The Right stuff

So Rush Limbaugh's come to the defense of Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" campaign.
What a shock. After all, Limbaugh has made a fortune with over-the-top and below-the-belt vitriol. If the Arizona shootings make such blather unpopular it could hurt his ratings -- and wallet.
The fact that many on the right are denying that inflammatory politicking had anything to do with the murders is just one more symptom of a sad truth in today's America -- nobody accepts responsibility for their actions any more.
Everybody -- left and right -- wants rights, but nobody wants responsibility.
But give the lone voice of conservatism on MSNBC some credit. Joe Scarborough, lambasted by many Republicans for pointing out what he sees wrong on the right side, says that the poisonous atmosphere of modern American politics is a major problem. That Republicans need to find some civility.
Nastiness isn't just a conservative problem. Anger, hatred and stupidity know no political bounds. It's just that the right's dose of the unholy trinity is a lot louder these days.

Speaking of Limbaugh, a local talk radio station posts billboards proclaiming Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and company as "the voices of reason."
Brings to mind the words of Elvis Costello: "Radio is sound salvation, radio is cleaning up the nation. They say you better listen to the voice of reason, but they don't give you any choice because they think that it's treason. So you had better do as you are told, you better listen to the radio."

Want to know why left-wing talk doesn't have much of an audience? Because politically correct wimps don't make for good talk radio, and nobody in their right (no pun intended) mind would listen to a bunch of Marxist/socialist crap.
Other than MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and the Internet's Huffington Post, who can you name as liberal attack dogs? Certainly no "voices of reason" out there.
 
Of course, many on the right will say that the mainstream media are liberal.
To some extent they are correct -- how many Republicans are willing to waste a perfectly good college degree on a career in media that doesn't pay worth crap unless you're in the top five percent of the field?
It's the Republicans who own the companies and the Democrats who work (cheap) for them.
Does that mean that the conservative bosses find liberal products a better sell? Or that they care less about the product than the profit margin?

What about moderates? Nobody listens to moderates. To conservatives they're liberals; to liberals they're conservatives.
There is little acceptance or interest in politics today for the middle of the road -- despite the fact that a large percentage of Americans think of themselves as moderates.

Why? Because you can't be moderate and spill out loads of hate politics, which is all most politicians know these days.
Being fair-minded doesn't lend itself to soundbites and slogans.