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On Tuesday evening, the radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an angry shouted 10-minute monologue in which he called me (among other choice terms) a “putz,” an “a-hole,”a “frat boy,” “irrelevant,” and – ouch! – “this Canadian.”
I missed the tantrum at the time it was originally thrown, only catching up with it on Wednesday on Mark Levin’s website. You can listen yourself, right here. Warning: He’s loud!
I happened to be traveling Wednesday. About 6:30 eastern that night, I got an urgent text message from my wife: call home. I was in a meeting, picked up the message about an hour later, and telephoned anxiously. Had something bad happened? No – my teenage son had been so indignant at the Levin tirade that he had called into the show. He had spoken to the producer and demanded to be put on the air. The producer had refused. Angry words had been exchanged. My son had asked: “Is Levin afraid to debate a 15-year-old?” Yes, apparently. My wife insisted: They wouldn’t talk to Nat. So I had to call in.
We argued about this. “There’s no point calling into these shows,” I said. “The host controls the mike. He rants and raves, you end up ranting and raving back – then you sound just as crazy as he does.”
My wife (from whom Nat seems to have learned his debating tactics) insisted: “Are you afraid to do what a 15-year-old will do?” Okay, okay, I conceded: I’ll call.
So I did. You can listen to the exchange on Levin’s site here.
I called in to make two points. First, contra Levin, I had not gratuitously insulted or abused Rush Limbaugh in my now notorious blogpost about Rush Limbaugh at CPAC. I wrote as I did to explain in the clearest possible terms why the Obama administration’s ploy of elevating Rush as the “voice, energy, and intellect” of the Republican party has been so devastatingly effective – for them. This blunt language was not meant to demean. For the record, I wrote as sympathetically as I could about Limbaugh’s personal struggles at the time they occurred, for example here.
Rush Limbaugh is made of the same human stuff as all the rest of us. His outsized talents do not protect him from mortal vulnerabilities. And if he has succumbed to such a vulnerability, that seems to me to be reason for sympathy, not mockery.
I was not mocking him in 2009 either. I was warning other conservatives against a political danger: acceding to the administration’s desire to anoint Rush as the leader of the opposition. I did so without euphemism – but then Rush himself is not one to use euphemism.
Here he is for example speaking about President Obama on January 22: “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.”
Not so nice.
Anyway that was the first point I made to Levin. But I also wanted to offer a second. In his March 3 monologue, Levin repeatedly complained that I and those who agreed with me (he cited Ross Douthat and Jonah Goldberg) looked down on Talk Radio in general – and him in particular – as somehow intellectually inferior. Print can only inadequately convey Levin’s sneering and resentful tone as he warmed to this theme, building up to a ringing conclusion:
“And by the way, I will compare my education, my writings, my intellect to any of these buffoons. Any of them! Any of them!”
I told Levin, it seems to me that there’s a contradiction here: If you want recognition for your intellect, you don’t use your airtime to shout into the microphone like an unhoused madman yelling at the passing cars.
Sad to say, this did not soothe Levin, who alternated between complaining about insults and hurling them himself, taking refuge in the mute button every time he lost the point.
Well it’s his show and I hope it was an entertaining half hour. And I’ll say for the record that it was gracious of Levin to allow me the time. (Although I’ll also say that Levin is nowhere near as polite nor as coherent as my last sparring partner, Rachel Maddow. Maddow can argue without screaming, and she does not feel it necessary to brag on air about how clever she is.)
As I hung up, I wondered what it would be like to be a new listener, a nonpolitical person, tuning in to Mark Levin’s show for the first time. The ferocious hatred and anger – the shouting at people not present to reply, the self-pitying complaints against a world that does not pay enough respect: it’s an ugly performance. Has Levin ever convinced any listener of anything that listener did not already believe? And of those who come to the show uncertain of what they believe – mustn’t the vast majority come away from these rage-filled narcissistic tirades thinking, “If that’s conservatism, I want no part of it”?
johnnycat // Mar 7, 2009 at 10:33 pm
good: you have to be in it to win it. I still can’t believe you think Brent Bozell and all the work he does for the right in general is a bad guy. But still, he doesn’t run the party, he is a media critic. You can still work from within to forward your cause. It took the social conservatives a long time to gain influence. It does take compromise and patience and loyalty. Good luck you crazy moderates…
johnnycat // Mar 7, 2009 at 10:35 pm
calling a fellow Republican’s bluff I don’t think is a good start either…but that’s me. I’m from the fever swamps of the social conservatives, even though I voted for Giuliani and live in New York….
Canada Calling // Mar 7, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Brilliantly written, correct and courageous Newsweek article. Conservatives applaud you.
sinz54 // Mar 8, 2009 at 8:57 am
BrianTheRight: We all want the GOP to be a national party, not a regional party of the South and Mountain States. But the Dems are making inroads in traditional GOP areas, like the Southwest, thanks to the Hispanic vote. Obama even won Indiana. And I’ve always believed that the best defense is a good offense. What is YOUR plan to take the fight to the Blue States and win there?
sinz54 // Mar 8, 2009 at 9:23 am
Cforchange & BrianTheRight: Polls taken in 2008 showed that health care ranked very low on the list of priorities of the GOP base; the issue they cared most about was terrorism. This is almost the diametric opposite of what the rest of the electorate cared about: For them, health care ranked high on their priority list, and terrorism ranked low. For the GOP to reach out beyond its base voters, it’s going to have to address issues that the base doesn’t care about. Health care is probably near or at the top of that list.
sinz54 // Mar 8, 2009 at 9:28 am
johnnycat sez: “I am sorry but I think Brent Bozell and the others mentioned in that article are superb people and would have to fight you if you think they should go.” Bring it on. But I don’t want them to “go.” I want them to release their stranglehold on the GOP, and make room for lots of others within the GOP’s big tent. I’ve actually agreed with Bozell on occasion. But I want the GOP platform to reflect a broader consensus than it does now, on a lot of domestic issues.
johnnycat // Mar 8, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Okay sinz; Here’ my answer. I think the Republican Party always has had a big tent and frankly, many conservatives themselves have left it for being too moderate. If you read American Conservative, this is filled with a lot of Reaganite type conservatives. Ron Paul’s movement is also filled with former Reagan officials. I will also make the argument that Bush comes from the Eastern Establishment of liberal Republicans, one of the reason a lot of those conservatives I mentioned left the party. To me, if you are involved and active in the Party, you actually understand this and that a figure like Brent Bozell really does do important work and does not have a stranglehold on the party, but is a leading conservative voice within it. Many people on this site have not seriously addressed all that really happened in the past 8 years and acknowledge some of the ideological problems within the Republican Party…which have always existed…and want to go along with this myth that there is actually a split between the mainstream of the party and the moderates. The split, if there is one, is between the American Conservative crowd and the mainstream. Many of them have put their faith in Ron Paul…who I read and whose gatherings I attend as well. But, some people here only know conservatism as Rush Limbaugh and I am sorry, I can’t take critics seriously if that is all they know about conservatism. (I know this doesn’t mean you…your post are thoughtful)
Rhampton // Mar 8, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Excellent article that reiterates points from some of my previous comments — “It’s possible that Dobson refused to endorse Romney because, had he done so, it would have appeared in the minds of many Evangelicals as an endorsement of a cult member – - and this potentially could have been harmful to Focus On The Family. If this is correct, then it appears that, perhaps out of necessity, Dobson chose to protect his organization, rather than publicly support his preferred presidential candidate. And thus, my question, what is the purpose of this movement – - to preserve its existing institutions, or to do what is necessary for the future?” — 2009 A.D. (After Dobson), by Austin Hill, Townhall, March 08, 2009
johnnycat // Mar 8, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Every movement has to weigh its decisions. If it is a part of a coalition it has to weigh what it believes against what it wants from the broader movement. Moderates, paleos, mainstream conservatives, Rush Limbaugh fans, Eastern liberals, all have to do that. Again, that’s life. It is senseless to think it will be anything else. Do you not think that the Democrats have their problems?…which by the way, just a few years back, many were saying those problems were intractable. Remember “What’s Wrong with Kansas?” or “A National Party No More?” How did they regain their electability? They went back to the principals and every coalition united. They took their chances with the anger they created by frustrating Hillary voters, and won that battle. Personally, I want the party to become more conservative and to be clearer on what we believe. I will roll the dice, like the Democrats did on frustrating the very small group of moderates. In the end, though, I like many of the ideas on this site, although some of the articles are not really about policy but just impressions and stories. Kind of weird.
oldranger // Mar 9, 2009 at 2:11 am
I listened to that dust-up you had with Mark Levin. The reason he muted you is you wanted to keep speaking without the show’s host getting a word in to respond. Incidentally, congratulations on the Newsweek hit piece.
LIBERTY // Mar 10, 2009 at 3:30 am
“With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history…Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant.” THAT provoked Levin’s outrage. PERSONAL attacks against somebody because he doesn’t subscribe to your nuanced-brain fart-moderate republicanism is worthy indeed of condemnation. Levin said the excerpts above in REACTION to this, which prompted Frum to call in and do some shouting of his own. Levin gave him the floor, and would lower him when he insisted on either rambling or reiterating the same ad hominem personal attacks. He was more respectful of this drivel than I would have been. With his sellout ideas and his nasty disposition, I think he should relocate his big tent to the Democrat fairgrounds… where they like a good sideshow.
bpas // Apr 28, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Levin ripped you apart! You are a loser! Do not ever call yourself a Conservative! I’ll tell you like Ann Coulter would, YOU ARE A P###Y! Go hang out with Madcow! You want to know why she was polite to you? Because you were bashing Conservatives! Please just start calling yourself a liberal a get over it. We don’t want you, we reject you, you’re a pseudo-conservative! Go join Spector!
Right On Right Violence To A Soundtrack Of Lee Greenwood « Around The Sphere // Apr 3, 2010 at 12:51 pm
[...] more, I have defended David, publicly and in print, for his criticism of Mark Levin and Rush [...]