Unlike Limbaugh, however, he hasn't encumbered his satire by refusing to aim it at ridiculous characters and hypocrisies on "his own side" -- liberals may have it marginally easier, but they don't get a pass. Recall Stewart's reluctant but devastating skewering of Anthony Wiener, a childhood friend of his and frequent guest on his show. Or any number of segments that explicitly or implicitly criticize the Obama administration. Or to cite an example from this week, consider how he responded when MSNBC host Ed
Schultz absurdly claimed that Rick Perry was talking about Barack Obama when he said in a stump speech that there was "a black cloud" hanging over the economy. Stewart addresses the story, defending Perry, in the latter half of this clip:
In a subsequent segment, "The Daily Show" piles on, satirizing the larger habit of reading racism into metaphors where none exists -- just the sort of absurdity that Limbaugh might target (with less humor and more vitriol).
Here is that segment:
Why is it that Limbaugh is unwilling to skewer conservatives, while Stewart, a liberal, is apt to go after any target so long as it's likely to get a laugh? It isn't that Stewart loves the craft of what he's doing more. Any longtime Limbaugh listener knows that his love of the radio medium isn't a put-on, and that he takes great pride in being good at it. Perhaps Limbaugh understood that there was more money to be made and larger audiences to be won by championing one team. But I don't think that's it either. Indeed, I think that Limbaugh could've conducted himself more like Stewart and made as much money over the years, though we cannot really know for sure.
In any case, I think Fallows hit on the reason back in 1994:
As recently as June 2, 1992, Limbaugh was free-swinging even against
some Republicans. During the Republican primaries early that year
Limbaugh had been very hard on George Bush for his recklessness and his
deviation from the conservative line. Pat Buchanan's truculent campaign
seemed matched to Limbaugh's outlook--and Limbaugh supported it on the
air. "Rush was a big help to us during the primary campaign," Buchanan
told me recently. "We used to travel around New Hampshire in the car,
and Rush would come on the radio telling everybody that it would be a
good thing to vote for Buchanan and shake Bush up." When Ross Perot
first entered the race, Limbaugh was sympathetic to him, too. Paul
Colford quotes Limbaugh's comments about Perot on June 1, 1992: "I think
Perot convinces people that they matter again.... Say what you want
about his lack of specificity, he's also the one candidate who doesn't
run from a problem." Limbaugh criticizes Perot in his first book, but in
the second simply ridicules him as a "hand grenade with a crewcut" and a
"ubiquitous irritant." What happened?
On June 3 George Bush invited Rush Limbaugh to Washington. The two
had dinner and took in a show together. Limbaugh stayed overnight in the
Lincoln Bedroom--where, according to Colford, he placed calls to his
relatives saying, "You'll never guess where I am!" and "remained awake
into the wee hours so that he could study and savor every detail of the
Lincoln Bedroom." This kind of buttering-up may seem too obvious to be
effective, as when Bill and Hillary Clinton started their "charm
offensive" last summer by inviting White House reporters to dinner at
the White House. But it generally works, and it worked miracles in
Limbaugh's case.
From that day forward Limbaugh never said one word on his show that
could be construed as hurting Bush's re-election effort (or at least
none that I heard, and I was listening a lot at the time). Having
proclaimed for years, and with good reason, that his show was so
entertaining that it didn't need guests, he had both Bush and Quayle on
the air and listened to them reverently. The significance of the change
is not that Limbaugh backed Bush for re-election--millions of people
did--but that one visit seemed to turn him around permanently. At the
risk of pop-psychoanalyzing, something Limbaugh does every day on his
show, let me suggest that his pliability is rooted in a strange
insecurity.
THE life story hinted at in Limbaugh's books and spelled
out in Colford's is a familiar one for people who end up as either
comedians or disc jockeys. Limbaugh's father, Rush Limbaugh Jr., was a
prominent small-town lawyer who looked down on his son's infatuation
with radio. Indeed, Limbaugh says that his father never took his career
seriously until he saw Rush Limbaugh III on Nightline. The years of
youthful wallowing in pop culture that make a good comedian or DJ often
mean a troubled school career. The on-air bravado and effusiveness of
Limbaugh and other born DJs is very often accompanied by shyness and
uncertainty in normal life. The DJs who sound so suave and confident
were usually not seen that way when they were growing up. Even the most
successful disc jockeys have usually had to move from city to city every
few years. Limbaugh's early life sounds as if it fit this pattern.
Moreover, he was by objective standards a failure well into his
thirties. He was fired from several DJ jobs, had two short and
unsuccessful marriages, was chronically broke, and spent five long years
as a public-relations man for the Kansas City Royals, fearing that his
radio career was over.
Limbaugh tells a version of this story on the air and in his books
to make a point about the need to hold on to your dream. That's a good
point, but his bumpy life story seems to have left Limbaugh inwardly
vulnerable to the respectable world he mocks on-air. I remember being
amazed two years ago when Limbaugh on his show described his excitement
about having lunch with Peter Jennings. Limbaugh by then had more impact
on U.S. politics than any anchorman, yet despite his "talent on loan
from God" bombast he was clearly grateful for attention from someone he
considered famous. The same tone came through in a profile of Limbaugh
by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. Limbaugh could mock liberals and
"feminazis" on the air, but in person he was (Dowd made clear) very
eager to be liked.
George Bush, or someone near him, clearly figured out the political
benefits of being nice to Limbaugh. There was an intellectual
counterpart to this wooing process. As Limbaugh became more and more a
party operative, his subject matter shifted too--from positions he'd
developed to those he had obviously been fed.
Needless to say, George W. Bush understood the benefits of being nice to the talk radio host too: "Rush Limbaugh was going along today, doing his radio show as usual, when
producers started waving their arms frantically trying to get his
attention. It seemed POTUS was on the line from Kennebunkport, Me. He
and his father (Bush 41) and his brother Jeb (former governor of
Florida) were calling to congratulate the conservative broadcaster on
his 20 years on the air." Should a Republican win the White House in 2012, expect to see more of the same from the talk radio host, who has never been very good at holding Republican presidents to account.