Dear Mike Malloy:
Please don’t make me feel the need to defend Rush Limbaugh. Seriously. It makes me want to shower.
(Hat tip to Sully)
Update: Mike, not Marc.
Tod Kelly
Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.
I looked him up, because my thought was “who?” (His name is Mike, not Marc). Salon did a 2003 piece speculating that he might be the liberal Limbaugh.
http://www.salon.com/2003/05/13/malloy/
So, there ya go. Maybe we should put ’em in Thunderdome together!Report
I will say that it is to the left’s credit that he’s been around since 2003 and I have never heard of the guy.Report
Excellent point. Kind of surprised the right hasn’t made a big deal of him, though. Maybe they are smarter than commonly supposed, and realized that starving him of media oxygen is the way to go? Or maybe they broke their radio dials so they can’t switch away from Limbaugh, so they don’t even realize Malloy exists?Report
I think it’s just he doesn’t have enough media exposure to be a worthwhile target of outrage.Report
That and given how much shit they get to make up that they can be outraged about, why bother combing the airwaves for a two-bit loser who has no listeners?Report
If he’d said the same thing about Obama, he’d already have a three-book contract with Regnery.Report
I haven’t heard of him until now either.Report
Fixed. Thanks Glyph.Report
He finds Limbaugh’s ideas offensive. So be it.
I would expect someone in media to be more… articulate, if you know what I’m getting at. “Bad” is not the same thing as “Nazi” or “pederast.”
Far, FAR better would be to ACCURATELY state Limbaugh’s actual opinions. The moral outrageousness will out itself.Report
He was caught coming back from a country known for sex tourism featuring underage girls with a suitcase full of Viagra. It’s not a difficult conclusion to draw.Report
Yeah, but that’s a different conclusion to draw than the one Malloy does. Though it is kind of a small fry to be highlighting for a Moore Award.Report
Sully hammers the right wholesale with his Hewitt award. He probably leapt at the opportunity to nail an over the top “left wing figure” in the interest of fairness. Though this nobody doesn’t really represent much of the left AFAIK.Report
There is also the Malkin award which hammers the right as well. Then there is the Dick Morris award.
Though, I find Sully perplexing. Often I like him and he seems reasonable. Every now and then he seems to melt down or have a flashbulb go off and remember “I’m a Tory” and decides to attack the Democratic Party for no reason.
I do like that he is very willing to post dissents and sometimes vehement ones though.Report
Jeez, Mike, now you are making ME defend Limbaugh….and I normally ignore Limbaugh so hard that I never even heard of this scandal (I only remembered the Vicodin one).
The DR does in fact have legal prostitution & concomitant sex tourism, as I understand it; some of that tourism is undoubtedly for child prostitution; it is also, as I understand it, possible to meet single adults and have completely consensual, non-paying sex at beach resorts where they serve lots of booze (wouldn’t know, I’m married).
The DR is also apparently a golf destination: http://gocaribbean.about.com/od/attract4/tp/bestdominicangolf.htm
“Golfers have more than 20 courses to choose from, among them some of the finest courses in the world.”
Isn’t Limbaugh an avid golfer? And, don’t people also go to Caribbean destinations because they are close, and cheap, and have beaches and booze?
And he didn’t have “a suitcase full of Viagra” – he had A SINGLE bottle, inscribed with his doctor’s name, rather than his own (see sworn affidavit on The Smoking Gun), for which offense he does not appear to have been charged.
IOW, “not a difficult conclusion to draw” can be said with as about a straight face as “I saw Schilling in THAILAND EATING OYSTERS, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, AND I THINK YOU DO.”Report
Something about the phrase “it’s not a difficult conclusion to draw” made me think that maybe Mike was riffing on something Limbaugh (or somebody) had said in the past. But when I google that phrase it just brings me right back to this post (presumably because Google knows I am here all damn day? That can’t be the only time anyone has ever used that phrase.)Report
I have, in fact, applied for a patent on it. So watch out.Report
Wouldn’t that be copyright, rather than patent?
You might want to splurge on an IPR lawyer? 😉Report
I’m pretty sure’s he’s planning to patent software that seeks out opportune blog posts to respond with this type of comment, plucks the appropriate details from the post or comment string and inserts a pithy reply under his name.
Totally patentable.Report
It’ll be better when he can completely automate the whole site, so that the software auto-populates conservative comments with word strings that add up to some version of “tradition!”, the liberal ones with some version of “justice!” and the libertarian ones with some version of “freedom!”, and we can all just go outside and get some sun.Report
+1Report
That doesn’t explain what you were doing in Thailand.Report
Testing my theory that Viagra usage and golf mix really badly.Report
I assume it turns your Woods into Irons?Report
Makes your short game into your long game.Report
I love you both.Report
FWIW, the “put two and two together” thing is a stock bit of political schtick. Argument by implication (which is then usually spelled out) is a staple of political radio in general.
So it would not surprise me. I know I’ve heard Rush say similar things “You know X, you know Y, obviously together that means Z”.
Taken to it’s extremes, you get Glenn Beck’s blackboard craziness.Report
Glenn Beck is indeed a nut, but I miss that chalkboard craziness which would show up secondhand in other places. It inspired some of the funniest Jon Stewart comedy of the last few years (I used to like Stewart, but he and the show are in a bit of a creative rut, IMO.)Report
If I were riffing, it would go something like:
It makes him a pervert, right? It makes him a molester. He’s screwing so many kids he ran out of his own Viagra and had to borrow somebody else’s. Report
It explains one big misconception Limbaugh had about birth control.
He needs a pill every time he tries to get it up. By his reasoning, then, women need one birth control pill every time they want to have sex (vis-a-vis his rants about Sandra Fluke).
The fact that he’s simultaneously clueless, misogynist AND impotent… well, one of the three is just icing on the cake.Report
So, according to wiki this Mike Malloy flamed out in liberal talk radio and couldn’t get a gig anywhere else, so he’s now self-syndicated* and presently present in a whopping 13 markets. Which markets those are, precisely, requires more googling time than I’m prepared to commit. Which seems telling enough. Small wonder that few libs have ever heard of him.
Meanwhile, the h/t/ trail (MRC to Newsbusters to Sully) suggests to me that Sully simply had too much time on his hands that day. I like Sully. It’s hard not to like him. But the thing I’ve learned about Sully is this: folks take him seriously, but no one takes Sully more seriously than he takes himself.
*Before today, I’d never heard of Malloy nor of this thing called self-syndication. I guess I should get out more.Report
Self-syndication sounds a lot like self-publication.Report
“*Before today, I’d never heard of Malloy nor of this thing called self-syndication. I guess I should get out more.”
Or more likely, get really, really in. Like, “all day wearing your pajamas in mom’s basement” kind of in.Report
I’ve long envied the “all day wearing your pajamas” part. Sigh. If only I could be that kind of in. (I promise to do it right, I do! Just give me the chance, oh great universe …)Report
I find this fascinating.
I’ve never been one for laying around in PJs. It just makes me feel lazy and kind of grungy. I don’t put them on until I am ready to go to bed. And I tend to get into gym clothing or shower quickly after getting up.
I never understood how people in college could come to class wearing their PJs. Is it really that hard to put on a pair of jeans and a pull-over shirt.Report
It’s not really an either/or thing. (Er, we don’t need to talk about how many decades I’ve been out of college.)
I did the high-heels fashion thing before kids. After kids, I did the comfier low heels professional dress thing. Eventually, I was fortunate enough to do the every day is casual friday never wear pantyhose thing.
So, now I’d really like to try the work in jammies thing. Which is not to be confused with the I have no work so I’m still in my jammies thing.
Now, my daughter is in college. She goes to classes in whatever is comfy to pull on in 5 minutes and sit a lot/walk around campus a lot in: leggings, sweats, jammies … decidedly not jeans which aren’t all that comfy for those activities. But trust me, she gets all kinds of dressed up in jeans when she goes out and while at work, so it’s hardly like she wears jammie-like things all the time. (The girl works at PacSun– you can probably imagine her closet.)
Like I said, it’s not really an either/or thing.Report
That implies I know what PacSun is.
I’m a bit out of college myselfReport
Sorry! Sometimes I reflexively assume other folks know what I know. My bad. Fwiw, PacSun is just one of a string of retailers who target the HS/College demo. But really, you don’t have to get my reference to get the gist of my comment.
Seriously, I don’t give a whit what my daughter wears to her classes, and for the life of me I can’t imagine why you would care either. Her grades matter. Her wardrobe? Not so much.
No offense, but your comment struck me like one of the old biddies back in the day who complained about the fact that I didn’t wear pantyhose to work.Report
I’m a bit of an old-fashioned person in both ways good and a bit priggish perhaps.Report
I’m just a bit old-fashioned in what I consider to be acceptable public-wear. I don’t want to go back to the days when everyone looked like they were going to work all the time but going to sleepwear and sweats as acceptable clothing when out in public is a bit too far.Report
but going to sleepwear and sweats as acceptable clothing when out in public is a bit too far.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my dear, but that ship has long sailed. Heck, there’s probably some swanky sweatsuits to be found on Rodeo Drive. The good news is I’ve never seen anyone wear long johns or footie jammies out in public.`Not on purpose, anyway. 🙂Report
This is what happens to someone who started in theatre and then went into law. I see clothes as being able to transform a person and making a difference. There is something nice about putting on a really nice suit. Not all the time but…
I don’t get the Silicon Valley mindset of wanting to wear jeans and t-shirts all the time.Report
I don’t get the Silicon Valley mindset of wanting to wear jeans and t-shirts all the time.
Dude! You just got finished slamming college kids for being too lazy to at least throw on jeans, and now jeans aren’t good enough either? You’re giving me whiplash!
Just joshin’ around. But seriously, I think it can all be generically chalked up to different strokes for different folks. 🙂Report
I don’t get the Silicon Valley mindset of wanting to wear jeans and t-shirts all the time.
I went to a school that disallowed denim because jeans were “worldly”.
You’d better freakin’ believe I wear jeans all the time.Report
Jaybird,
What school is that? Everything is wordly. I don’t get their argument.
KTWard.
Most likely. I probably come across as much more uptight than I really am with these comments.Report
It was a Christian School. In the world but not *OF* the world.
Hey, you want the boat in the water. That’s what boats are for, after all, but you don’t want the water in the boat.Report
Jaybird,
I grew up in suburban NYC. This is not an area known for Evangelical Christianity. Most of the Christians I knew growing up were Catholic, usually of Italian and/or Irish origin.
The protestant schools tended to be of a more Mainline and old-school variety. I just went to suburban public school.
I don’t quite get the world “in the world but not of it”. Judaism is a materialistic religion. It is entirely concerned with life on this world. Me Jewish education was entirely focused on real-world things. We never talked about what happens when you die.Report
When I worked for a software company on the west coast there were people in the lab with shorts and sandals. I tried dressing my normal way and kept getting asked if I was dressing for a job interview. I tried to mitigated my preference for slacks and a dress shirt by growing my hair out. Ultimately, I just settled on jeans. I remain under the delusion through professionals shoulddress like pprofessionals. A survey wouldn’t work in a computer lab, but flip flops are appropriate business attire nowhere.Report
Next time, you should go for the whole “Southern Baptist” thing. There are, indeed, a lot of restrictions but you can get away with murder in other areas.Report
Most of the people I know who are in the world but not ofit blah blah blah are hippie types who fancy eastern religion .Report
NewDealer – I don’t know if JB got this story in his upbringing, but I did.
It’s a song lyric that references a sort of parable or thought experiment told to kids, to impart some idea of what “eternity” means, so as to scare the bejesus into them at the idea of spending such a duration in Hell rather than Heaven.
From the comments, I love that ‘goodoltup’ took a whack at the math:
Report
Glyph,
I’ve heard of such things. They appall me. I don’t understand them and reject them absolutely.Report
Oh yeah, it didn’t stick. 🙂
We got a great song out of it though!Report
I’m confused. Sleepwear and sweats make me look exactly like I’m going to work.Report
See? That’s the job I want.Report
Self-syndication? Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?Report
He’s on Sirius/XM for whatever that’s worth. At least a potentially large audience.Report
The Left has never done well in the one way market that is talk radio. We’ve done marginally better in television but we’ll never put asses in Barcaloungers like Fox does.
The Left’s always been more subversive, simply oozing into an argument space, filling the cracks, then expanding like so much ice creating potholes. The Right knows this, too. They’re so angry at Barack Obama they could just spit. And spit they do, rattling on, saying the most awful things that come into their tiny little minds.
The Liberals are, to put it bluntly, too cool to sit still for a hectoring idiot such as Mike Malloy. Excitable Andy doubtless got an email from someone, nominating this blatherskite for a Moore Award. He set one of his minions to the task of sussing him out and put in a one-liner about him, catapulting Malloy into the winter sky like a clay pigeon at the Left Wing Skeet Shooting Range. This is the Slashdot Effect, only featuring a bit of political nerdier-than-thou instead of harrumphing about a ten-year-old unfixed bug in the KDE desktop: too many political weenies come in search of too little information. Left wing wingnuts are everywhere, it’s just a matter of looking hard enough for them.Report
There is a bomb in my head set to explode if I read too many overwrought metaphors.
Think of my children before you post again.Report
Left wing wingnuts are everywhere, it’s just a matter of looking hard enough for them.
In contrast to the Right wing wingnuts. It’d be so nice if those folks were also hard to find. Alas.Report