Successful troll is successful.

You don't get Rush; instead of simply acknowledging your lack of understanding and moving on, you whine and complain. This only fuels his greater success.

The context needed is to listen to Rush Limbaugh. The fact that you dont even know how his show WORKS yet you pass judgment on him is very TELLING.
Apparently, conservatives can be judged harshly and with extreme prejudice on the basis of flawed information.

When it comes to criticizing Rush Limbaugh, it is definitely an ADVANTAGE to be completely ignorant. I am convinced most liberal critics don't listen to Rush.

After all, if Gandelman actually studied the transcript, or (gasp) actually listened to Rush, then ended up accidently admitting he listened to Rush and that he made a bit of sense … where would his career be? What woudl the friendly Obama admin sources say? Who would talk to him at Georgetown soirrees?

Priorities, man, priorities!

“The left itself warned us of this in Iraq, they said all we're doing is creating more terrorists. So apparently we've created more hijackings on the high seas, in the Gulf of Aden by teenaged black Muslims, the merchant marine organizers. ” – Rush

You don't know Rush at all if you take this straight up. He's inserting a leftwing talking point into current events – IN THE PROCESS SHOWING HOW ABSURD THE WHOLE CONCEPT IS.
Rush said this on heels of mentioning that there are now additional hijackings of ships. SO IF YOU FIND RUSH'S COMMENT AN ABOMINATION, WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS ADMITTING THE LEFT WAS WRONG IN ITS CRITIQUE AGAINST BUSH IN IRAQ. That's Rush's point here – “REALITY” has hit Obama and if he acts like a real President who defends American citizens, he'll be killing 'bad guys' just like Bush did, and engaging in the same kinds of Bush policies that the left decried.

Maybe his satire isn't your cup of tea… Fine. Change the channel. But its clueless to go into meltdown over his comments. Unless your goal is just to whip up ignorant hate against Rush by people who never listened to him by taking comments out of context and real meaning.

BTW, trying to tie the whole Republican party to Rush is a pathetic dweebish DNC Talking Point. Give. It. A. Rest. Rush is not a GOP or Republican leader. He's just a talk show host with a popular show spewing entertaining from a right-wing viewpoint; not more than Chris Matthews is the DNC head or John Stewart is a Democrat leader. Just different media mouthpieces. The Obama admin wants to play up Rush for the sole political purpose of having some GOP punching bag; all political demagogues need an enemy – Rahm E. has decreed that Rush is Obama's. Any media person who goes along with this blatant political game (and Evan Thomas of Newsweek admits it was a game and Rahm Emmanuel was playing it), is just a shill for the obama White House.

And BTW since Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman are as unhinged on the left as Rush is on the right, you should forbid yourself from voting for Democrats as well as a protest against the existence of foul partisan mouthpieces… How DARE there be any voice except the 'moderate' ones!

My thought exactly when I first heard about this. Seriously, Rush made a pact with Obama – more listeners for Rush, no credible opposition to Obama.

That was my immediate assumption, because almost all of the liberal outrage at Limbaugh is the result of this (though of course, 'poorly done' depends on what his intent is- if it's to get attention and ratings, knowing that liberal commenters and bloggers will pick up on what he's saying, then he's succeeding as he always does.)

Anyway, glad to hear that my assumption was right without having to wade through it or try to explain it to anyone (which always brings on the litmus tests “You don't actually defend him, do you?”) No conservative can have cred if he/she won't agree that Limbaugh is evil incarnate.

It’s pretty obvious you’ve never tasted Irish Baby Fillets. Delicious.

Seriously, Swift is an excellent example of satirical writing that ridicules some of the same traits of the left that Rush makes fun of now. Limbaugh is making fun of liberal naivety, their use of anonymous sources, questionable “experts” and made-up “facts”.

Limbaugh is quite clearly talking about how liberals would react if Obama were a Republican. How could any of you have missed that? Gandelman, it's a short excerpt, didn't you bother reading it before writing this ignorant essay?

“I thought the idea of Sharpton on Limbaush was bizarre when I read the transcript (which doesn't give quite the context I evidently needed, unfortunately)…..”

When people read Shakespeare for the second (or tenth) time, they discover a new bit of wit or satire that they previously didn’t realize was there. Any of his works could be interpreted in a bad light if the reader was predisposed to think of him in a negative manner and was looking to find evil intentions in his writing.

Rush makes $100 million a year giving his opinion. His listeners have been found by Pew Research to be the most informed group of news consumers in the country. His brilliant satire highlights the vacuous thought process and hypocrisies of the left, but it requires a trained ear with years of reference to relate each skit to relevant current events and past satires that drive home the point.

Rush is an experience that is best enjoyed by listening. I’m sure if you had played the segment in question, you would naturally have picked up on the situation and humor of the skit. The reference to “Somali merchant marine organizers” was kind of a dead giveaway.

I thought the idea of Sharpton on Limbaush was bizarre when I read the transcript (which doesn't give quite the context I needed, unfortunately) — and almost added a question mark to my initial comment, but ran out of time.

Full disclosure: I don't like Rush Limbaugh, for reasons too numerous for this comment. However, I did show the complete transcript to Dear Husband (who is neutral about Rush). His take-away was also that it was an attempt at satire, but that it was incredibly poorly done.

He and I ended up in full agreement (a rare moment!): when Rush goes into these off-the-wall places, it's not at all clear that it's satire to even people who are not predisposed to reject him — which makes broadcasts such as this one problematic. People who swallow every pearl that falls from his lips are (imo) pretty unlikely to separate out the various threads and subtexts.

I agree with you DE, but speaking of disgusting and shameful:

http://themoderatevoice.com/28976/the-despicabl…

Limbaugh is a dolt. I'm sure he'll talk at length about how his comments were somehow spun out of control. He loves the attention and he certainly gets plenty of it here.