The boycott of Rush Limbaugh is actually doing well

Despite what his crisis management team is saying. Attacking Sandra Fluke pissed off some died in the wool Republicans who have never before been involved in a cause.

Video killed the radio star.

Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh

Fascinating theory from Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight. He blames conservative talk radio:

This might be the key passage of my interview with John Ziegler on Tuesday, for it is, in a nutshell, why conservatives don't win elections anymore. It is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism (in terms of political messaging, that is probably one of conservatism's strengths). Rather, the key lies in the second passage that I highlighted. There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.

John Ziegler is a shining example of such a conservative. During my interview with him, Ziegler made absolutely no effort to persuade me about the veracity of any of his viewpoints. He simply asserted them -- and then became frustrated, paranoid, or vulgar when I rebutted them.

[snip]

Moreover, almost uniquely to radio, most of the audience is not even paying attention to you, because most people listen to radio when they're in the process of doing something else. (If they weren't doing something else, they'd be watching TV). They are driving, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes -- and you have to work really hard to sustain their attention. Hence what Wallace refers to as the importance of "stimulating" the listener, an art that Ziegler has mastered. Invariably, the times when Ziegler became really, really angry with me during the interview was when I was not permitting him to be stimulating, but instead asking him specific, banal questions that required specific, banal answers. Those questions would have made for terrible radio! And Ziegler had no idea how to answer them.

Stimulation, however, is somewhat the opposite of persuasion. You're not going to persuade someone of something when you're (literally, in Ziegler's case) yelling in their ear.

Republicans have become used to shouting at people,trying to cow them into silence, cutting off their microphone, negating their viewpoints, stomping on their logic, mocking their facts and educated research. Bullies like Bush and his cronies in the Bush administration have made it an art form.

Strange how people have become resentful, isn't it?

Update: Via skippy of skippy the bush kangaroo, Kevin Drum gets to the core of the Republican problem:

There will always be plenty of votes for a culturally conservative party. That's not the problem. The problem is the venomous, spittle-flecked, hardcore cultural conservatism that's become the public face of the evangelical wing of the GOP. It's the wing that doesn't just support more stringent immigration laws, but that turns the issue into a hate fest against La Raza, losing 3 million Latino votes in the process. It's the wing that isn't just a little skittish about gay marriage, but that turns homophobia into a virtual litmus test, losing 6 million young voters in the process. It's the wing that isn't just religious, but that treats belief as a precondition to righteousness, losing 2 million secular voters in the process. It's the wing that isn't just nostalgic for old traditions, but that fetishizes the heartland as the only real America, losing 7 million urban voters in the process. It's the wing that goes into a legislative frenzy over Terry Schiavo but six months later can barely rouse itself into more than a yawn over the destruction of New Orleans.

The Right Wing Smear Machine churns along

As Media Matters for America documented, the nationwide network of conservative radio hosts -- personalities without the national prominence of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh -- engaged in an all-out effort to foment hate and suspicion of Barack Obama by participating actively in an echo chamber of smears and falsehoods about the primary candidate and then Democratic nominee. But these same radio hosts were by no means discerning in their vitriol and did not save their ire solely for Obama. The smears ran the gamut, both in the context of the 2008 election, as Media Matters noted in the previous report, and beyond. Immigrants, female politicians (and women in general), the LGBT community, the poor and homeless, minorities, progressives, unions, college students, and even autistic children were targets of these radio personalities' invective.

It must be nice to be the party of Christian and family values. It really shows.

Tracking the lies in the echo chamber

Media Matters:

Summary: Beyond the echelon of widely known conservative radio hosts with national audiences lies a vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have become key components of an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods. Like their better-known counterparts, these syndicated and regional radio hosts have played active roles this election season in promoting falsehoods and smears in an all-out effort to foment hate and distrust among their listeners for President-elect Barack Obama. While the hosts vary in the degree of vitriol they spew and in their ratio of rebuttable falsehoods to unbridled smears, Media Matters for America and Colorado Media Matters have identified common themes that many, if not all, have promoted over the past year.

They have quotes from Chris Baker, Dan Caplis, Bill Cunningham, Mark Levin, "Gunny" Bob Newman, Jim Quinn, Rose Tennent , Lee Rodgers, Michael Savage, Neal Boortz, G. Gordon Liddy, Peter Boyles, Mark Belling, Jon Caldara. These people have gotten away with much in the last few years. Start holding them accountable for the lies and the hate speech they broadcast.

Look who is representing us abroad as the voice of America?

The neocons who are planning to 'fix' Bush's messes. Why does this not fill me with confidence?

Neo-cons take spin to US-backed airwaves

By Khody Akhavi

WASHINGTON - As the administration of US President George W Bush struggles through its last two years in office, it appears that the agenda of neo-conservative ideologues has finally lost its appeal among strategic parts of the US foreign-policy apparatus.

But as their influence has waned at the Pentagon and State Department, neo-conservative hawks have taken charge on the battlefield of public diplomacy.

Intent on fixing what American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Joshua Muravchik termed President Bush's "public diplomacy mess", right-wing hawks have gained control of the weapons in the "war of ideas" - US government-funded and supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA), Al-Hurra, and Radio Farda, which broadcast to the Middle East and aim to offer an alternative view of the news.

The recent appointment of Jeffrey Gedmin, a veteran neo-conservative polemicist, as the director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE), and a smear campaign that led to the recent resignation of Larry Register, Al-Hurra's former news director, appears to herald a turn toward more ideologically rigid programming.

As a result, viewers and listeners of US-supported media in the Middle East are being exposed to a tougher ideological line that endorses the hallmarks of the neo-conservative agenda - regime change and interventionist policies in the region.

Lovely. The neocons and their beloved PNAC need to be dragged out into the sunlight and dosed with bleach. There needs to be a public discussion as to why the neoconservative agenda is not American, or else we will be dealing with yet another hijacking of our government in thirty years or so.

Lee Rodgers being toasted by Spocko

Very satisfying to smack a radio host about with his very own offensive and hateful words:

I think the most relevant fact to you personally is that Lee Rodgers thinks that "[For Egyptians and other Arab cultures], lying is as natural as breathing" (audio link)