Just Leave Us Out of It
Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 3:05AM 3 Comments Salon has a weekly feature called Right Hook, a roundup of conservative commentary to help us progressives know what the conservative perspective is. Right Hook generally includes a little bit of commentary as well, as in this example from today's feature regarding Rush Limbaugh's take on the recent NBA brawl.
Extending his helpful Iraq metaphor, Limbaugh put his own unique spin on America's en vogue red-state, blue-state national melodrama.
"By the way, has anybody noticed all these outbreaks, all this violence, all this stuff happens in blue cities, ladies and gentlemen? I mean, you don't see this happening in Charlotte. You don't see this sort of stuff happening. But you do see it happening out of Miami; you do see it happening in the blue cities out there. So, you know, call L.A. 'New Mosul, California.' You could call New York 'Baghdad, New York,' and this helps people put this in perspective."
He must have missed the ugly brawl that marred the Clemson-South Carolina college football game, played Sunday in Columbia, South Carolina -- the capital of a state so red it fired the first shots against the Union in the Civil War. Maybe to put things further in perspective Limbaugh will henceforth refer to Columbia as "Ramadi, South Carolina"?
OK, first off, Rush, Charlotte is in Mecklenburg County. Mecklenburg County has 42% registered Democrats and 35% registered Republicans. Mecklenburg County also went for Kerry in 2004. North Carolina as a whole is increasingly "swing," as the urban areas of Charlotte, Greensboro, and the Triangle see a greater influx of people from points north and across the country (who can blame them?). And I think you're misguided to place too much blame on "hip hop culture" here, but that's a bigger issue that I don't feel like getting into. Plus, the NBA has been back in town for what, six whole weeks?
And Salon, jeez, yeah, South Carolina is a strongly red state. But invoking the Civil War to denegrate SC doesn't help anybody. Isn't it time to move on?
Reader Comments (3)
Way to defend the Carolinas! Limbaugh never knows what he's talking about, but seeing him prove it over and over doesn't seem to make me feel any better about it. I understand the belligerent appeal he had for conservatives back in the 90s but I can't imagine people don't recognize him as a blowhard hypocrite who's just trying to sell books nowadays.
in honor of rush limbaugh being an insufferable know-it-all (or a thinks-he-knows-it-all), i have composed a haiku:
rush, i must ask you
why are you such a fat-head?
it must be the pills
and here is one for to wish you a happy thanksgiving/harvest celebration/pilgrim invasion day/ thursday:
on this day i can't
be a vegetarian
'cause tofurky sucks.
The football game was played in Clemson.......not Columbia. Sorry Charlie you knew I would correct you on that one.
The resident redneck,
Shane