Interesting debate you have spawned here Joe.

Sounds like sticks and stones to me.

It seems you got your article read by using RL and calling him a name - that's why I read it - not because of your byline.

Why not fill your article with value instead of froth and vindicate yourself as a writer,

The verbal burlesque show you offered here demeans you.

I guarantee I can get people to read my article simply by entitling it:

"Joe Conason Has Something Notable to Say"

The general public would clamor to read something so rare!

To put forth my secret theory that Rupert Murdoch is a secret liberal seeking to bring down the right from within.

Does anyone watch Fox News Non-Ironically?

It strikes me every day that it's really just newsfeed for the daily show.

Their agitprop is so agitated as to render the propaganda rather meaningless.

Sure it's firey and gets your blood boiling, but do any actual voting americans follow this kind of nonesense?

The recent years voting records would suggest otherwise.

He won because of Obama. He would have no chance otherwise. Let's not gush over the guy who, as I see it, is a whiny little twerp. But hey, at least he's on the right side of the aisle when it comes to most things.

I'm hopeful, as I am every time Limbaugh et. al. say something outrageous, that this will serve to discredit them to rational people (i.e., the majority of conservatives out there). Unfortunately, I'm not sure how many of such people are still listening to Limbaugh and his cronies in the first place--which leaves a scary question: who the hell is?

Seems strange that most all those mentioned in the article are far and away the most popular people on TV, Cable, Radio. Most have many millions more watching or listening every day. I think Rush has near 40 million. MSNBC, not even one million. O'reilly has more daily than MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, PBS combined. Every now and then he even beats the left's hero, Katie, on the CBS evening news. Unheard of for a cable news cast to beat one of the big three. (Who are all going downhill fast and may be out of business like newspapers soon). There are only about 8% out there that are hard left. Near 40% solidly on the right. Most others in the center. That's why the liberal newspapers and TV's are going downhill fast. The only reason that Obama got in was the racist vote (96%) of Blacks who voted their hearts instead of their minds. If 96% of whites had voted for McCain there would have been the greatest hew and cry ever heard.

Limbaugh may be a big fat idiot but you "Progressives" own this country now with 60 senators, this is the closest we've been to a one party state in memory. You geniuses have no excuses now for failure, not even if we are attacked again by terrorists, as Bush the clown had more opposition than Obama does, and you all hated Dubya and his minions. Channel that hate now, why don't you. We are all expecting an American miracle in the next 4-8 years, and if you don't produce you'll be looking like the idiots, but hey, at least you can remain true blue state brahmins, wealthy toffee nosed idiots.

"If 96% of whites had voted for McCain there would have been the greatest hew and cry ever heard."

Guess you didn't see footage of those Palin rallies.

Toffee nosed?

Was that an insult?

Interesting statements:

A few days ago I was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington and I met four Army chaplains - I thanked them for their service.

Thanks to you I now realize that I should not have done that since you consider it too easy.

My daughter is an ICU nurse in a major east coast hospital - one of your "ass wipers" and until now I have thanked her for her service as well.

Thanks to you I now realize that I should not do that since you consider it too easy.

Interestingly, I am a chaplain in a children's hospital and I will now thank myself daily becaues you say my service has value.

And yet I will be conflicted because its too easy for me to thank myself.

What should I do Bigguns? What should I post on my car's bottom?

And it's hue and cry. I understand that you right-wingers are dumb, but can't you even use a dictionary?

Conason name-calling? You mean the direct quotes from the right-wing noise machine? Or is that what you call making an intellectual case?!

You're throwing a hissy because I want more dollars spent on children and fewer trillions of dollars spent on wars? And you're a chaplin at a children's hospital? Wow. Neither your faith nor your proximity to suffering children seem to have elevated your greater compassion for children.

Another Ike quote:

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing."

I didn't answer your question. You shouldn't put anything on your car's rear. You should use that car to drive to a V.A. hospital where you can volunteer. I know it's not as clean and cozy as a chat beside some monument, but there are living, suffering soldiers in V.A. hospitals. The dead don't know that you visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

I dont know about Limbaugh, but I do know that Franken is an idiot - liberalism at its best. Soon, MN will be joining the list of failing states destroyed by liberal policies.

You make an excellent case for the stuupidity of the American people. As if our TV faire and the twice-elected Bush aren't enough we have Fox news and its parrots providing biased and unfounded commentary.

This is supposed to enlighten an audience? Not really. It is designed to inflame and it is designed to feed the fears of the ignorant and the uninformed.

If Rush Limbaugh's supposed 50 million viewers are true "dittoheads" then America is in serious trouble as a world leader. Even now, the world views us as a bunch of spoiled, illiterate brats with a broken economic system, a failing automoble industry, a failed healthcare system, and airwaves polluted with Fox News commentators beating their chests about American superiority while spouting hate and misinformation.

I suggest that the single factor contributing the most to divisiveness and ignorance in America is the kind of biased commentary coming from the extreme right that is appealing to an undereducated, fearful American public.