Original article published in "The American Thinker"

Rush Limbaugh and Liberalism’s Fatal FlawMay 15th, 2006
One of the Left’s great agonies and frustrations of the past fifteen years has been its abortive quest to field a counterpart to Rush Limbaugh. Fully cognizant of the massive damage inflicted on it by talk radio, a number of contenders placed bids to mount a counterattack. To their bitter dismay, they all came to grief despite the great hype and hope that surrounded each successive attempt.

A decade and a half worth of feverish effort thus produced no headway, not even a single nationally viable liberal host. With nothing to show for, the time has surely come to ask the obvious question: Why?

Why have liberals failed to make any inroads in talk radio? And why has their failure been so complete?

It surely cannot be due to a lack of trying or will, since they have done everything they could to prop up their hopefuls, even to the point of raising donations in this consummately commercial medium. All to no avail.

But rather than to reevaluate their obviously failing approach, they stubbornly carry on in the same way with predicable results. Again and again they run headlong into the same wall, each crash more pathetic and embarrassing than the one before. So bad things have gotten that most recently they placed their bets on Al Sharpton, hoping that the kooky reverend would carry their water on national airways. A futile dream if there ever were one. Rather than pursuing vain hopes, liberals would do much better to take a pause and search for the root cause of their fiasco.

Any such effort would have to begin with a hard look at the format in which they are trying to succeed.

In the type of political talk show invented by Rush Limbaugh, the host openly takes an ideological stance (conservative or liberal) and then applies it to the issues of the day during his hours on the air. What this in effect amounts to is in-depth analysis of current affairs from a specific political point of view.

The key to success in this kind of enterprise is the host’s ability to articulate his positions in a logical and cogent manner. This is because most people will not listen for very long to an analysis-driven program if the analysis itself does not make rational sense.

And this is precisely where the crux of liberals’ problem lies. They are simply not able to explain and defend their views in rational fashion. This is not at all surprising, for how does one justify high taxes, gay marriage, abortion, multiculturalism and such? They are all based on false premises and they all produce disastrous outcomes. Anything more than a superficial examination must reveals them for the frauds and failures that they in truth are. This is why liberalism cannot withstand the analytical vigor of talk radio and why it has failed so abysmally in it.

Talk radio has thus exposed in a striking way a fatal flaw at the very heart of liberalism – its indefensibility by rational argument. Without having yet grasped it, it is the medium’s format that became liberals’ stumbling block.

However abysmal their current predicament may be, the future holds bleaker prospects still. Most liberals do not yet realize that they will never be able to succeed in talk radio. To make it there – at least in the form in which it is currently practiced – requires that hosts do something which liberals simply can’t: logically and rationally expound their views. To make matters even more desperate there is nothing they can do about it short of abandoning their untenable ideology. In popular parlance, they are cooked… completely and utterly cooked.

Things used to be infinitely more palatable (for liberals) when the television talk show was the main forum for the mass dissemination of political opinion. Its relatively short broadcast time – rarely more than fifty minutes – is usually intensely contested by several guests. As a result of severe time constraints, the discussants rarely speak for more than a couple of minutes at a time. This, of course, makes any serious analysis all but impossible. This problem is made all the more acute by the fact that the guests’ statements are routinely intended to rebuff points made by their opponents which themselves are often quite irrelevant to the topic under consideration.
This format is just fine with liberals who – knowing instinctively that their positions cannot withstand thorough scrutiny – are always happy to avoid in-depth discussion of anything. Conservatives, on the other hand, are badly disadvantaged in this kind of environment.

Conservatism requires methodical exposition, quite unlike liberalism which can only survive in the realm of disjointed statements and unsupported assertions. The television talk show is thus liberalism’s perfect vehicle. Often nothing more than a scattered clash of personalities, it is normally dominated by those with the biggest mouth. And since liberals have almost a complete grip on television, they make sure that the biggest mouths on their programs come from their own camp.

But things changed dramatically with the advent of Rush Limbaugh, when the program format he made commonplace became the first ever forum in the mass-media that allowed for the systematic analysis of issues. Nowhere indeed are things discussed more deeply and thoroughly than in talk radio where not infrequently the whole show revolves around two or three subjects. The level of analysis is further deepened by the input from callers who enrich the discussion with their unique input and perspective.

And then, of course, there are those who disagree and openly challenge the host’s positions. To retain his audience’s trust he must be able to deal with their objections in an honest and fair manner. Woe be to the host who keeps dismissing those who oppose him without properly addressing the points they raise. Sooner or later he will be abandoned by all except the most narrow-minded in his audience. No one understands this better than Rush Limbaugh who accords those who contradict him the time and courtesy which go far beyond the bounds of common politeness.

Unable to face the unsavory truth, liberals charge that Mr. Limbaugh owes his success to his showmanship and that their failure to compete is due to their inability to field an equally talented performer. But this surely is not the case. Success in talk radio is not contingent on the host’s ability to be funny. There have been a number of other conservatives who succeeded in this medium without possessing Mr. Limbaugh’s flair for entertaining. Sean Hannity, Michael Reagan and Oliver North immediately come to mind. Funny or not, not a single liberal talk show host has come even close to matching their level of success.

The most acute observer of the American scene, it is his intelligence, penetration, and grasp of issues that primarily account for Rush Limbaugh’s success. His sparkling humor is merely the icing on the sumptuous cake of analysis he serves up on a daily basis. To liberals, however, it does not taste as delicious and understandably so. To them his wit feels more like a stinging petard in their rear regions as they lie prostrate in the ruins of their ideology brought down by the power of his analytical firestorm.

Vasko Kohlmayer is a frequent contributor.

------------------- my response --------------------------
Look carefully at the arguments and language used by Mr. Kohlmayer: they’re arrogant, filled with abstractions, overly-emotional and rife with dramatic pronouncements that are conveniently unaccompanied by facts to back them up. And the occasional facts presented cannot withstand scrutiny.

Sound like anyone you know? Like Rush, perhaps?

The premise of the entire article is wrong, so how does one argue against it?

I can boldly announce that the citizens of the distant Island of Oxycontin are complete failures as human beings. I will offer no concrete information but stay in the abstract: They’re mean blowhards. They're drug addicts. They're hypocrites. They're cowards. Notice I don't say WHY I make those contentions.

Therefore, you can’t refute my argument, can you? All you can do ask questions: I’ve scoured my atlas and can’t find this Island of Oxycontin of which you speak—where is it exactly? What drug do the alleged inhabitants of this alleged island allegedly take? What specific evidence do you have that to validate your argument that these people are complete failures? Can you show me specific, observable behaviors (ie, the inhabitants buying the drugs, taking the drugs, ) you have documented? You know, like a court case against a drug-addicted radio personality. Okay, I could add these specific behaviors about the alleged people on the Island of Oxycontin: They don’t have to interact with people who disagree with them because they have them “screened out.” They cowardly avoid invitations by their opponents to an open debate. They use their garish, brash, ostentatious personality in vain attempts to project phony authoritativeness. They’re willing to put their housekeepers at legal and personal risk to obtain their drugs for them. They hypocritically insist that drug addicts should be “locked away” in prison but hide under expensive legal protection when their own drug habits are discovered.

Now, let's look at your argument. Did you provide any specific, observable, measurable facts? No, you didn’t. And I believe that's because, with your faulty premise, you can't. After all, your argument is a house of cards.

Oh, I forgot—your type doesn’t like science. Or facts. As Stephen Colbert says when he nails conservatives, “I don’t need facts. It just has to feel right in my gut.”

You state that liberal talk radio is a failure. Okay, where is your evidence for your assertion? Gee, you don’t present any. If I were to ask detectives (like the ones at the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Dept. who investigated Rush’s criminal behaviors) for evidence to support or refute your argument, what might they suggest? What about the nationally recognized company that measures the size of radio show audiences—Arbitron? You asserted over and over that Rush’s program is a huge success while liberal radio shows are failures, yet never once mentioned Arbitron or quoted any of their ratings. Don’t you see a problem with that?

I could just as easily declare Rush Limbaugh’s show as a failure and tout the huge audiences for liberal radio shows. Since neither of us bothers to quote from factual sources, why is your argument any better than mine? But I wouldn't present an argument without some facts. After all, I don't want BOTH of us to sound foolish.

Me? I’ve scoured the Net and Arbitron’s web site for information. I just called Arbitron’s local office at (312) 542-1900 and am trying to get information about their ratings of political radio programs. Did you bother to do any of that? Did you talk to one of their employees like I just did to learn how they come by their ratings and how they can be obtained by the public? If you had, perhaps you would have found information that would make your argument stronger. Nah!

This is from Arbitron’s Summer 2005 Metro edition regarding the performance of WLIB, Air America Radio's "flagship station" in New York:
Mon-Sun 6a12m, AQH, Share and Cume have all increased for both Persons 12+ and Adults 25-54. For Adults 25-54, WLIB’s target audience, AQH is up 29%, Share increased 40% (from 1.0 to 1.4) and Cume increased 9%; for Persons 12+, AQH is up 6%, Share is up 20% and Cume is up 11%. WLIB ranks #2 in A25-54 TSL MSu6a12m (10h30m per week), a 20% increase since the Spring 2005 book.

And look at the previous edition’s numbers for Air America (admittedly, from their own website):
http://www.airamericaradio.com/node/657
Some estimates of Rush Limbaugh’s audience are as low as three million: http://infrared41.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?topic_id=3316
Has Air America Radio already beaten Rush? Yes! In San Francisco and Portland anyway:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/press?from=8
Actually, I found roughly equal amounts of information that both support and refute your argument. I did the research work for you, now you look at it (if it’s not too much effort):

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/27/133632.php

http://infrared41.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?topic_id=3316

http://eclipseweb.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_eclipseweb_archive.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902345.html
And guess what? Two of those links support your argument and two refute it.

That’s right—unlike conservatives, I showed BOTH sides of the story. I didn’t edit out the facts that I don’t like. That’s called being intellectually honest. You might want to try it sometime.

The truth is (brace yourself): inconclusive. There are no clear numbers available to the public to prove or disprove whether conservative or liberal radio is an overall clear success or failure.

Ouch! Living with uncertainty. Dealing with shades of gray. I know, I know. That makes you conservatives squirm. You have to trade in your bumper sticker mentality for the larger, murkier picture known as reality. It’s complicated. It takes work to decipher. Like the research I did to bring you the above links, facts and statistics. You obviously lacked the intellectually curiosity to obtain them yourself. It's easier just to make sweeping generalizations. Yeah, I know--it FEELS good.

Sorry, Mr. Kohlmayer. Next time, present some facts instead of simplistic abstractions.