NZ saw the introduction of “newslebrities” with a nasty little gent by name of Paul Holmes. “News” became secondary to presentation and celebration of the “personality”.

And that really is why Holmes, and if I were unfortunate enough to come across them on tv, Limbaugh and the rest would rank somewheres below being violently ill and chained to the toilet.

FMPOV one of the very great sadnesses in today’s society (NZ at least) is that so very many people mistake it’s good for business and that’s what these media guys know. It’s any which way the wind blows with them…’ for truth and fair reporting.

Even worse, the MSM is in the very sad position of having to follow the lead of the “newslebrities”, promote the sensational in place of the truth, to the very great detriment of all. Mind you, I very much doubt that the politicians are at all upset about it. The chances of anyone, from Granny Herald to WaPo, doing a major expose that did not involve sex or tennis balls is very remote.

From the Constiutional Originalist at the Federalist Society, here is a debate on FISA….Rush is on the Conservative, Constitutional side as well as the side of the founding fathers:

http://www.fed-soc.org/debates/dbtid.13/default.asp

The only thing these pundits, especially Limbaugh, dictate or steer or set the bar for is hypocrisy. Leave it to a “conservative” with three or four divorces under his belt to say who should get married, and whom they should get married to, and why adultery is wrong. Leave it to a “conservative” drug addict who made himself half-deaf to tell us how his fellow addicts, and their suppliers, should be dealt with. And don’t even get me started on that weird plane trip to the Dominican Republic with a big bottle of Viagra ( :shiver: gross! )

What goes up, must come down. What rises, eventually falls. What begins, ultimately ends. I think what some of these folks–again, “especially Limbaugh”–see over the next horizon is the inevitable sunset of their days as a source of any kind of direction. The knighting of somebody like McCain by the GOP is the irrefutable klaxon, signaling their relegation to the fringe. It is their own people saying, “We no longer need you to tell us what to think–we can think for ourselves, thank you. We can define our own political roles, pick our own leaders. You’re no longer needed.”

Similarly, as I hinted at in another thread, I think RINO, DINO, WINO, and all these other terms are equally tired, equally boring, equally laughable. “You’re not a true ‘conservative.’ You only think you are.” How utterly sad and pathetic.

Labels and platforms were convenient markers 100, 50 or even 20 years ago, when news and information crawled at a snail’s pace, and information was limited because there were only so many column inches available on any given day, or only 30 minutes in a newscast (24 minutes, once you carve out the gawdy car dealer ads). Those labels and party affiliations saved a bit of time, and knowing somebody was a “conservative” or a “liberal” or a “Republican” or a “Democrat” meant that certain things were a given, and that you only had to worry about the details, because the bigger ideas and concepts were already part of the mold.

Fewer and fewer people fit into those old molds, and fewer and fewer voters are willing to settle for cookie-cutter politicians and leaders from either side.

Time for Limbaugh, Coulter, Franken, Rhodes, Drudge, Beck, O’Reilly, and all the rest to make a big, big decision. We’re tired of the lectures–we’re ready for some real conversation.

–Ag