While channel surfing several nights ago, I landed on The Passion of Ayn Rand, a made for TV movie based on a book that I read while going through my “OMG The Fountainhead is the BEST BOOK EVER!” stage. I wanted to know a bit more about the woman whose book I loved and whose philosophy intrigued me.
What I discovered while reading The Passion is that Rand, although brilliant, was also a psychologically-scarred bully with hypocritical tendencies and a severe lack of empathy. Still loved the book, but her practical application of Objectivism? No so much.
Yet, even to this day, my internal dialogue often labels people in her terms (I use character’s names as shorthand) – Oh, he’s a Howard Roark, or, she’s a Dominique Francon. In my mind, Rush Limbaugh has always been an Ellsworth Toohey.
It made sense to me – the Toohey character is a media figure (a newspaper columnist) who uses his medium to grab power by shaping – through lies and manipulation – public opinion. He courts influential associates and destroys anyone who 1) doesn’t recognize his authority and 2) tries to maintain their integrity. He also represents what Rand hated most – socialism.
So is Rush a socialist?
Well, we know that he doesn’t believe in the collective ownership of anything, so maybe not.
But if we look at Rand’s background – Russian-born, twelve in 1917, her father’s business was confiscated during the Russian Revolution – we get a good sense of her frame of reference. While the Toohey character may represent socialist ideology in general, it also represents the Lenin/Stalin brand specifically. All of Stalins’ least attractive elements are embodied in that one character – the development of a cult of personality, absolute control of the message, the acceptance of bombastic titles, the absolute allegiance of your followers, the destruction of enemies, and an ego the size of a small Midwestern state. It’s these elements that make Rush a Toohey.
This week, in just one incident, we saw Rush in all his Stalinist Toohey glory.* After revealing that he hopes the Obama administration fails in its attempt to revive the country’s economy (this statement alone has it’s own implications), Rush (of the gold-accented tribute to his “Excellence in Broadcasting,”) was called out by the president as well as Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey. Rush’s “Dittoheads,” who worship his words instead of articulating their own, fell in line and vilified Gingrey for daring to express opposition. Gingrey, it should be known, fell in line as well:
As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values. I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called “stimulus.†And on so many of these things, I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what yesterday’s headline may have read, I never told Rush to back off. I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives—that was not my intent….
Now more than ever, we need to articulate a clear conservative message that distinguishes our values and our approach from those of liberal Democrats who are seeking to move our nation in the wrong direction. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement’s conscience. Everyday, millions and millions of Americans—myself included—turn on their radios and televisions to listen to what they have to say, and we are inspired by their words and by their determination. At the end of the day, every member of the conservative movement, from our political commentators and thinkers to our elected officials, share an important and common purpose in advancing the cause of liberty, reining in a bloated federal government, and defending our traditional family values.
Did anyone else just feel a chill up their spine?
*If this angers you, feel free to re-read it while imagining George Bush is still the president and Rush is Michael Moore.
Sam. Thank you. Someone had to say it. This comparison of Toohey and Limbaugh is utterly incoherent. Its frickin’ bizzare, actually.
Toohey is Rush Limbaugh? Surely you jest. Barack Obama is the very embodiment of Toohey with the collectivist movement and taking a portion of that slice of pie away from the rich to help out the downtrodden of society. Same principle applies in Atlas Shrugged, as well. I think you might need to revisit your reading of Rand.
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“We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.” — Barack Obama
“Yet a man’s career concerns all society. The question of where you could be most useful to your fellow men comes first. Its not what you can get out of society, its what you can give.” — Toohey
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“I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation.” — Obama
“Mercy is superior to justice, the shallow-hearted to the contrary notwithstanding.†– Ellsworth Toohey
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“I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it’s not just the particular issue and how they ruled. But it’s their conception of the court. And part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don’t have a lot of clout.” –Obama
“I’d rather be kind than right.” – Toohey
I think you completely missed the point as to what toohey really represented. toohey was anti-art, and in essence anti-human. he promoted writers and artists who he knew, in essence, were awful, and presented them in his columns as if they were great. he was careful to try to suppress anyone that actually WAS good. he was the gatekeeper bent on destroying the very thing he supposedly advocated…art…man’s ingenuity…genius..etc. Rush is none of those things.
if you want a real life toohey, if you want someone who is a destroyer of art, look no further then hollywood, or the music biz today as exemplified by the actual true life conversation that i once was privy to….
writer: …and it’s great…it’s never been done before!
t.v. exec: uh. we don’t…do that.
[...] Captain Ed provides the audio from Tennessee’s finest, Jim Cooper — the representative for Vanderbilt’s congressional district, actually — speaking with Liberadio (with the extremely…”progressive” Freddie O’Connell and Mary Mancini, the latter with whom Mike’s been sparring lately): [...]
Glen, Hey now! Are you monitoring my radio again? I asked you to quit doing that. I mean, how else can I get away with not listening to Rush Limbaugh while pretending I do?
Oh, and yeah. It’s hard to quote exactly what Limbaugh says on the radio after he gets done with all the editing.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709280009
“In response to Media Matters’ documentation of his recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as “phony soldiers,” Rush Limbaugh claimed that he had not been talking “about the anti-war movement generally,” but rather “about one soldier … Jesse MacBeth.” Limbaugh then purported to air the “entire” segment in question. In fact, the clip he aired omitted a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of discussion that occurred between Limbaugh’s original “phony soldiers” comment and his subsequent reference to MacBeth.”
Mike, I didn’t write that he “simply said that he wanted Obama to fail.” I wrote, “After revealing that he hopes the Obama administration to fail in its attempt to revive the country’s economy” But let’s face it, he did take a bit further.
“So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.†(interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.†Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.†Somebody’s gotta say it.”
This post is a great example of the adage: Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
It’s always funny to see people put Limbaugh down without ever having listened to the man. Instead, they rely on third- or fourth-hand accounts that are so distorted or out of context they’re not even recognizable as actually coming from Limbaugh.
Mary, be honest here. Rush Limbaugh did not simply say he wanted Obama to fail. If you read the full transcript or watch the full video, uncut, you can see that Rush explicitly says “I would hope he would succeed if he acts like Reagan.” Rush said he wants Obama to fail at enacting FDR-style policies. That’s because Rush doesn’t want those policies to succeed, he doesn’t believe in them. Media Matters don’t play the whole quote because it makes Rush sound bad, as if he wants Obama to fail no matter what. It’s a distortion of the words the man said, and it’s annoyingly narrow of you to continue to use the words out of context because you don’t like Rush or disagree with his politics.
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