November 25, 2002 3:10 p.m. Rush & Daschle & the great freedom debate.

don't listen to Rush Limbaugh very often. I have deadlines every day and so I don't listen to any talk radio while working; it's too much of a distraction. Besides, listening to someone say things I'll mostly agree with isn't the best use of my time. I admire Rush for his skills and humor, but, truth be told, I don't enjoy the show that much. Too much preaching to the choir and occasional rhetorical excess for my tastes (yes, there's considerable pot vs. kettle-ism here). Now, in the spirit of the fairness doctrine and equal time, I should also say I don't listen to Tom Daschle very often. Whatever Republicans do, he says he's "saddened and disappointed" with them. He talks like a kindergarten teacher, stage-whispering his disapproval of tax policy the way a den mother tsk-tsks a boy for drawing on the wall with crayons. I don't think I'm alone here. Daschle is not someone most people listen to. If he's ever turned out of office, fire departments could hire him to talk cats out of trees by lulling them to sleep with his voice until they dropped to the ground. If a cat didn't fare well, Daschle could say he's "saddened and disappointed" by the splattered feline and move to the next job.

But, when Daschle declared last week that Rush Limbaugh and his Wannabes — a great name for a swing band — were fomenting hate and inciting violence, people listened. Now, it wasn't really the sort of listening he had in mind. It was more like the attention that guy at the airport gets when he shouts at the check-in counter — "You don't understand! I have a huge flounder in my pants!" In other words, lots of people said, "What the hell is Tom Daschle talking about?"

And just to be clear, this is what Tom Daschle said: "What happens when Rush Limbaugh attacks those of us in public life is that people aren't just content to listen." Daschle explained to reporters, "People want to act because they get emotional . . . and the threats to those of us in public life go up dramatically, against us and against our families, and it's very disconcerting." Daschle said Limbaugh's "shrill" tone is reminiscent of Islamic fundamentalists abroad.

Now, factually, this is what social scientists call "a load of crap." Unless, that is, Daschle hangs out with a lot of spotted owls who have a legitimate beef against the talk-jock.

But, I think Limbaugh — like much of the conservative media — is mostly wrong when he tries to explain Daschle's thinking. Limbaugh declared hat Daschle's comments amount to a "well-thought-out strategy by the Democrats to counter the influence of this program." He continued, "Every time the Democrats lose, either elections or a major issue, they blame me, they blame talk radio and they blame you."

This may be true. And, honestly, if Daschle, Gephardt, Gore, Dopey, Sneezy, or any other of the giants of the Democratic party — I have trouble keeping them straight — ever attack National Review Online in similar terms, you can be assured that we will offer a similar interpretation all the way to the bank.

But this campaign-to-discredit-Rush theory is unrealistic. It's not like Daschle could honestly think that attacking Rush Limbaugh would be bad for Rush Limbaugh. This whole thing was an early Christmas present for Rush, in terms of prestige, listeners, etc. Rush can't seriously think that regular Limbaugh listeners will tune in less now. When major politicians attack critics by name, the influence of those critics goes up, not down. Bill Kristol's stature in Washington skyrocketed when President Clinton denounced Kristol's "there is no healthcare crisis" memos. That's just how it works here.

No, to the extent that it wasn't simply a moronic gaffe by Daschle — still the most likely scenario — Daschle's real intent was to recycle a strategy used to great effect in the 1990s: the demonization of white guys. It's easy to forget now, but both the political and popular cultures were saturated with anti-white-male silliness for much of the last decade. Hollywood put out a long string of films that painted white dudes as the source of all our problems. Conservative white guys like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich were blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing, and the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd. Liberal pundits who rolled their eyes and mocked any suggestion that, say, the Unabomber might have been egged on by the apocalyptic environmental rhetoric of the Left, or that Woody Allen's creepy sex-life might be connected to liberalism, saw no problem linking Newt or Rush to every crime committed by a white guy. For example, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wrote, "it's hard to argue that there's absolutely no connection between gay-bashing in Washington and gays actually getting their heads bashed in." Actually, it was only hard for him, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, et al.

Bill Clinton's success at the polls involved getting enough white men — not all white men or even a majority of white men — to vote for him. At first he did this by sounding like a centrist Democrat from the South. But as his term wore on, he and the Democratic party changed tactics by going after white men. The thinking was twofold — it seemed to me at least. First Dems tried to shame moderate white guys out of voting for Republicans; white men who vote Republican are bigots, don't you know. But more important — and much more obvious — was the campaign to make the Democratic base think that Republicans were sexist racists and bullies. This was the point of all of that whining about Republicans being "mean-spirited" throughout the 1990s.

So, getting back to Daschle, whether he's running for president or just trying to keep it his job is beside the point. He — like Gore and the rest of the Dems — are trying to win the support of the Democratic base, not persuade Rush's listeners they're wasting their time. The Democratic base hates Rush Limbaugh with the intensity of a thousand suns. He is one of the highest-ranking demons in their eschatological scorecard for the End Times. Making yourself out to be a victim of Rush Limbaugh while at the same time bashing everything Limbaugh allegedly represents is a brilliant strategy if you're trying to convince the women in the teacher's unions, the bureaucratic vassals in the government unions, and the liberal blacks who are still the most reliable base of the Democratic party. And, tricking Rush Limbaugh into making Daschle his number-one enemy will only help Daschle with the only people he cares about. And, it's pretty much the only way to get the rest of us to listen to Daschle in the first place.

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2002