Or for that matter Talk radio or even cable talking heads. Get Religion sort of hits this topic at Is Rush the new Pat Robertson?
Now people like him have a influence that is for sure but I think there is often a caricture of average Rush listener ( or Hannity) and further of conservative and Republican voters.
I mean in the real world most conservatives and Republicans are like working when he is on. Perhaps Republicans live in a world where their bossess allow him to be on during office hours but I have never seen it. Further when I visit blogs or talk to conservative freinds I rarely hear "Did you hear what Rush had to say!!!" It happens but it is not a everyday event.
Rush Limbaugh has an audience of 20 million people over the three hours he's on the air. By comparison Bill O'Reilly has somewhere around 3 million and he leads all of cable news. So in terms of relevancy by virtue of listeners he has to be influencing people. Rush Limbaugh is your average Protestant, secular in many arenas, who does not share the beliefs of true Catholicism. However he is very entertaining and does point out things that the mainstream media ignores or omits about the liberals who are running our country. Trust me when I say that by December 31st of 2009 - you won't recognize this country.
ReplyDeleteI could listen at work if I wanted to but I don't ... I find Hannity and Limbaugh to be entertaining but not exactly intellectually rigorous in their criticisms of mainstream media. Like Paul said, they often make good points about what is left out but they are very quick to leave things out themselves when trying to make that point. Hannity's rant against Fr. Euteneuer was classic. Every good Catholic could see the logical fallacies left and right. I just wish more Catholics would hold him, Rush and Fox News to the same standards on their reporting that they hold liberals, NPR and CNN on theirs ... They are all fairly unbalanced :)
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