Rush Limbaugh is flat out hysterical over Steven Colbert moving to CBS. Limbaugh proclaimed on his radio that the hiring of Colbert is an act of war against conservatives.
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RUSH LIMBAUGH: Do you really care what I think about that? (interruption) Do you care what I think of Colbert getting Letterman’s gig? (interruption) You really care about what I think about that? (interruption) Well, I’ll give you the short version. CBS has just declared war on the Heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatives.
Now it’s just wide out in the open. What this hire means is a redefinition of what is “funny” and a redefinition of what is comedy, and they’re blowing up the 11:30 format under the guise that the world’s changing and people don’t want the kind of comedy that Carson gave us or even Letterman.
They don’t want that anymore. It’s the media planting a flag here. I think it’s maybe the media’s last stand, but it’s a declaration. There’s no unity in this hire. They’ve hired a partisan, so-called comedian to run a comedy show. So that’s what I think. Cool. Fine. Satisfied? (interruption) Good.
Rush Limbaugh can call his hate speech comedy, but Stephen Colbert’s parody character of conservative hosts is an act of war. One suspects that Colbert’s parody cuts a little too close to the bone for Limbaugh. Conservatives are always looking for a reason to go to war.
In this case, Limbaugh is expertly playing into the Republican victimization complex by claiming that CBS is somehow attacking them by hiring Stephen Colbert. The character that Colbert has played is a funhouse mirror look at how hosts like Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly really behave.
Maybe Rush thinks that he should have been given the gig? The problem with conservatives doing comedy is that they aren’t funny. Glenn Beck thinks he is funny. Rush Limbaugh thinks he is funny, but they aren’t funny. Their humor is usually mean-spirited. Conservative humor tends to enjoy laughing at the misfortune of others.
Limbaugh was trying to use CBS to whip up more right wing paranoia. Rush has made a fortune off of exploiting the paranoid right wing mind, so it should surprise anyone that he is mobilizing his white haired army for an assault on Stephen Colbert.
Rush Limbaugh and his angry right wing white man rage are quickly fading into the past. They are becoming a source of ridicule, as hosts like Stephen Colbert are the future.
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
