Apparently, Carbonite is the sixth advertiser that has pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show. Carbonite's reason was very explicit:
No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.
Carbonite joins Sleep Number, Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Citrix as sponsors who have decided Rush Limbaugh damages their brands. Perhaps also Auto Zone is part of that group.
Lack of civility in our political discourse is perhaps our greatest problem in this country. When each side demonizes the other, no cooperation and compromise is possible, and thus, no actual governing happens. Thirty years ago, it was the "Looney Left" that had gone off the cliff. These days, extremists like Limbaugh are leading the Rigid Right off the cliff.
I remember back in the days when I was more conservative, and listening to Limbaugh from time to time, one of his accusations of liberals was that they would damage the country rather than do anything that would allow George W Bush look good. This was supposedly because of Democrats' lust for power. But, hasn't Rush Limbaugh already confessed to that very motivation right after Obama was elected when he said that he hoped Obama would fail as president? Doesn't this man do everything in his power to force Republicans to refuse to cooperate in any way with Obama and the Democrats, just so the Republicans can seize power in 2012?
Conservatives like Limbaugh are seeming more and more desperate and sad to me. I think they have put all of their eggs in the basket of overthrowing Obama and the Dems in 2012, and it looked like they were going to succeed a few months ago. But now it looks like it is all slipping away from them. Long term, demographics are working against the conservatives, and they know it, and I think they are panicking and becoming more and more extreme, and more and more alienating to those outside of their tight little world. Hispanics and young people strongly lean toward the Democrats, and those demographics are only getting larger. If Obama and the Democrats win 2012, there is a chance that the Reagan Revolution, so beloved by conservatives, will be dead, even to them.
The stakes are very high in the minds of the True Believer conservatives like Limbaugh. And his nasty over-reaching as he assaults those he disagrees with is an indicator of their desperation. Or so it seems to me.
