It's not news that Rush Limbaugh spews crazy vitriol on a daily basis like Linda Blair spewed pea soup. But it is somewhat surprising that his callers love the same movies normal people do. Here's the 'Baugh himself, on his radio show yesterday, talking about liberals "drilling for racism," Caddyshack, and a whole host of other nonsensical stuff:
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How many words does it take to call Zev Chavets' 8,000-word Rush Limbaugh profile in the New York Times Magazine "too long"? 631. That's the length of Hendrik Hertzberg's blog entry on the subject, where Chavets gets derided for misusing his extraordinary access to Limbaugh — the first reporter allowed in his home! — into pages and pages of nothingness. CONTINUED »
While there are plenty of radio industry insiders who will defend Rush Limbaugh's new $400 million deal — inevitably contingent on ratings delivery and plenty of other factors — one person in particular is pasting a picture of radio giant Clear Channel on his dartboard. It's Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff, who spent the month of May assailing the New York Times and the month of April on the war between John Malone and Barry Diller. On CNBC yesterday, Wolff called the deal "a monster error."
"I know – I’m sitting here saying, ‘What are these people smoking?’ You know, the truth is that Rush Limbaugh has been – he’s ridden the rise of conservatism for 25 years and I don’t, maybe nobody quite, quite has been following the news, but that’s coming to an end. It’s going to be over and Rush Limbaugh in a relatively short period of time is going to look like a really kind of out-of-it kind of oddity and I cannot for the life of me imagine how someone could have made this deal." CONTINUED »
Rush Limbaugh, the most listened-to voice on the radio dial bar none, has signed a $400 million deal that keeps him on the air through 2016, as Drudge breathlessly reports. This deal "SHATTERS BROADCAST RECORDS." Which is technically true: Howard Stern's 5-year $500 million contract with Sirius shattered, uh, "satellite" records. Of which there weren't any to begin with.
The conservative talker, who will be on this week's NYT Magazine, in 2001 signed a $285 million, eight-year deal, which kept him on the air through 2009. This makes his new deal worth $57.14 million a year, which is actually just more than half the $100 million/year Stern's contract works out to. Nevermind that, though: Limbaugh will also get a nine-figure bonus, which he'll use toward the new G550 jet he's buying.
It's hard to determine who's the bigger baby here: Dan Abrams or Rush Limbaugh. On Tuesday night, Abrams was on Verdict to (yet again) respond to Rush's Operation CHAOS (where he urges Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton wherever possible, in a not-exactly-original idea) and, more aptly, not let Limbaugh have the last words in this playground fight, the latest round of which Abrams himself started on Monday. Then Rush had to move his chess piece on Tuesday, and now here's Dan hurling the dodgeball back in a game of My Dick Is Bigger we still don't understand.
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Rush Limbaugh, gone too far? That's like accusing Bill O'Reilly of, well, the exact same thing.
Fresh off their O'Reilly attack, Rush & Molloy are pushing a story today that the pundit's "anal poisoning" comments crossed some sort of threshold into the inappropriate.
"Limbaugh was ranting against Sen. John McCain on his radio show this week when a caller asked whether he thought McCain would pick Sen. Lindsey Graham as his running mate," they report. "Limbaugh doubted it, though he admitted: 'I may be wrong … Lindsey Graham is certainly close enough to [McCain] to die of anal poisoning.'"
As bloggers point out, it's the third time he's used the phrase in 13 months. But Limbaugh's camp maintains the term is just a more graphic way of saying "brown-nosing." And, well, it just may be, so long as it's physically possible to get screwed in the pooper while getting your face up in there too.
And can you pretend to be surprised when you let you know that FoxNews.com's coverage of all this makes no mention of the keywords?
• Jack Valenti, the longtime Hollywood lobbyist, dies at 85. His death will be mourned by everyone who knew him, and rejoiced by every teen who's ever been denied admittance to an R-rated movie.
• Two "major publications" (read: NYP and People) digitally obscured portions of the photo from the VT shootings. "Eh, that's nothing. I used to to pull that crap all the time!" says recently fired Blade photog, Allan Detrich.
• Say, remember when we suggested Rush Limbaugh might be the next Don Imus? Apparently, he was listening!
• ABC network exec, Andrea Wong, to take the reins at The Lifetime Channel. Her first goal? To make it "even more boring."
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Has Don Imus' big yapper ruined it for the rest of crazy right-wing pundits? 'Could be!' say a bunch of concerned conservatives at a reactionary panel dispute. And in the wake of Imus' less than voluntary exit, prominent Elephant party alarmists fear that potty-mouth Rush Limbaugh may be the next target of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine, or, as unbiased Republicans call it, "the Unfairness Doctrine," and "[the latest] weapon in a liberal jihad against the right wing's freedom of speech."
Panelist Ken Blackwell, formerly Ohio's secretary of state and the Republican candidate for governor last fall, said Imus was "not a conservative" and that "the left has sacrificed one of their own to give them a platform to go after true conservative talk show hosts." Cliff Kincaid, of the conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, said the Imus firing had been a revelation. "It wasn't exactly clear to me how [liberals] intended to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but I think now with the Imus affair, we know … [And it's a] short leap from firing Imus to going after Rush Limbaugh."
Yes, but what does it all mean??
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• Roman Polanski may be hiding out in France, but not on the big screen. [MW]
• Responding to Rush Limbaugh's claims that he overacted his Parkinson's disease in political ads, Michael J. Fox claims he was overmedicated when he taped them. A more adult response would've been overacted his first into Limbaugh's chin. [AP]
• Nicole Richie enters treatment for inability to gain weight. Coke addiction? Anorexia? Rachel Zoe? We may never know the cause. [People]
• While CNN and NPR refuses ads for Death of a President, NBC and The CW just say no to running ads for the Dixie Chicks' documentary Shut Up & Sing. [Drudge Report]
• Those changes at the Times to help distinguish between hard news editorial and commentary? Uh, yeah, not working. [Hot Type, second item]
• Thankfully, South Park gets to mocking Steve Irwin before our own MollyGood almost had to. [Daily Mail]
• Shows with ratings low enough to warrant cancelation just a few years ago are now having their script orders upped. [MediaWeek]
• Unlike Matthew McConaughey, Dominic Monaghan doesn't appreciate it when photogs swarm at the beach. [TMZ]
God, Rush Limbaugh is going to make us cover him even if it takes pissing off anyone with the emotional capability of "sympathy," isn't he? So here we go: Radio host and liberal baiter Limbaugh used his terrestial airwaves on Monday to mock Michael J. Fox – actor, advocate, and Parkinson's disease sufferer – for "exaggerating" the effects of the disease. That is, during a series of political ads Fox participated in (for candidates who support stem cell research), he apparently wiggled, jiggled, and shook too much for Limbaugh's taste. Sure, Rush sparingly apologized later in the show – "All right then, I stand corrected. . . . So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act." – but then immediately launched into another attack on the Boston Legal actor, for letting his disease be exploited by politicians. Though, to be fair to Rush, letting one's addiction to prescription pain killers by exploited by the media for ratings is a far less severe crime.
Rush Limbaugh On the Offensive Against Ad With Michael J. Fox [David Montgomery, WaPo]
• Today's Lowdown shoots down our earlier report that Jay-Z and Beyonce had wed in Martha's Vineyard over the weekend. A Def Jam spokeswoman confirms they were there but insists they didn't wed — and refuses to comment on whether a wedding was planned for the weekend. [Lowdown]
• Something about the Emmys being announced? [Emmy.org]
• What you missed on Larry King because of those damn North Korean missiles bumped the interview: Part of Kathy Griffin's unhappy marriage to Matthew Moline was his stealing $72k from her bank accounts. [Page Six]
• If Nicky Hilton's pregnant, that's not stopping her from working the stripper pole. [R&M]
• In between exposing Chad Lowe's substance abuse problem, Hilary Swank also calls him a piss poor actor. [People]
• J. Lo: Voodoo vixen. [R&M]
• For Rush Limbaugh, having a bottle of Viagra isn't illegal. It's just embarrassing. [ABC News]
• It's only a matter of time before Lindsay Lohan has a complete meltdown. Even her fashion stylist had to bail on her after a few days of rockstaring. (And by the digusting photos, we can tell.) [Page Six]
• Dallas has chosen their star. And it's not Jessica Simpson or Kristen Cavallari. Or anyone you've ever heard of. [Us Weekly]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are honeymooning in Tahiti — not Fiji. For all of you paparazzi out there. [Tittle Tattle]
• Ohmahgahd. If Harry Potter dies an entire generation will have lost their purpose to live. Seriously, JK Rowling … don't do it. [AP]
• We hope you've all been good little New Yorkers and skipped breakfast today, because the news that Rush Limbaugh has gone from smuggling pain killers to smuggling Viagra is enough to make anyone loose their salmon bagel. [People]
Like so many celebrities who came before him, Rush Limbaugh will not face punishment for his dable in illegal drug use in 2003. After being arrested on Friday for prescription fraud charges, Limbaugh was released on bail. As for the charges, which were brought against him after a very high-profile investigation, will be dismissed after 18 months — if he agrees with the court's terms.
Rush Limbaugh must submit to random drug tests under an agreement filed Monday… He also must continue treatment for his acknowledged addiction to painkillers and he cannot own a gun.
Is it just us? Shouldn't the "Rush Limbaugh can not own a gun" concept have been put into law long, long ago?
Limbaugh Facing Drug Tests Under Deal [AP News]
• Which turkey gets the better deal: the one with feathers who gets "pardoned" and heads off to Disneyland for a parade with Mickey and Minnie, or the one who has to stay at the White House and run the country? [AP]
• Say goodbye the Trio, the NBC-owned channel that will shutter its channel at the end of the year. But come 2006, it'll be reborn as a "broadband destination" on BravoTV.com. [Media Week]
• We expected Howard Stern to be one of Maer Roshan's biggest fans, but Rush Limbaugh enjoys him some Radar too? There's gonna be a fight for fan club president. [MIN]
• So tired of being overwhelmed with advertising everyday, former ad exec Ji Lee has been slapping blank speech bubbles on subway station and bus shelter ads throughout the city. The bubbles, of course, are then defaced with witty comments like "For a good time call 555-0399" and "Jay wuz here." [NYDN]
• Jack Shafer foresees the downfall of Google while managing to indirectly call (new Slate colleague) Adam Penenberg a deadline johnny for questioning the search giant. Except we don't know Adam to meet his deadlines by writing techno-fairytales. [Slate]
• Craiglist's Craig Newmark wants to do for journalism what he did for classified ads: democratize it. Oh, and still even more revenue from newspapers. [Guardian]
• Martha Stewart may have long ago ditched her ankle bracelet, but convicted cohort Peter Bacanovic just got his removed. Now he can return to being the hottest white collar ex-con, sans accessories. [Radar]
• While Daniel Craig may have nearly locked in the James Bond spot, it's not definite. What is definite? That he's making Sienna Miller scream louder than Jude Law ever could. [R&M]
• So much for Anna Anisimova's dreams of becoming a better looking Donald Trump. Her plans to trash Diane von Furstenberg's former West 12th Street HQ (for which she paid $23 million) to build a 150-foot condo complex got the kabash when the city council sided with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, capping building heights at 100 feet. Though there's always a Hamptons summer to make headlines again. [Page Six]
• Katie Holmes' dad Martin is about as pleased with her as Brooke Shields is with Tom Cruise, sounding off on his daughter and movie star fiance about their shotgun wedding. Meanwhile, the duo's uber-handler Lee Ann DeVette is asking parishioners at Katie's families Christ the King Church not to speak to reporters. [The Scoop]
• Rush Limbaugh feels left out of yesterday's Top 10 Ubersexuals list, which explains his running his mouth over Bono landing the No. 1 slot despite Rush's claims of the U2 frontman having a mistress. [Page Six]
• Donny Deutsch finally admits what we've known all along. It's an "ego trip" to do his low rated CNBC show The Big Idea, and he wrote his latest book because "seeing your name on a book is really a big f - - - - - - deal." [Cindy Adams]
• Apprentice wanna-be Raj Bhakta is venturing into politics. The bow tie wearing, babe chasing former contestant is considering running for Congress in the 13 th District in Fort Washington. Even if The Donald won't endorse him, maybe he can meet some cute campaign workers to hit on. Or at least a receptionist. [R&M]
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