Day 1: Uh, is this it?

Blood Pressure: Mostly Normal

Maybe it was my high expectations for insanity, maybe it was just a slow Friday, or maybe the conservative arts are so subtle that they escape me, but I am thoroughly underwhelmed by my first day of right wing media saturation. Rush Limbaugh spent a lot of the time advising some hapless freelance consultant (read: unemployed dude) build a campaign strategy against his local congressman--with whom he totally agreed. Sean Hannity worked with some sidekick financial advisers to help listeners guard against the possibility ("Though it's no guarantee...we could find some way through this...") of inflation. YAWN!

Sure, there were passing references to creeping Socialism. And Rush did tell stories about how he turned on every light in his house during Earth Hour ("I will not be a sheep. I am not a lemming"). But the only real shock I received during the 5+ hours of conservative radio I listened to today was a snippet of the Charlie Daniels Band's crazy, crazy reactionary country hit "Simple Man". If you're too lazy (or too busy watching public television) to click the link, here's a lyrical sample:

And I'm madder than hell and I ain't gonna take it no more
We tell our kids to just say no
And then some panty waist judge lets a drug dealer go
And he slaps him on the wrist and he turns him back out on the town
Well, if I had my way with people sellin' dope
I'd take a big tall tree and a short piece of rope
And hang 'em up high and let 'em swing till the sun goes down

So, I'm going to give Charlie Daniels the benefit of the doubt and believe the drug dealer he's imagining in this song is some cracker, cooking meth in his backwoods trailer park. I'm sure that guy deserves to by lynched.

One bit of chat I couldn't reconcile. Rush reminisced for 10 minutes about the $10k Rolex he bought without a second thought while on some Carnival cruise in the Caribbean. A sign he had really made it. But Hannity went on and on about how recently he was buying his suits at the thrift shop and how few pairs of pants he has. Both stories are apocryphal for sure, but what is up with the confusion here? Are these two tag-teaming the remaining Republican constituencies: the insanely rich and aggrieved rural poor? I know this is a small one-day sample, but perhaps this is a glimpse of that political formula that has marginalized the Republican party from mainstream America. Maybe it was an off day.

Quote of the day: "SUVs are big and powerful and they burn a lot of gas, and I love that." Rush Limbaugh

Thing that made me go "hmmm": Gold could be a sound investment. A couple more weeks and I could be investing all of my loose change in precious metals.