Do Americans Prefer Ayers and Wright to Limbaugh?

Do Americans Prefer Ayers and Wright to Limbaugh? That's what Max Blumenthal said at the Daily Beast last week, much to the enduring joy and schadenfreude of the online left. The story made the rounds among the online left, including Media Matters, Alternet, Andrew Sullivan, and even Political Machine, not to mention hundreds of other smaller leftblogs. Daily Beast included it in their morning mass email. It's just exactly the sort of thing a left-blogger loves to hear: not only were Republicans idiots for asking about Ayers, and losers for listening to Limbaugh, but they are lonely outsiders. Nobody agrees with them. America, you see, prefers Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers to Rush Limbaugh. Perfect! There's just one little problem.

It's not true.

By design or error, Blumenthal has managed to state the opposite of the actual results of the poll. As I outline here, the poll actually shows that Limbaugh is more popular than either of those notorious campaign bad boys. Limbaugh had more negative reactions, but he also had more positive reactions, and by a greater margin. The translation here is that Limbaugh is both more popular and more liked than either figure, something which ought to be obvious anyway .. or did I miss Bill Ayers' daily 3 hour nationally syndicated radio show with millions of listeners?

This hit piece by Blumenthal is part of a trend that's been resurgent in recent weeks. There have been a spate of articles attacking Limbaugh by left-wing writers, pundits and bloggers who I like to refer to as "Limphobic."

Blumenthal's article is a classic limphobia propaganda piece. He builds on his original faulty premise with gems like this:

Despite Limbaugh's low popularity ratings, congressional Republicans are so intimidated by his perceived influence that even the most resentful members shamelessly grovel at his feet.

Nice. Despite his "low popularity" Republican morons are influenced by "perceived" influence. The dripping condescension carries throughout the hit piece, which should come as no surprise to anyone who reads left wing websites like Daily Beast with regularity. In his meandering litany of exaggerations he indicts Rush as a racist, Republican leaders as servile, and the conservative base of the Republican party as extreme, just for a few highlights. His premise is that ... well let's face it he doesn't have a premise. He just wanted to gleefully report that two anti-American demagogues are more likable than Rush Limbaugh and then indulge in a little conservative bashing.

The uptick in Limbaugh-bashing and Limphobia recently started with President Obama, who oddly singled out the radio host as his arch-enemy, and it manifests in a number of forms. Often the idea is to paint Limbaugh as some behind-the-scenes power broker manipulating the Republican party into not being Democrat enough, while simultaneously arguing that he is deeply out of step with mainstream America, in order to put forth two assertions: that Republicans are out of step with mainstream Americans and that they can only get back in step by being more like Democrats. Other times, Limbaugh is portrayed as an outsider and kook, with an army of easily-led automatons at his beck and call, in order to use that characterization to try and force a wedge between the conservative base and the party leadership.

Sometimes, though, and this is most often true at left blogs like DailyKos and Democratic Underground, it's just plain old fashioned hate. Rush Limbaugh, for three hours each day, refuses to pay lip service the roiling cosmos of left wing sacred cows. He doesn't mouth the mainstream media line on news stories, he doesn't give token pats on the head to Democrats. He doesn't, in other words, play nice. This is why his listener base loves him. The conservative base of the Republican party has a significant crossover with Rush's audience, and for obvious reasons. Like-minded people congregate, as evidenced by any political or interest-based group in society, including the Democratic party mind you. It is this general agreement that is the source of the phrase dittoheads. You see, Rush says what the listener is thinking so often and well that the only thing they really feel compelled to add ... is "ditto". Of course, cynical sufferers of Limphobia point to the phrase as some indication of kingship on the part of Rush, while seeing nothing whatsoever with thousands of people chanting "yes we can" in a unified issuance of a blank check of power to Obama.

In the trenches, the left's public voices like Blumenthal put out stories like the popularity one routinely with regard to Rush Limbaugh. Whether it's a deliberate attempt to deceive or a self-deception born of confirmation bias and Limphobia it's hard to say. But sometimes, you just have to call them out. Limbaugh is not the sidelined and irrelevant extremist less popular than a domestic terrorist and an anti-American preacher that Blumenthal propagandizes him to be. He was simply wrong. When left-wingers write about Limbaugh, that is often the case.