Another way to headline this would be Eric Black believes Rush think Minnesota's election system is like Iran's. Rush = 13.5m listeners per week. Minnpost = 1m total.

Is Rush suggesting that a confrontational religious conservative candidate won Minnesota's senate election with the support of a ruling theocrat? And he's angry about that?

I think the most meaningful connection between the election systems of Minnesota and Iran is their ability to cooperatively boost ratings on talk radio and cable television in America - a bit of good news in a down economy, for sure.

It's not stupid, it's lying. Limbaugh surely knows Coleman was behind when the recount was over, and he must know there was only one recount. To say the ballots were recounted multiple times is a lie, and I do mean "lie", because Limbaugh knows better.

The truth is an inconvenience in Rush Limbaugh's world.

I think what he says is that in both MN and Iran when a recount was done it was not surprising that a favored candidate won. He IMPLIES chicancery in both cases.

I agree that the cases are not comparable.

The rest I leave to the usual accuracy of "off the cuff" remarks intended to be inflamatory.

I am not sure that the number of listeners has anything to do with what is the truth.

And was Dave Thompson actually critical of Limbaugh? Hmmm...an interesting development

Actually, the truth is irrelevant in Rush Limbaugh's world.

@ Joe #1

Is there a point there somewhere?

Perhaps one could also say that SNL also had extremely high ratings back when Franken was writing and performing for the show.

Although Mr. Limbaugh's numbers may be high, as is all good entertainment. I have serious doubts that he could be elected to any level of office in any major county, city, or state.

Throwing bricks and bombs from the sidelines is fun and entertaining. But to actually put actions to words is quite another thing.

Couple things about Rush and Franken.

First, Franken used to have this ditto head friend of his on his radio show every day. Every day Franken would play a clip or two from Rush's show and demonstrate that Rush was flat out mistaken or even lying, and the ditto head would argue with him. The ditto was an intelligent, educated, and knowledgeable person (a friend of Franken's actually), and usually accepted the fact that Rush was wrong, but would explain what Rush was thinking. I've always thought it's funny that these guys who talk for a living can rarely find a way to say what they actually mean. Anyways I'm not a talk radio guy, I eventually got bored with Franken and stopped listening. Before I stopped listening I realized that the ditto head really didn't care whether or not Rush was accurate, and reliable, he just liked hearing what Rush had to say, it was pure consumer behavior. Of course the problem is that Rush was nevertheless a main source of information, but this was a clear illustration of the way consumerism has distorted our ability to have rational discussions about public policy- nation of consumers instead of citizens. As a consumer your only responsibility is to figure out what you like and consume it. That's what people do with these radio guys.

The other thing about Rush and Franken- I was covering an early Franken election meeting at a small coffee shop last summer and I asked Franken if he supported the idea of re-implementing the Fair Use Doctrine in TV and Radio. Coleman had just released a particularly misleading campaign ad, the one where they took a clip of Franken talking about Paul Wellstone out of context. Franken said he would NOT support the re-implementation of FUD. I thought that was interesting because 1). Democrats have been talking about reimposing FUD since Reagan shut it down in the 80s. 2). it would be a healthy antidote for Rush and the Fox dog and pony show.

Rush's main frustration is that he isn't the American Ayatollah, which he would very much like to be. It's too limiting for him to only be the Ayatollah of the Republican Party.

Limbaugh is lying. The danger here is that one of the morons who takes him seriously will pick up his gun to "fix" the situation.

Hmmm

lying...morons...take up his gun...

As Abe Lincoln once said, "For those who like that sort of thing, I think that is just the sort of thing that they would like."

Whatever happened to "reasoning minds locked in debate"?

Take a pill please, Wally.