Rush Limbaugh Tries to Take Credit for Jon Stewart and The Daily Show

Rush Limbaugh tried to take credit for the success of The Daily Show by claiming that his 1990s television was the forerunner of what Jon Stewart and company are doing today.

Here is the audio from Media Matters:

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LIMBAUGH: Unemployment is up. Jobs are down. Everything that should be up is down!” It’s the same old thing. Obama’s a copycat. He’s just more radical than the Democrats that came before him. Here’s Obama, by the way. Fresh in your mind is that three-minute sound bite from my TV show. It’s on YouTube and we’ve put the link at RushLimbaugh.com if you want to see it. Because the video of all those sound bites, you can see it, and have it, and make your impression. You will recognize it as what is commonly called The Daily Show today. This is show prep for the rest of the media. We’re on the cutting edge of societal evolution. We’re the forerunner.

…

I played for you an hour ago a 3 minute soundbite from my television show in 1995 illustrating how Democratic scare tactics to get everybody to agree with growing the budget. By the way this is a challenge for me, the Democrats are talking about what a great era the the Clinton era was. They tell us now when they want to come and raise taxes. Well look, let’s go back to Clinton era taxes. We had economic boom. Everything was great back then. Of course, we played sound bites, a sound bite, 1995, of Democrats employing the same scare tactics then that they do today. It really is quite instructive. If you missed it, we’ve got the link. It’s a YouTube video at RushLimbaugh.com. It’s also you’ll see. It’s The Daily Show, except a conservative version of it. The forerunner to The Daily Show. Ahead of it’s time. The TV show was literally ahead of it’s time. I kid you not.

You be the judge.

Here is Rush Limbaugh’s TV show:

Here’s The Daily Show:

Gee, Rush Limbaugh’s show was just like The Daily Show if you took out all the jokes and substituted Republican propaganda. Limbaugh might as well claim that his TV show was the forerunner to Friends too because his show had as much in common with that classic 90s comedy as it does The Daily Show.

Limbaugh’s TV show was ahead of its time in one respect. His program may not resemble The Daily Show, but it does look a whole lot like this:

The Rush Limbaugh Show was produced by Roger Ailes, so before Fox News forever destroyed television news, Rush Limbaugh trailblazing the path to decline.

If The Daily Show is one of the few shining lights left in our media, Rush Limbaugh is one of the reasons for our national media decline.

Rush Limbaugh and The Daily Show have absolutely nothing of substance in common.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association