Limbaugh lashes out at Media Matters

On the April 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called Media Matters for America “Stalinist” and part of the “Clinton machine agenda.” He further falsely asserted that Media Matters receives funding from philanthropist George Soros and that he is “not demeaning people on this program in any way.”

Limbaugh asserted that syndicated radio host Don Imus was fired because he was “critical of [Sen.] Hillary [Clinton (D-NY)],” and added, “This is an election year. Clinton Inc., you get on their case, they're going to take you out.” Limbaugh continued, "[W]hen I say the Clinton team, I include Media Matters for America, this supposed tax-exempt media watchdog group," adding, falsely, "[T]hey are George Soros-funded. This is clearly part of the Democrat [sic] Party machine." As Media Matters noted when Internet gossip Matt Drudge described Media Matters as a “Soros operation,” Media Matters has never received funding from progressive philanthropist George Soros.

Limbaugh said that the purpose of Media Matters is to “kill conservative information, which it labels 'misinformation,' ” based on “the template [that] conservatives are racist, and as such they have to be banned.”

Limbaugh also asserted, “I'm not going to let the Democrat Party or the left or some lackey watchdog group or a couple of race hustlers dictate my speech,” and added, “They don't get to use the power of government to silence conservatives, which is their real purpose.” Limbaugh also claimed, “We don't play rap music on this show. We're not demeaning people on this program in any way. We don't air South Park, we don't air MTV or Comedy Central on this show, and the rest of talk radio doesn't either.” However, Media Matters has documented numerous examples of Limbaugh demeaning people on his program.

From the April 16 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: The ironical thing about this is, or the ironic thing is, that Imus is no conservative -- most of his guests were liberal -- but he was critical of Hillary. And so he had to go. This is an election year. Clinton Inc., you get on their case, they're going to take you out. They're going to do what they can to marginalize you or do whatever. I've seen a couple stories I was reading over the weekend, that the Clinton team saw their opportunity. And when I say the Clinton team, I include Media Matters for America, this supposed tax-exempt media watchdog group. It's just an arm of the Democrat Party. They have an agenda. They are tax-exempt, and they're doing nothing but advancing a political agenda. And they are George Soros-funded. This is clearly part of the Democrat Party machine. And I had some people say, “Rush, are you going to talk about this today, or are you going to ignore it and let it go?” And I said no, because the main point I want to make about this is that it is a Democrat operation. This Democrat operation ignores large swaths of entertainment and media.

We didn't hear about Bill Clinton's abuse of women from people outraged by that. That was a personal matter, it was sex, it was none of our business. In fact, when the Clintons took out against those women as “trailer trash,” we all chuckled and laughed, and we got treated to James Carville talking about what you get when you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park. Where was the outrage over that? Where were the media watchdogs? This was coming from the office of the president of the United States. There's somebody who has genuine power. Hillary badmouthing the Bill Clinton women, unleashing the war room against them -- that was OK too because that showed her strength, that showed her devoted loyalty as a wife, that showed she's not going to stand by and let her man be impugned and so forth. So whatever they do, that's fine, they've got a built-in excuse. They can't hate, they don't hate, they're liberals. They have no evil intentions in their hearts; only right-wingers are guilty of that. And of course, you know, in the case of the Clinton women and the women he'd abused, it was right-wingers who were calling attention to it -- “The right wingers have hate in their hearts, right-wingers are just trying to take out our president, so we're going to circle the wagon around our president, we don't care what he did, it's a bunch of some right-wingers trying to take him out.” It's a -- this is nothing but politics, it's a pure political agenda driven by the Democrat Party machine, you can bash Christians, you can compare the president and the military to Nazis. If you're [Sen.] Robert Byrd [D-WV], you can use the N-word on Fox News Sunday, and all of that is OK.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I'm going to tell you something, folks, because there are literally tens of millions of us who are going to fight these people on the left every step of the way while they try to destroy the new media. And that includes talk radio, it includes the Internet, it includes Fox News, it includes conservative blogs. This is an election season, it's only going to intensify. The Left knows they can't win in the arena of ideas, in debates, on this show or anywhere else, so it's time to take them out. They got a trial run with this Imus thing, and they're feeling their oats. I'm certain and make no mistake, other people are in the crosshairs, and they're targets, and it's a Democrat Party machine operation that is getting this done. I look at this, and I say this is my country too. And I say I'm not going to let the Democrat Party or the left or some lackey watchdog group or a couple of race hustlers dictate my speech. Its just not -- I'm not going to let it happen. They don't get to use the power of government to silence conservatives, which is their real purpose. These are totalitarian tactics that they are employing here. It's the liberal constituency that repeatedly and daily demeans people -- black, white, in between, I don't care. We don't play rap music on this show. We're not demeaning people on this program in any way. We don't air South Park, we don't air MTV or Comedy Central on this show, and the rest of talk radio doesn't either. Now look at [Rev. Al] Sharpton and [Rev. Jesse] Jackson. You've got two liberal Democrats who ran for president who are bowed to by the likes of Hillary and other Democrats despite their long history of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a problem festering in the Democrat ranks, not in the Republican Party.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And I'll tell you who's out there doing all this monitoring, and then reporting things out of context, and that's our old buddies at Media Matters for America. If you want to know what the liberal media are going to report as news, ask them. Ninety percent, it seems, of what is said about me in the drive-by media does not come from them hearing me say it. It comes from where they read it on these watchdog websites. They don't listen to this program. The latest example of this was good old John Harris at The Politico, who was told by people that I compared him and a buddy of his that left The Washington Post to the Indianapolis Colts. Never even talked about the Indianapolis Colts on the subject when it came up about the Edwards press conference and all of that. They don't listen to our shows. They go to these websites, which are part of the Democrat Party machine, and that's where they hear what was said, and they believe everything they see on these websites and everything they read. That's where they get their talking points. And they are taking direction, in essence -- they are taking their talking points and their direction from Democrat fundraisers -- George Soros, Hillary, the DNC -- because that's who it is that telling the rest of the country who don't hear what's said on this show what wasn't said.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I've been in the crosshairs long before Imus knew what it was like to be in the crosshairs, by a Democrat-funded arm of their machine, as Media Matters for America, tax-exempt foundation -- and what they do is they listen to these programs, all of them, and they put them up there, and that's where drive-by media types and the liberals hear -- or rather, a better point, they read what is said on this program within the context that the watchdog groups choose to present it. And the -- they never listen, they do not listen to this program or any others. They wouldn't deign to lower themselves. So they rely on these watchdogs. Mainstream media reporters do it. They all do.

I'm going to say something. I asked Mr. Snerdley here at the break if he thought this would sound too self-serving, and he said, “No, you've got to say it.” These people that are doing the watchdogging, these people who are running these websites as arms of the Democrat machine and are agenda-driven. All of the critics of this program, they wouldn't last a week behind this microphone, with the scrutiny that I've had. They wouldn't last a week with the scrutiny they give anyone else in conservative broadcast media. They couldn't handle it. Most of these people read cue cards on the morning shows or TelePrompTers or on the newscasts. You put them behind a microphone with no net, you put them there with no guests, you put them there and you say, “15 hours and you make it so that people want to listen,” and they couldn't do it. And the first moment they were criticized, they would go bonkers and batty. They couldn't handle it, folks. They could not deal with the character assassination, they couldn't with the out-of-context and lies -- out-of-context reports and lies, which are nothing more than attempts to destroy my credibility and others. These are people who couldn't do what we do if their lives depended on it, and succeed at it.

Another thing about talk radio -- this is a spoken-word medium. It is not the printed word. When you print what is sometimes said on talk radio, and you don't get the context, and you haven't listened, and all you're doing is reading it, you can draw an entirely incorrect inference and conclusion from what has been said. And this is understood by the watchdog groups, who purposely structure what they print about what is said on this program in a way to influence the drive-bys and others, who only -- I'm going to give you the equivalent. Let's just say I decided to rely on somebody who literally hates The New York Times for my knowledge of what's in The New York Times. Let's say I decided to stop reading it, and I assigned somebody who I know who hates it to tell me every day what's in it, and then came in every day on this program as an expert about what's in The New York Times. That's what these watchdog groups are doing. They're listening to it, they're characterizing it out of context, they're putting it in print, a spoken-word format, and then the people who claim to be the experts in journalism in telling us what happened when we weren't there to see it. They don't listen to the source, they don't take the time to find out what was really said or hear the context, they just believe everything that was written and said about it by people who have an agenda that is paid for by the Democrat Party.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know what's said here and how it's said and what isn't said. So you are easily able to recognize when a bunch of BS is going down. You are able to recognize the attacks that are taken out of context and so forth, and you don't get squeamish and the -- “Oh my gosh, I can't support this anymore, I can't listen to this” -- because you know, because you listen every day, that the attacks on this program aren't rooted in any kind of fact or truth but, rather, out-of-context innuendo on any number of things. And for that, I can never fully repay everybody. The thank you that I have will have to be sufficient.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: See, here's the thing. This is the way this is all shaping up out there. You can't criticize people on the radio. You can't do it. You can't attack them. You can't defend yourself. You can't defend others who are attacked by the Democrats. You can't do this on radio, but you can do it on the floor of Congress. You can go to the floor of Congress, the floor the House, floor of the Senate. You can say some of the most despicable things about people -- as [Sen.] Tom Harkin [D-IA] has about me or his fellow senators. You can do that all day long and nobody will -- can't -- we're not going to stop that.

Congressional hearings? How about how they try to destroy the character and the careers of judicial nominees at the Senate Judiciary Committee? You can do that all day long and Media Matters won't care, and the drive-by -- in fact, they'll love it. They love it. This is cool. And these senators are written up as great heroes for daring to tell the truth about these despicable conservatives who want to take over the court and deny you women the right to choose, or whatever other fear tactic they lie about. TV news hit jobs? Television news can do a hit job and destroy anybody they want. The New York Times can do a hit job and destroy anybody they want.

But you can't do this on radio, because they're going to come after you. You do this on radio -- conservatives do this in the alternative media. Now, I'm going to tell you what the objective is out there, folks, in case some of you are all entertained by this. Understand that this is a Democrat Party, drive-by media, Clinton image machine -- or Clinton machine agenda. And it is to suppress and kill conservative information, which it labels “misinformation.” The conservative information by definition, according to the template of the drive-by media and the Media Matters of the world, is “misinformation.” But they will say that their purpose is to eliminate conservative information because it's misinformation. Because there's a template, and the template is conservatives are racist, and as such they have to be banned. Of course. In the culture, we can't put up with this. They've gotta be banned from cable. They've gotta be banned from Fox News. They've gotta be banned from radio.

Conservatives are also liars. That's another template: Conservatives are liars. They've gotta be snuffed out -- and this is the purpose of the drive-by media, the Democrat Party, and the Clintons, who are funding with their supporters all these watchdog efforts.

This is Stalinist, folks. This is an attack on certain kinds of information that is protected by a template which says, “All conservative information is misinformation. It is reported by liars and racists,” and that's the foundation under which they all proceed, and they're all in on it. It's -- and that is what is happening. It's -- you know, it's a general rule, they would love to do this. But we're gearing up for this election, and if you don't think that in the drive-by media and the Democrat Party, if you don't think 2008 is all about the Clintons getting back in the White House, you've got another thing coming. I'm going to tell you today, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna tell you -- as we sit here today, there is an 80 percent chance that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States, if you look at the way things are falling out right now.

They're trying to take out [former New York City Mayor] Rudy Giuliani [R]. Guess what? Rudy's a draft-dodger now. Did you see the story over the weekend? Rudy Giuliani -- well, you know, Clinton was a draft-dodger, so they got Rudy. Rudy's a draft-dodger. Whatever was said about Clinton, they're going after it. Rudy is a draft-dodger. Rudy is a philanderer. Whatever it is, they're doing everything they can to take Rudy out.

Everybody says, “Well, what about [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL]? What about Obama and the money?” Folks. If you are the -- and I know there are stories out there how the Clintons are worried about Obama, and not just on this fundraising stuff but his godlike status to the godless and so forth. If you're the Clinton machine, and your single competitor is somebody with less than two years' experience in these foxholes, do you really think they are worried about Barack Obama? If you have fallen for the notion that the Clinton machine is sort of upside down and discombobulated and doesn't quite know what's going on here, you are falling for more myths from the media, which is designed to make it look like she has real competition so that she can overcome obstacles rather than being this candidate of inevitability, which she is. So they're trying to make it look like she's got a serious challenge and she's up to it, and she can handle it. But I'm telling you, I know the Clinton machine. If you think they are seriously worried about somebody with as little experience as Obama has in these kinds of things, then you're falling -- you're being sucked in for all this. There is an 80 percent chance this woman's going to be the next president, as things sit here today. In politics, everything can change, and it can change on a moment's notice.

But all of these attacks and all of this budding attempt -- and it's not new, it's just intensifying now -- to discredit conservative information as misinformation reported by liars and racists, is about destroying the credibility of anybody who has anything in opposition, to save the Clintons and their quest to be re-ensconced in the White House. It's what all this is about. It's also about making sure that if Mrs. Clinton wins and so forth, that there won't be an alternative media. Hello, Fairness Doctrine. Hello, all of these things to just squelch it. They don't want to hear it. They want to go back to their monopoly days. And that's what this is all about. So when you keep talking about this in the context of Imus, it's so much more about things having nothing to do with Imus than you would possibly believe. In fact, don't get distracted when you think about this by putting it in the context of Imus. If it was about Imus, it would be over, wouldn't it? And it's not, is it?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I read that. I forget where, but I read that I think this morning, it might have been yesterday, that Imus had refused to have Clinton on the show, Hillary, Mrs. Bill Clinton, and had called her Satan and so forth. And somebody speculated that's what motivated the Clintons to aim at Imus and finally take him out.

I don't know whether I -- look it, all I know is this; With the Clintons there are no coincidences. But I -- this is speculation on something I don't know. I think this would have happened whether the Clinton machine had sent marching orders out to anybody or not. So I -- I want to stress this again, and I don't mean to insult anybody here. This is not about Imus. If you keep focusing on the Imus aspect of this, you're going to be distracted from seeing what the real objective here is.

Nothing against Imus saying this, and he probably would disagree. “It's all about me, Limbaugh. What are you talking about?” But he's irrelevant in this now. Look, if it was about Imus, it would be over with. But you've got Sharpton, “I've got my list,” he's saying. “I've got my list of who's next, and I've got this,” and the Media Matters people -- they're all lining up to -- this is a big notch in the belt here. And this is just the beginning.

Well, it's not even that. This is the biggest get so far. And, of course, for people who did the get, who got the got, this is fuel, motivation, inspiration. You think these people aren't out there celebrating, flexing their muscles? “Look at the power we've got.”

And, of course, what is it that made them -- gave them that power? It was a bunch of executives at CBS and NBC cowering in fear in the corners to a number of things, and the elevation of Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jackson as the arbiters of public morality and public taste. Now, you go figure that. If somebody can figure it -- now, I know they've got their positions of power because the Democrat Party has elevated them there, but there's nothing more absurd that that, I mean that's just patently ridiculous. And it is what it is because the objective is the point, not whether they have any credibility doing it. They don't care about being credible while they're doing it they just want is their results.

C. Murphy Hebert is an intern at Media Matters for America