Limbaugh Burned By The Google: Uses 10th Grader's Essay To Attack Obama
By Logan Murphy Friday May 16, 2008 6:30pm
It's no secret that the right STILL hasn't figured out how to effectively use the internets, so it comes as no surprise that the Grand Poobah of right wing radio talkies <corrected>, Rush Limbaugh, has made a complete fool of himself by using a 12 year old essay by a 10th grader to attack Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama.
The best story I’ve heard this week by far was told today over lunch. Apparently, a co-worker of mine named George listens to the Rush Limbaugh show in his car, and yesterday heard him discussing Barak Obama’s comments about similarities between the recent housing crisis and the lead-up to the Great Depression. I imagine the comments were referring to the obvious similarities between those who obtained ridiculous sub-prime loans and those in the 1920s who bought stock they couldn’t afford on margin. However, Limbaugh decided that Obama’s comments were the result of a crazy “liberal education” - and even remarks how “lucky” he is that he didn’t graduate from college, thus allowing him to escape the perils of actual knowledge.
To prove his point, Rush says he did some Google searches for “Great Depression” and then proceeds to attack each of the results as liberal propaganda. Because we all know that college professors teach straight off of Google results pages. So my friend is listening and hears something rather striking… the name of one of our mutual colleagues - Paul Alexander Gusmorino (”The Third!” - I love the way Limbaugh says that).
Limbaugh found among the top results an essay written by Paul, entitled “The Main Causes of the Great Depression.” He quotes Paul’s essay and refutes each of its claims, dissecting them as if they were part of a Harvard professor’s lecture on the subject. He doesn’t pull any punches either. “Mr. Gusmorino, you better check Karl Marx and see if you plagiarized him in putting this piece together.”
Ouch. Those words would be harsh if they really were for a Harvard lecturer. But that’s not who wrote this essay. It was my friend who works as a Program Manager at Microsoft. When he was in 10th grade. Read on...
The story checks out. I followed his link and sure enough, the transcript is right on El Rashbo's website. (scroll down a bit) He even has the Freepers going nuts over this.
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Poor, poor drugbaugh.....always on the wrong side of every issue. But, he'll be able to spend all next week making fun of Ted Kennedy....the reich-wingers can't wait for Monday to roll around!
The Freepers are hilarious. Frat boys yapping about economics on the laptops their mamas bought them. Rush is the perfect leader for them.
OMG. Limpnuts was once a mustached sporting long haired hippie?
More evidence that Rush really is a douche bag. Let's see, that makes about 10,000 pieces of evidence now.
I don't really care.
I knew it, both he and Bush were both uni-low-brows ! That explains much...and that they both pluck.
Bob Davies @ 5:
Agreed, just like the Christo-fascists from the prior post, these are people you just can't reach.
I despise the Freepers for promoting such a hate filled venue for so called religious and military folks. Go read them choke on themselves not trying to say bad things about Ted Kennedy. Freaks I tell ya.
Oh yeah. Rush is a boob.
I wonder how the "welcome back, kotter" look worked for the comedian.
ZOMG! I like cheese. Rush likes cheese. Ok, Rush likes cheese now, but my question is, did Rush like cheese when this totally hawt picture was taken?
I'm just saying...
Damn liberal conspiracies! They set this up to snare poor Rush back when they were in HIGH SCHOOL! How deep is their hatred for conservatives? Have they no shame? At long last, have they no shame?
Well, you really can't blame him for falling for this - all of his sources believed it was true.
He is wearing a peace lapel pin. Love the irony.
Ruthless People @ 3:
Yeah, him and few others.
http://www.guerillastickers.com/Coleman%20Hippie
L.A. Confidential @ 13:
http://manolomen.com/images/Tony%20Blair%20in%20boater.jpg
Talkin' bout my Generation
http://www.websophist.com/Bill-&-Hillary-1970-New-HavO.jpg
"Limbaugh decided that Obama’s comments were the result of a crazy “liberal education” - and even remarks how “lucky” he is that he didn’t graduate from college, thus allowing him to escape the perils of actual knowledge."
We get commenters on this site like that.
They pretend to superiority because we've all been brainwashed and they educated themselves, reading one end of the library to the other. Sometimes they're hard to pin down, whether more liberal than thou or "libertarian."
And then it usually ends up with for that reason that's why they support Nader or Paul.
Yes, those freeper comments were comic gold.
my favorite was "These Marxists never quit..."
Nope, we never will
No, none of them inhaled.
Nice picture of Jeff Christie from WIXZ in McKeesport, Pa.
Vacuus Deus @ 19:
http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/rushwixz.jpg
L.A. Confidential @ 20:
Same person? http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews9/full-metal-jacket/full-metal-j...
harley @ 21:
Naw this is probably Rush back then
http://www.eiaonline.com/uploaded_images/doobie-730024.jpg
I'll laugh at this more easily once Rush & his flying monkeys are de-fanged and neutered. At least anesthesia will not be needed for this unpleasant but necessary procedure since they, in the immortal slap-down of Cary Grant, "have no feelings to hurt."
Do we honestly believe Rush has any intelligence or dignity? Rush is a boil on his own butt.
P.D. @ 24:
Got him out of service in Vietnam.
Maybe your friend can sue Rush L. for using his property without consent. Smile. Seriously, it is sad that so many radio and TV people in the United States can use the public airwaves to put out so many un-researched ideas or thoughts as facts.
Yeah, only naive 10th graders believe that it was lack of government intervention that caused the Great Depression.
Why would anyone be surprised that Rush would use a 10th grader's paper as his example? He IS, after all, an entertainer who knows his audience...
Yeah Harley, what a patriot! Rush can call everyone else weak on terror, and he never served! Reminds of the Young Republicans, you know the rich white boys who would never soil thier hands!
P.D. @ 29:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1UYquKlfT0
Other than his big, fat, foul mouth, Rush has nothing going for him. He was unattractive then, unattractive now. He is not paid for discussing the facts but to fill the airways with bile which appeals to the like minded. The simple fact that he is overpaid with big bucks shows just where our priorities lie.
WRONG WING
Hey! Didn't you guys get the memo? It is no longer RightWing. It is Wrong Wing!!
Wrong Wing Pundit, Wrong Wing Radio Clown, Wrong Wing commentator, Wrong Wing, etc.
Those pinheads have claimed the moral high ground for too long! Call a spade a spade and call wrong, well, wrong!
We should vacate the Right/Left Paradigm ASAP. We should always ask who is the Party of Death and Destruction? Who is the Party of Lies? Who is the Party of Deficit Spending on a greater scale than all the Democrats in History?
Lets try to get some uniform language standards going here!
The Wrong Wing Pundits have claimed the positive spin words for a long time. I say let's make people understand the true values of The Wrong Wing and the lies they use to cloak their real nature and agenda. There is nothing Conservative about stockpiling nuclear weapons. Nothing Conservative about our $9 Trillion debt and nothing conservative about 70% of that debt being run up under Reagan and the 2 Bushes! Nothing Conservative about scrapping Habeus Corpus and The Bill of Rights! Nothing Conservative about Torture. Nothing Conservative about the rampant greed in the wanton destruction of the environment. Apparently there is no room for Conservation in the Conservative Movement. Wrong! Wrong!
The American People have been sold a Bill of Goods while being stripped of our Bill of Rights. We must help pull the wool off the eyes of America and let them see just how Wrong the policies and legislation that they have been sold by the phony conservatives of the Wrong Wing.
Let's get on it. No more references to the most radical and reckless political movement in modern American History as being Right or Conservative. They are Reckless, Wasteful, Deceitful, Dishonest, Fiscally Disastrous...Just Plain Wrong!
Rush is just bitter that someone would have received a 10th grade education.
This is SOP for the right -- argue with an incoherent young'un and pat yourself on the back when you defeat them. Check this recent classic, where a WSJ editor debates the economy not with a leading academic economist, but with inarticulate, iPod-owning college kids.
I can't tell if he looks more like Chris Berman or Rob Reiner...
Maybe he can get a job as Bush's "fact checker":
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE16Ak02.html
Are you proud of your lack of a formal education? Do you like to brag about being intellectually superior to 15 year olds? Are you totally unfamiliar with the concept others refer to as "shame"? Have people spent hours trying fruitlessly to explain the term "integrity" to you?
"Yes", you say? Well then, you just might want to be a contestant on next Fall's biggest new network game show!
Coming this Fall on FOX TV: Jeff Foxworthy hosts "Are You Smarter than a Tenth Grader?"!
Contestants, with only the help of a HUGE paid staff, will attempt to discredit the research papers of REAL American tenth graders. In the fun-loving spirit of classic 50s' game shows like "Are You OR Have You Ever Been.." and "Who Wants to Invoke the Fifth Amendment?", contestants must also smear their chosen tenth grader as being an un-American sap! Bonus points will be awarded for condescending chuckling and the use of the phrase "My Friends"!
Winners will receive hundreds of millions in cash prices and the adoration of a multitude of fans, each one guaranteed to be incapable of independent thought! Bonus prizes will include a series of failed marriages, impotence, a classic case of homophobia, the lasting enmity of all African and Mexican Americans and your very own pilonidal cyst!
So, My Friends, the only question you need to be answering is: "Are You Smarter Than A Tenth Grader?"!!!!
this is too funny...and gives me an idea for a new reality game show
is rush limbaugh smarter than a 10th grader?
and i love the freeper's takes on the causes of the great depression, and how everyone of them is wrong...although the best one is the guy who blames roosevelt
god, these people are totally clueless
The funniest part is where Limbaugh claims that the Smoot-Hawley tariff act was the single most significant factor affecting the depth and length of the Great Depression. Let's see. In 1929, the absolute value of imports plus exports was less than 6% of GDP in the united states, and Smoot-Hawley accounted for less than half of the effective tariff rate in 1930 (and even less in the years from 1931 through 1933). But it was, supposedly, the single, most significant factor affecting a near 30% drop in GDP from 1929 to 1933. Yup. Sure nailed that one, Rush.
Has that man never known a skinny day?
Giving birth to him must've felt to his mother like passing the mother of all kidney stones.
joeedugan @ 37:
dang, your post just beat mine....but we have the same idea
i say we both call fox to sell them the idea
every week we have rush facing off against another 10th grader
ratings gold
Ruthless People @ 3:
Handsome devil, id'nt he?......................
Sk8trboi Matt Hussein @ 1:
Strategist Says Kennedy Crisis Helps Obama
Dems have already started in politicizing Kennedy's illness- pre-empting Limbaugh, I guess.
Amazing someone is acting disgusted at something that hasn't happened. Something he hopes will happen- so he can be disgusted.
29 P.D. Says: Yeah Harley, what a patriot! Rush can call everyone else weak on terror, and he never served! Reminds of the Young Republicans, you know the rich white boys who would never soil thier hands!
That's because in battle they'd soil their BVD's.
Could not have happened to a more deserving little bottom feeder, I hope this cloggs up his butt cyst all the way back to his kidneys. CEO
Don't be surprised... 10th grade, after all, marked the three toughest years of Rush's life.
UncleJoe@41: If I'd have been 90 seconds slower, then you'd have had to post the "great minds think alike" thing. Instead, it's me.
I honestly don't know what is more embarrassing for Limbaugh, the fact that we was refuting a paper from a 10th grader, or that his "refutation" as such was so poor. Is that really the extent of his understanding and intellectual prowess? Smearing a paper because of it has some perceived similarities with Marxist thought? And what is with trying to connect this paper in any way to Obama, because they both went to Harvard? Forgetting that they appear to have went in completely different capacities (Obama - Law School, Gusmorino - undergraduate), different times, and the fact that the paper was written before Gusmorino even attended Harvard.
And what is with Rush not being able to cite where he got his first lead-in from. Did he forget? What kind of intellectual sloppiness does it take be able to quote something, from the Internet no less, and not be able to find it later. Couldn't he just redo the search, check his history, etc.?
Calling what Rush did a point-by-point refutation, in the end, is being kind. It was a complete and utter hack-job. Rush offers nothing but a constant stream of assertions and fact-free smears. (I know, what else is new). However, what is striking is comparing to Gusmorino's paper which is well thought-out, argued, and researched (given the original context in which it was written).
Rush likes to claim he can defeat liberals with half his brain tied behind his back. No Rush, while it may be true you are only using half your brain. It is merely proving that you are an intellectually sloppy and dishonest dolt.
Heh. You know Rush clusterfucked when the Freepers are on his ass.
The level of scholarship that passes for intellect on the Right (i.e. levels of interpretation of 3,000 and 2,000 year-old textst that even Justinian couldn't have dreamed up) means I'm not surprised. Hell, some Creationists still use old anti-evolution canards the big-wigs among that movement said didn't apply 30 years ago. Looking at that, and then at this....
(rolls over on the floor laughing and pounding it.)
princess @ 43:
Princess, shouldn't you be spending time with the family or be out on the links? Remember, you told us about your great "life" and weekends spent with the "family" and "playing golf". LOL.
I wonder if drugbaugh will mock Kennedy like he did with Michael J. Fox.....such compassion.
Ruthless People @ 3:
this was taken during his top 40 dj days....
another job he failed at
i think the biggest market he ever got to was pittsburgh
It is sublime that he chose a 10th Grader as his Straw Man (to attempt) to knock down.
Yet, he's no match for the wily 15 year old.
Didn't MCCain (attempt to) smack down a 10th grade girl the other day? That young girl was so impressive.
Rush and McCain are ready and willing, but not able to humiliate any high school debater. Bring em' on!
I shocked that the Freepers were fooled by this. They are usually such a well-educated crowd. Unfortunately, a paper by a 10th-grader was still a little out of their league. Something in crayon would likely be a bit more appropriate.
He looks like Ollie, of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team.
L.A. Confidential @ 14:
While we're throwing out the pictures here's one of Barbara right after she yanked the beer out of the hand of that drunken, coked up failure of a son of hers George. http://www.maniacworld.com/star_wars_jokes/Star_Wars_Jokes.html
General_Rennenkampf @ 49:
I don't think the Freepers are on his ass one bit. They are natually agreeing unaware of the joke. I read the comments on the link provided and no one was critical of Rush in any way.
Rush Farts the Freepers smell it up like it was a gaseous perfume that fills their souls.
Rush, you should have stayed and gotten the larnin' you done skipped out'n.
Doesn't all that gas hurt your cysts?
ashton @ 56:
Whoops. Must have misread a few of their posts. I will now take this egg on my face and fix a 5-egg omelet with bacon, sausage, ham, and steak mixed with pepper jack, mozzarella, gouda, and swiss cheese (and then die of a heart attack.)
My point about the "scholarship" on the Right still stands, with the addition of Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" and any of that Sean Hannity crap in the bookstores to the Creationist drivel.
General_Rennenkampf @ 58:
Surely you didn't really think that they would be upset with the circle jerk leader, did you?
Yes how “lucky” Rush was that he didn’t graduate from college, thus allowing him to escape the perils of actual knowledge. Ignorance and buffoonery serve you well Rush.
ashton @ 59:
No, not really.
That's what's so sad, come to think of it. Any movement with idiots like Limbaugh and Hannity as the intellectual leaders deserves the fate of Nazism.
Ahhhh come on now give poor wittle Lush Pimpleass a break. To him a 10th grader must seem like a PhD holder.
Medford Tim @ 28:
Also, I'm sure that all the other results he got were over his head anyway.
VegasRage @ 60:
Why graduate from college when you can fail out and become a jackass on the radio?
You have to admit that he picked an essay consistent with his level of education and degree of insight..
General_Rennenkampf @ 61:
Liberals think these guys should be forced off the air, General R.
“It’s time to take him out,” says Jane Hamsher, guiding spirit of the popular Firedoglake blog (referring to Rush Limbaugh).
Is that what you mean by them deserving the fate of Nazism? Liberals doling out their brand of Nazism?
What made him put the peace lapel pin on, and what's with the psychedelic/flowery shirt, tie combo? Was he really a hippie? OMG! LOL!
That picture of Rush - it looks like he was a contestant in a Ron Jeremy look-alike contest. (No disrespect to Mr. Jeremy - a screen legend if ever there was one!)
wijg @ 67:
as far as i know, el druggo has always had conservative leanings
as a top 40 dj during the 70s, it wasnt cool to be a part of the hardhat crowd
there you have it...rush is a phoney
geneHUSSEIN214 @ 68:
hey...ive met ron....one of the nicest guys ever...seriously
ashton @ 56:
not only are they not critical, but each one spews more bs about how the depression occured than the next
the best is the guy who blames roosevelt
there were many reasons for the depression, the least of which was government intervention or intrusion...but each one of those fucktwits blames it on just that
and yes, obama is right....we are primed for another depression
yet unlike the last one, we americans dont have the fortitude to survive the next
im hoping to see thousands of wingnuts jumping from skyskrapers real soon
uncle joe hussein mccarthy @ 70:
Like I said, Uncle Joe, no disrespect to Mr. Jeremy( I always dug the movies he was in and, unlike a lot of porn stars of that era, he really did have a genuine comedic screen presence). But ya gotta admit, looking at that picture it certainly did seem like Rushbo had a 70's porn star look going on.
Someone needs to morph that picture (I am sure the cmarea broke) of Gasbag with his peace lapel pin and all, with a fat fu(kin photo of him now. Just get that qhat goes around comes around kind of feeling going)
Fu(king scumbag muddafugga. Is there not some journalists will to go down to the Dominican Repulbic or whereeve it was he was coming back from when they stopped him in Miamy with the Viagra, and pass around el gasbag's picture with the little boys and see who remembers, the little dicked wonder, with the 3 day hardon. I mean comeon, he could be outed in a bout a week.
Funny but it doesn't harm Limbaugh. He is such a pompous ass and his followers (and the freepers) are so devoid of real thought on anything but his programming that they won't believe the sky is blue unless he tells them to.
A gang of 'Manchurian citizens'... They have the guns that god (Bush) gave them and the warped religion that Bill Donahue (et all) keeps on simmer and the main stream media play organ player to the pandemonium that takes place...
So everyone is urged to get into the stock market. People can buy a thousand dollars of 'stock' for literal pennies. The stock goes down below the insignificant amount the people (businesses too) put down on it and next thing you know it's raining people.
Was it a way to game the market and wipe out the 'little people'? Was it a way to consolidate the riches into the hands of the few that actually owned real stock? The holders of the real property?
Now we hear that lenders or third party 'boutique' lenders are lying about the amount of fees, lying about what a balloon payment is, lending to people that shouldn't be borrowers in the first place (even helping people file wildly inaccurate paperwork and with in many cases nothing down), cooking the paperwork and then 'repackaging' their chicken droppings into 'packages' so confusing that even the people that deal in them don't know what they contain. Pretty soon no one knows what end is up and somehow, in spite of the republicans being in charge during all of this, it's the democrats that screwed up so bad and is the reason that the economy is in such a mess (and corporations and the stock market value profit and high pay over such quaint ideas as fair play and patriotism, where every job cut spikes stock prices and the corporations search the world for another hell hole to farm out their production. (Wasn't it a republican that got us into this Chinese loving and sellout mess in the first place?)).
So, those that were gagged and tied in the basement of the Congress the whole time that the republicans were attacking America from within, with corporate help, once again bare the entire blame for the ruination of this country and the moral and ethical bankruptcy of the republicans and their screeching monkeys that swing from every branch and overhang. It's quite an accomplishment for a party being hog tied by their own ineptitude and stupidity.
Could the democratic party have pulled of this coup while being the minority party in the entire government?
Wow. They are powerful. (or the screeching money's are really that stupid!)
Right wing talking heads are all about the noise and less about the substance... It's easier that way.
There's no stupid quite like Republican stupid.
Time for Lumpy Rash to leave off the drugs and go to rehab again.
It is so f'ing funny to see Freepers talk about tax and spending. I wonder if they have ever looked at where a good percentage of the expenditures go to, like the military industrial complex. If we actually did away with a lot of the military spending, we would be running a federal budget surplus. I don't want to offend anybody and say that we should cut off pay to the actual soldiers, but we should look at just paying them an adequate wage as well as maintaining current equipment needed.
dothehop @ 77:
They could always go get real jobs and get off the taxpayer welfare, the military is the embodiment of socialistic empire building.
Understanding that in their ignorance, they can't handle the technology -- and that it has left those of Limpballs ilk in the dust -- is tooooooooooo funny.
It shows them up for the incredible ignoramuses that they are.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Just calling it what it is . . . .
*
Sam Smith @ 32:
I like it! Count me in!
I didn't know that Limbo rocked the 'stache way back when.
Looks like a Village People groupie.
uncle joe hussein mccarthy @ 38:
Dumber than a bag of hammers, and they vote too!