Customer Reviews

The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error : Over 100 Outrageously False and Foolish Statements from America's Most Powerful Radio and TV

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The book tells us what many of its readers already know. Rush Limbaugh appeals to our lower instincts where impulses run rampant, and the emotion of anger is the easiest to trigger and feed.

In what is almost a comic book format and coloring, the content is surprisingly serious about Mr. Limbaugh's deceit, racism, disingenuousness, fabrications and lies. Here's an example from the radio airing on March 10, 1994:

Limbaugh: "I am not calling the president names."

Caller: "You do it every day."

Limbaugh: "Give me one example of calling him a name..."

Caller: "You've called him a liar, a fool, and idiot."

Limbaugh: "Those are not names. Those are assessments of his character. They are not names."

(?)

I was most interested in Rush's background, which revealed his hypocrisy. Limbaugh the ueberpatriot claimed that Reagan was the best president this country ever had, but he never voted for him. In fact, he didn't vote until he was thirty-five.

The second was his lack of military service. Rush claimed to have failed a draft physical and thus was never called because he had a high draft number. Actually, he had a low one, was called, and then "failed" the physical. At different times claiming a knee injury from high school football, and then a pilonidal cyst, which caused him to fail. His father had the same cyst when he was a World War II fighter pilot.

The man who rails against divorce is now working on his third marriage, and the printing of this book was before Limbaugh's drug addiction.

This book also includes Limbaugh's pronouncements and then the reality check. An example of this is Limbaugh's claim that melting glacial ice is the same as ice melting in a glass. The level doesn't change. And here is where RL is flat out wrong. Most of our glacial ice is over land. Water level would rise 200 feet worldwide if it melted.

This means Limbaugh needs to be taken with a large dose of salt, but this is where the book unwittingly falters. Those who see Limbaugh as a charlatan, don't require further convincing. Those who worship at the altar of his Cuban cigars and grotesque line of ties, will discount the contents of this book without reading it.

At least now, I have identified the source for a number of neocon arguments.

This is the kind of book you read during the commute.

This book is like going to a fast food restaurant, it is fast, cheap and tasty yet you know the nutritional value is not the best. I am not a fan of Rush, thus my book choice, so reading books like this that spell out many of his errors are just a laugh a minute to read. If you have even found this book then you are probably also an anti Rush person and regardless of the content, as long as it was somewhat negative, you are going to like the book. This book should fit that need. To be fair the book is not really negative, other then a few funny shots at Rush's ego, the book is very fair. It simply takes statements Rush has made over the years and spells out the truth. The authors list out their sources and from where the Rush comment came from. I guess my only complaint with the book is that given many of the Rush comments were simple sentences, a Rush supporter could always make the claim that the comment was taken out of context. To avoid that I would have liked the authors to add a bit more of the Rush words before and after the comments. Yet this is a small complaint on my part and does not really take away from the enjoyment of the book.

Toward the end of the book I started to appreciate a comment the authors started the book with. They stated that although they could list literally 1000's of errors, they were going to limit the book to 100 given that any more and the reader might lose interest. I certainly felt that I had hit my limit toward the end of the book. As I read the book I kept hearing Rush in my head and after about 100 pages, it was all I could stomach. Overall the book was a nice time waster, not too heavy and fast and easy to read. Did it provide any deep thought or interesting conclusions about the effect Rush has on the current Republican Party or the public as a whole, no. It just laid out many of his more bone headed comments. Would this book change any minds, again I doubt it. If you dislike Rush then you will get a kick out of the book.

I read this book after reading the online reviews, and have come to the conclusion that some dismissive reviewers have not read the book but instead relied on the word of others (one can only guess whom...). Rather than "provably false" and "just plain made up," the points made in this work meticulously cite sources, which are easily found for verification, including the actual Bible which Limbaugh at one point distorts to "prove" that taxes are anti-religion (the gist of the Biblical account is that Joseph *recommended* taxes during times of plenty to insure against inevitable lean years).

Moreover, there is simply no reason to include falsehoods in a book like this, when every Limbaugh episode is a treasure trove of distorted and invented facts, proving the lie to Limbaugh's meta-lie, "We don't make this stuff up, folks."

The extent to which disinformation passes as news and ultimately affects policy should have every rational person, whatever his political leaning, running for antidotes such as this one. If you listen to Limbaugh, you *must* read this book, so you know that, as fun as it is, it is the Weekly World News of political discourse. Conservatives should in fact be even more vigilant to disparage this sort nonsense, because it could ultimately undermine the right's credibility in the same way that extreme leftist buffoonery such the mid 20th century distortion of Stalin's horrible record has undermined the left.

I was a radio station manager in 1991 when I first spoke to Rush Limbaugh, who was attempting to get as many stations as possible to carry his EIB Network (a single-program "network"). We spoke for a few minutes and I was amazed at how much he hyped himself as a sort of know-it-all. He was appealing to my market in the conservative midwest, where the Republican vote is a guarantee, and that's actually an established fact. I took a few days to listen to his show via another carrier before rendering a final decision. During this time Rush spent time speaking on the AIDS crisis, its causes, and specifically how to prevent contracting or spreading AIDS. His position was more moral and less about the physical prevention. The discussion bled over into the next day and, to my dismay, I realized that the factual information was very wrong (I was involved in an AIDS awareness and research campaign at the time). Needless to say, EIB did not grace my station's airwaves, and has not to this very day. Potentially putting people's lives at stake because the correct information doesn't fit into a particular political pigeonhole did not sit well with me.

The point of all this is simple: While people spout disclaimers for Rush Limbaugh, taking him as a "truth detector" but offering him sanctuary as an "entertainer," there are people who take his loud, seemingly sincere message as the ABSOLUTE TRUTH. This is what makes him dangerous. In the midst of his entertaining the truth sometimes gets omitted/distorted/falsified/replaced with more "entertaining" material. That's why this book and its contents are so important.

As a formally trained (former) member of the media which Rush espouses as too liberal (but whose virtues have made him a star) and a former Special Investigator, as well as being a member of the National Forensic League and a graduate of Effective Thinking and Logic, I can say that this book decimates much of Rush's errors/entertainments and shows how the best way to catch anyone in a lie is to let them talk themselves into a hole and not interrupt. Then, when they themslves have said that they are finished, you begin to build the truth.

I strongly recommend this book for those who think that WHAT you say is as important as HOW you say it.

This book by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the outstanding media watchdog group, was published in 1995, after FAIR had published a report in June 1994 documenting Limbaugh's quackery to which Limbaugh responded with venom but with little substance. FAIR printed their rebuttal to Limbaugh's response to their original report at the end of this book. This book might seem rather dated; they have gathered a few more juicy things about Limbaugh since it was published, available on their web site, especially about his antics during the budget battles of 95-96' but I don't think they have kept track of him as much.

But on the whole, the documentation is excellent and the discussion of all aspects of Limbaugh--his power in the media and on capitol hill, messiah complex, racism, sexism, context of his rise to fame,etc.--as well as the prospects for developing alternatives to the center-right corporate and "public" television and radio is excellent. FAIR, though not in this book, has also been harshly critical of Bill Clinton and the Democrats.

Here are some examples that they present of the more than "one hundred outrageously false and foolish statements from America's most powerful radio and TV commentator."

The quote Limbaugh as saying in "The Way Things Ought to Be" that construction of public housing "actually increased during the Reagan years." The quote sthe Statistical Abstract of the U.S. which shows that there were almost twenty one thousand low income housing units under construction in 1980 but in 1988 there were only 9,700. They quote HUD figures which show that the money for construction of new housing was slashed from $3.7 billion in 1980 to $573 million in 1988.

They quote Limbaugh as saying in "The Way Things Out To Be" that there was no increase in the gap between the rich and the poor during the eighties and that "Figures compiled by the Cogressional Budget Office dispel that myth." FAIR says that CBO numbers actually show that in 1980 the after tax income of the richest fifth was eight times that of the poorest fifth. "By 1989, the ratio was more than twenty to one."

They quote him as saying on his now defunct TV show as claiming that the TV networks, including the "Today" show were attempting to suppress coverage of a pro-Clarence Thomas book by David Brock and that supporters of Anita Hill were refusing to come on TV to debate Brock. FAIR responded by noting that Brock had appeared a week before Limbaugh made this assertion on the "Today" show debating a Hill lawyer, Charles Ogletree.

The quote him as speaking of the superiority of American health care compared to other industrialized nations in "See I Told You So" and saying that "the health of the American people has never been better," using the measurements of life expectancy and infant mortality. FAIR responded by citing the 1993 CIA World Fact Book as ranking the United States 19th in life expectancy and 20th in infant mortality. They also note that although the United States has the lowest health care satisfaction rate of the ten largest industrialized nations, it spends the most per capita. FAIR quotes Limbaugh as responding to this by saying that those two measures have nothing to do with the quality of health care, though he said exactly the opposite in his original point. He claimed that the high infant mortality was due to low weight teenage births and drug addicted babies and that the relatively low life expectancy was due to big city homicides. FAIR responded by saying that the amount of prenatal care is closely linked to infant mortality and that according the Center For Disease Control, homicides only lower the U.S. life expectancy by three months.

They quote Limbaugh as saying that there were "no indictments" in the Iran-Contra scandal. Limbaugh responded by saying that he "misspoke" and what he meant to say was that there were "no convictions." FAIR responded by saying that he had actually devoted a large part of his TV show on January 19 1994 to arguing that no indictments had occured. There were not only fourteen indictments, but eleven convictions, two later reversed on technicalities, including that of Oliver North.

They quote him on his radio show as saying "It's not happening. That kind of thing isn't happening" with regard to Al Gore's claim in the 1992 debates that the Bush administration was giving tax breaks to U.S. companies to relocate to low-wage "free economic zones" in Central American and the Caribean, through the Private Sector Program of the U.S. Agency for International Development. They note that this was documented by "60 minutes," "Nightline" and the National Labor Committee Education Fund.

They quote Limbaugh as saying that the "democrats have never had any problem with liberal religous people being involved in politics," and thus that they had "no trouble" with Martin Luther King, the Berrigan brothers or Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman "entering the political fray." FAIR notes that wiretapping of MLK was begun by John and Robert Kennedy and that harrassment of him was greatly increased during the Johnson administration. They note that the Berrigan brothers came into prominence by protesting Johnson's Vietnam policies and that Rubin and Hoffman were actually not religous leaders nor leaders of the SDS; they actually led the Yippies who sparked the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention.

This is a fantastic book. Others more knowledgeable than me have gone over all of FAIR's responses and they were shown to be based on truth, and all the quotes cited were verified. An excellent book, which with out a doubt debunks the man, called Rush and his illogical ideas. A man, I might add, who claims to be a patriot? But that can only be stated if you define patriot as one who refused to be conscripted in the US military.

Oh boy, where do I start.

Many years ago, when I was a mindless drone in the corporate world I developed a small love affair for a fat, boisterous man who had a TV show. I thought we was so on target and full of information that I listened to every word and couldn't wait to use something from him the next chance I was in an arguement.

After awhile though, I began to feel uncomfortable with all of Rush's quick edits and the video clips ending right before I thought that the "commie-lib" was going to say something else. I even took it upon myself to read the articles that Rush was refering to and watch the news more often hoping to hear the full version of what was said.

Needless to say, that made all the difference in the world. I realized within a month or two that my chubby friend was a liar and propagandist of such magnitude that I was honestly overcome with shame and anger towards myself for falling for it.

I am not going to give examples from the book because you have better things to do right now (hint: buy the book.) Suffice to say that Mr. Limbaugh's love of distorting (ie: only letting the listener/viewer hear what he wants them to) and lack of fact checking have caught up to him.

Bye Rush, it's been a bittersweet ride but I'm not sad to see you go.

Time for the truth, Rush. Get a fact checker. This book is a clear demonstration of what happens when freedom of speech runs amok (or when it is taken hostage by the uninformed and angry). This is a documentation of so many misstatements that I unfortunately hear presented all the time as "gospel truth", "scientific fact". Much of it comes from Rush's own extremely warped imagination. Don't be a "Dittohead". Think for yourself, and resist the temptation to follow this leader into the abyss of the Dark Ages. By all means, read this book.

Whether you agree with Rush Limbaugh or not, this book is required reading. FAIR, never an organization to gladly suffer distortion or misstatement of fact from either the political left or the political right, contradict numerous statements made by Limbaugh on his radio and television show with facts. Liberals will love it, ultra-conservatives will decry it.

As evidence of the effect this book has had, look at the negative reviews. None of them disputed any of the book's claims with anything other than vitriolic language and name calling, most were too cowardly to put their names to their comments, and several of them contained grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. I believe this tends to show the maturity and intelligence of the typical "dittohead" who worships Limbaugh with a fierce loyalty similar to the Hitler youth of the 30's.

Read the book and decide for yourself.

To quote an earlier reviewer, "...and through it all, he remains immensely popular, while books like this end up in the bargain bins."

As if "truth" was determined by a democratic process. But that's the fun of the whole Rush phenomenon. One man singlehandedly demostrating the serious flaws in the American education system. If only that was Limbaugh's true purpose. We're an nation of uneducated buffoons and this book is Exhibit 1 in support of that claim.

Got a friend or family member that's a dittohead? Buy this book. You'll be able to enjoy watching them chase their tails, if nothing else.