US media. And what did they notice? They noticed that no lie was too big, no story too tall; Limbaugh could say virtually anything and get away with it.

Day after day, lie after lie, Limbaugh keeps them coming. Whether accusing Hillary Clinton of murder, or denying that global warming is real, no whopper is too big for Limbaugh to throw at his credulous sheep. Not content with helping the GOP destroy the bedrock regulatory oversight that had made the American financial system the envy of the world, Limbaugh spent the remainder of the 90s as a veritable poster child for earning huge profits by lying about progressive politicians and policies.

So it came as no surprise that the rest of the corporate media would follow suit. Whether misquoting Al Gore, making up stories about president Clinton's White House staff, or misreporting the voter fraud that installed their candidate in the White House, all across America the corporate media have adopted Limbaugh's modus operendi. And guess what? Just like Limbaugh, they get away with it!
Limbaugh's latest lie, which has been picked up and amplified by the corporate media, is that all this permissiveness is somehow Bill Clinton's fault. But 7 years and $70 million dollars in special prosecutors later, we know that Clinton's only lie, if you even want to call it that, was about his private life. And even the most self-deluded ditto-head would have to admit that Ken Starr and the GOP Congress made damn sure Clinton didn't get away with it.

No, Rush, corporate America didn't convince themselves they could get away with lying because they watched Bill Clinton get crucified for a tiny white lie about his personal life. They decided they could get away with it because they had watched you get away with repeatedly raping of the truth for ten years in front of 20 million Americans on a daily basis.
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[bryant69]

1. This is good but could be better

If more specifically reflecting Rush's constant insistance that Bill Clinton's sexual mishap was somehow responsible for Enron deciding they could defraud their investors.

Taken seriously, though, of course lying about politics and business has been going on since we had politics and business.

Bryant

[G_j]

9. lying has always been a part of politics

perhaps Rush just raised America's (and especially the media's) tolerance for bald face lying?

[bryant69]

11. You could make that point -

It wasn't just him, but certainly he's the most visible example of it. I think though more than jsut lying, the idea that Ideology is somehow just as good as factual information. I suspect that if we could hook him up to a truth detector for his show he'd pass as often as he'd fail - even saying things that are total nonsense. Because he really believes in his ideology.

But ideology really isn't as good as facts.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[JohnnyLib2]

2. "Made lying acceptable" He'll probably take credit for it

if the mood or chemical hits. Always the center of any story....

[liberal N proud]

3. And when he came on the air everyone kept saying he was harmless

I remember when Limpballs first aired, I heard him and thought, who would listen to this bag of crap. My mother said she listened ONCE, then couldn't stand him. But everyone just excused his lies as harmless and he was nothing.
Nothing but a big bag of shit spreading the stench from coast to coast and beyond.

[mtnester]

4. Nixon did sort of, then Ollie North made it an art form

IMO of course

[genie_weenie]

5. No the Lie has been a fundamental part of politics as long as

the Bread & Circuses have...

[greyl]

6. Let's ask some indigenous Americans what they think...

Where are they?

I'm being a smartass, but I do think it's way off the mark to suppose lying became "acceptable" as recently as limbaugh's fame.

[chefgirl]

7. Yes

I've been calling him a dangerous rabble rouser since the very first time I heard him spewing his filth before Bill Clinton was ever even elected.

Never forget Rwanda and the role hate radio played in that horrible fiasco. Limpballs and his ilk are much more dangerous than people realize.

-chef-

[G_j]

10. Rwanda

absolutely!

listeners beware!

[JohnnyLib2]

8. Rush is on right now

--the gay card again.
--bashing Brian Ross.
--attacking Carville


Sorry, fellow terrorists, I can't listen anymore. Agent 12, please take my post.

[KansDem]

12. Reagan/Bush made it OK to hate, Rush helped to direct that hate...

The U.S. has been on a downslide since 1980. Regan/Bush singled out gays, liberals, feminists, environmentalists, civil libertarians, et al, for intolerance and consequently hate. Limbaugh and his wanna-bees simply provide the mechanism for that hate to focus it, reinforce it, and make it self perpetuating.

It's what happens when right-wingers and neo-con fascists cannot win an argument, and consequently an election, with their ideology and platform. The next best strategy is to demonize your opponent with lies and smears. It that doesn't quite work, then steal the election.

It's also best to have an semi-illiterate, willfully-ignorant electorate.

[Bigmack]

13. No Fairness Doctrine = .....

anything goes.

Have you ever heard Savage (Weiner)?

Medved hasn't told the (whole) truth in so long he wouldn't recognize it.

If nobody gets to rebut you, anything goes.

[Solly Mack]

14. On lying and the fabric of America

If the stories and myths we are taught as children in school and by our parents make up the fabric of America, the fabric of our history and our glory, then one piece of thread shows just how threadbare that fabric truly is

George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. "I can not tell a lie"

But did it happen? Does America use a lie to teach people not to lie? Does America use the image of George Washington - General of the army that freed us from British rule - First President...the beginning of our greatness...to suggest our glory is in our integrity...by using a lie to illustrate that point?


Maybe it's just me....

Myths have their place and their uses....but myths should never be what a nation builds it's system of government on...it should never be how a nation defines it's national character.

Celebrate the myths....but never forget they are myths. Never pass them off as truth.

[G_j]

19. Does America use a lie to teach people not to lie?

this demonstrates one of the many conflicts of our 'self-image'
sort of like killing for Jesus, I suppose.
In the face of falsehoods and hypocrisy we imagine ourselves as something beyond what we have actually learned and gained through real 'wisdom'.

[Buzz Clik]

15. Ollie North and Fawn Hall gave lying sex appeal

[NewJeffCT]

16. prior to Limbaugh & when the Fairness Doctrine still existed...

Most media tried to be fair & balanced.

Rush was the first media person in the multi-media age to gain a large audience that just delivered whopper after whopper and there was nobody on air to counterbalance him...

(the internets first started becoming mainstream in the early to mid 90s)

It took our side 12 years to start Air America after Limbaugh started in '92, even though his effect was obvious with the results in the '94 mid-term elections.

[abluelady]

17. I Think It Was Nixon. n/t

[madmusic]

18. He made "I'm never wrong" acceptable. n/t

[Toots]

20. "Government is the Problem, not the Solution" Huge Republican LIE

Government is not Bad...."War is good for the economy"...Huge Republican LIE... Democrats are good for the economy as shown by FDR, Clinton, JFK. War had nothing to do with it. War did not pass Labor Laws or Social Security or even the GI Bill. War may have spawned the GI Bill but war itself did not create the middle class the GI Bill accomplished.