Fox News host Shannon Bream helped Rush Limbaugh exploit the death of George H.W. Bush to promote a malicious conspiracy theory – while pretending that he was the one taking the high road.
Bream, hosted Limbaugh last night, presumably to bolster her ratings. It’s too bad she couldn’t manage to stay out of tin foil hat territory while she was at it.
Limbaugh’s thesis, which Bream eagerly listened to, was that media and Democratic praise for George H.W. Bush was merely a pretext for attacking Donald Trump.
Bream teed up Limbaugh’s whining, baseless attacks in her opening question: “Now in these coming days, we see a lot of fawning and talking about how he [Bush] was so great at bipartisanship, he was a different kind of Republican. What’s that all about?”
Then she sat back and listened to his invective without challenge.
“Well, it’s phony! They never treated him this way when he was president, they were vicious to him, like they are vicious and partisan to every Republican,” Limbaugh began. Then, he began spewing his own vicious partisanship:
LIMBAUGH: I think it’s just a vehicle for them, Shannon, to be able to contrast what they think Trump is, versus the way they’re telling us Bush was.
[…]
They had just as much animus for Bush 41 and Bush 43 as they do Trump, for different reasons. But since the current objective is to get rid of Donald Trump, however they can do it – driving down public opinion or Mueller’s report and impeachment – anything they can do to contrast Trump with what they say was the greatness and the way it ought to be.
[…]
It’s nothing more than a vehicle for them to contrast this made-up image that they have of George H.W. Bush – which, by the way, what they’re saying about him now is true … but they never reported on him this way when he was president.
Limbaugh's conspiracy theory fell apart when he acknowledged that what the media was saying about Bush was true. It fell apart even further when he saluted Bush-rival Bob Dole for making an almost superhuman effort to stand and salute Bush. There was no accusation of hypocrisy there from Limbaugh.
Bream, however, was so busy hanging on Limbaugh's every word, she never suggested that maybe other Bush critics had genuinely buried the hatchet, too.
Watch it below, from the December 5, 2018 Fox News @ Night.
(H/T Kevin Koster)
Trump is a right-wing talk radio creation. The angry division in this nation Trump is exploiting was exploited by scumbags like Limbaugh first. Trump hasn’t had an original political thought in his life. He’s just a parrot. His ‘political genius’ is marketing Limbaugh’s bile to his angry white base.
I am sure Limbaugh will blame the media when Trump gets his ass kicked in 2020. Who cares? We know the truth! The anti-Trump Blue Wave is decided except 1 seat (expected to go Democrat). The count just went up to 40 House seats flipped. 9.7 million more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans. I doubt our archaic Electoral College can even overcome that hurdle in favor of Trump this time. The moral corruption of Trump, championed by Limbaugh for decades is about to end.
I first want to note that Limbaugh ends with a vicious, vicious cheap shot at President Obama, even after Bream has said “May President Bush bring out the best in all of us” and tried to end the segment. With a truly unpleasant smirk, Limbaugh then adds: “You know, if I was Barack Obama, I’d be really upset, Shannon. All this talk about George Bush being the last days of civility. If I were Obama, I’d say ‘What about me? Y’know, I was civil, I was a nice guy, I was sophisticated, I was the smartest guy in the room. Why are they going back and honoring this guy?’ (ANGRILY POINTING FOR EMPHASIS) If I was Obama, I’d be worried maybe the media is forgetting him!” Bream responds with a sympathetic laugh, “Not so fast, Rush”, to which he happily snickers like a fifth grader and says “I had to get that in!” The hatred dripping from Limbaugh at that moment speaks for itself.
Before that, Limbaugh’s comments are mostly a stew of outright lies and angry statements intended to rewrite history. He’s correct to be puzzled by the sudden outpouring of love for the Bush family, but he plays that situation under a completely false premise. To Limbaugh, only GOP pols get tough coverage from journalists and somehow it’s “the media” that is driving down the approval numbers on the Pence White House. That’s flat-out backwards. Journalists regularly criticized Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama and will certainly criticize the next Democratic President. And the Pence White House has low approval numbers because it’s done nothing to reach out to anyone but its increasingly narrow base and has actually been hostile to the rest of the country, including by massively raising taxes on Blue States while giving huge breaks to their donors.
Limbaugh also offers a false premise that “the media” think that the “good Republican” is someone who loses and that Bush is being presented as good because he raised taxes, was bipartisan and went against the interests of the GOP. But that’s outright nonsense. And for the record, neither Bush acted with class and dignity very much of the time, and they certainly didn’t act with any kind of sophistication. HW Bush was always obsessed with trying to sound like a tough Texan (something Dana Carvey easily showed to be ridiculous) and W had no inkling of anything approaching sophistication.
Limbaugh brings up that he got to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom in 1992, but leaves out crucial information. In June 1992, Limbaugh was supporting Pat Buchanan’s insurgent campaign and was openly critical of Bush. But then Roger Ailes arranged for Bush to bring him to the White House, where Bush himself carried Limbaugh’s bags to the Lincoln Bedroom and fawned over him for an evening. Limbaugh returned to his show and suddenly, coincidentally, began wholeheartedly supporting Bush’s re-election bid. Limbaugh also conveniently rewrites the history of the evening to say that they spent 90 minutes discussing the campaign and had no concerns about Bill Clinton – when in fact at that time Perot was easily leading Bush and Clinton, and when at the time Limbaugh said that Bush really just asked him personal questions about his life and history. (At that time, Limbaugh was also regularly bashing Clinton as “Slick Willie” and dismissing his candidacy.) If we are to believe Limbaugh, Bush was dishing nastily about George Mitchell to a radio show host – not something that would indicate a deep commitment to civility.
Limbaugh would have people believe that Bush should have been attacking the Democratic Party on a more consistent basis than he was already doing. Limbaugh presents both Bushes as refusing to “defend themselves” against what Limbaugh saw as “outrageous” charges rather than actual behaviors that were correctly being challenged. Limbaugh is also playing another interesting card – he’s insisting that Right Wing voters want to see their politicians “fighting back”, which means constantly being on the attack. Except that Limbaugh has spent decades pretending that angry Right Wingers are really just positive, nice people beset by awful liberals. But if those Right Wingers are so positive, then why would they need to constantly be in attack mode??? Limbaugh also loves that Trump is constantly attacking and in a petulant mode, saying that this is what Republican voters want – not noticing the massive contradiction in his earlier career statements about the positivity of the Right Wing. And Limbaugh thinks this is why Trump squeaked by in 2016 – which leaves out the fact that Trump’s base has always been a weak minority of the voting population and that he only got through because 2-3 million Dems in the swing states didn’t bother to show up.
Bream then plays a canard about how Bush was so modest that he wouldn’t play up his military or political record when dealing with “this young upstart Southern Governor”, which is frankly nonsense to anyone who followed that campaign. Bream also tees up the idea that Bush was too decent to brag about his record. Bream quotes a Bill McGurn piece in the WSJ about how selfless Bush was in signing up for the military for WWII on his 18th birthday. She leaves out that Bush was pushed to do this by his wealthy family, as this would groom him for his future political life.
Limbaugh uses that tee-off to go on a rant about how he was raised with wonderful moral values like the Bushes where “you do not brag”. “It’s not becoming, it’s unseemly to do so.” And he paints the hapless W as someone who was just too principled to brag because it would “drag the office down into the gutter”. Except that Limbaugh has made his entire career and persona off the notion of bragging and gloating and rubbing whatever he can in his enemies’ faces. And both Bushes did plenty of this too. HW Bush constantly would do this to show that he was somehow manly, including when he gloated after his debate with Geraldine Ferraro, “we tried to kick a little ass” and then defiantly refused to apologize for it. W was known for constant gloating and smirking. So one has to wonder what fantasy world it is that Limbaugh is imagining…
Limbaugh invents a scenario where the Bushes just didn’t defend themselves out of high principle and thus the “media onslaught” was able to snow the public. Rather than a situation where the Bushes regularly acted badly, were called on it and had no answer, which is the actual truth of the matter.
It’s also interesting that Limbaugh holds Bob Dole up as a paragon of integrity and virtue when Dole was known throughout his career for petty partisanship and long-held grudges and vendettas. Yes, it’s nice that he made an effort to salute Bush’s casket. That does not undo the prior 70 years of his record. And Limbaugh seems to be saying that Dole’s action is a wonderful moment of virtue – does that mean that Limbaugh will celebrate a Republican who salutes or pays respect to Bill Clinton when he passes? I’m betting that Limbaugh will have a very different reaction then.