THIS MODERN WORLD

a politician speaks Truth to Morons. Freshman Democrat Alan Grayson from Orlando:

“Rush Limbaugh is a has-been hypocrite loser, who craves attention. His right-wing lunacy sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev, extolling the virtues of communism. Limbaugh actually was more lucid when he was a drug addict. If America ever did 1% of what he wanted us to do, then we’d all need pain killers.”

… and–a 2010 candidate quoted at Down With Tyranny:

“I think the newly elected junior senator from Minnesota said it best: Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot. It speaks volumes that Rush continues as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, even as the party implodes into electoral insignificance in most parts of the country. It also reveals the true values of the GOP in that this convicted drug addict, serial racist, gay-bashing closet case, and insulter of our troops, continues to have such a messianic hold on the party rank-and-file. Screw Rush Limbaugh and the dittoheads he continues to ride in on.”

It’s about time Democratic politicans adopt this tone, rather than the inoffensive “Oh ha ha ha that Rush is quite the entertainer” crap that you heard so much during the mid-nineties. Occasionally someone will ask why I pay any attention to the right wing hate talkers, as if they will simply disappear if we ignore them. The answer is simple: they will not disappear if we ignore them. They spread hate and ignorance every day, and to whatever small extent I can counter that, I will.

As I often do on this blog, I’ve been sorting out my thoughts in public about this whole VVM fiasco in real time, in a fairly sloppy manner. Max Cannon, by contrast, has taken the time to write up a cogent summary of the situation and what it means for alternative comics fans. It really is up to you.

… and let me just add: if your local paper still runs the cartoons, please shoot them a quick email and let them know how much you appreciate it.

…also: if you got here by a link from another site (thanks Atrios!), you can visit the main page for much more on the topic.

… and let me reiterate for the newcomers: in theory, this is a temporary suspension, to be repealed in three to six months, when things get a little better. What worries us, I think, is what Lloyd Dangle pointed out: I don’t know anyone who believes things are really going to get better, certainly not that soon, and certainly not for the newspaper industry. And — I said this before but it’s especially important — this isn’t an “us vs. them” situation. These are in many cases people who have supported my work and given me an audience for ten or fifteen years; some are personal friends. This is just an unfortunate decision made at the corporate level in response to a very difficult time. If and when you write them, keep that in mind, and be polite. There aren’t any villains here, except maybe the Wall Street morons who got us into this mess.

An article about cartoonists and the Obama Administration from the New Haven Advocate, featuring some quotes from yours truly, as foul mouthed as ever. Conducted last week, prior to what we shall henceforth refer to as the Monday Morning Massacre.

My friend Lloyd Dangle has lost a few papers lately as well.

The line that sums this whole mess up for all of us: “The Stranger and Metro said that they might bring Troubletown back when things get better, but for newspapers, I don’t know anybody who thinks it’s going to get better.”

Media matters:

In another house-of-cards example of purported media infatuation with President Obama offered by Bernard Goldberg in his new book, Goldberg echoes Rush Limbaugh by printing badly doctored “snippets” of an interview between Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw. Goldberg’s doctored transcript of the interview falsely suggests, among other things, that Brokaw expressed the view that “there’s a lot about [Obama] we don’t know,” when, in fact, Brokaw attributed that assertion to “conservative commentators” and that comments Brokaw and Rose made about their lack of familiarity with the candidates applied only to Obama when, in fact, they were referring to Sen. John McCain as well.

As some of you have no doubt intuited, I have the right wing radio on in the background a lot of the time, and I heard those clips over and over again, followed by the usual rants about the purported biases of the media, and if Tom Brokaw doesn’t know anything about Obama, whhhhyyyyyyyy didn’t he say anything ssssoooooonnner, hmmmmmmm? Yada yada yada, rinse and repeat, endlessly.

I assumed at the time it was some sort of dishonest bullshit, but never really got around to tracking it down. And of course I was right, because when you assume that pretty much everything you hear on right wing talk radio is dishonest bullshit, you will rarely be proven wrong.

See also: this, this, and this.