Media Matters' Un-American Assault on Limbaugh

The Associated Press reports this morning that Media Matters is launching a radio campaign against Rush Limbaugh, hypocritically refusing his apology and using his Sandra Fluke comments as a club to destroy his platform. As AP reports:

The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn Beck as a template. In Limbaugh, however, they’re going after bigger game. He’s already fighting back and the group’s stance has provoked concerns that an effort to silence someone for objectionable talk is in itself objectionable. Media Matters is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will run in eight cities.

Media Matters is also pushing seminar callers, who will tell local stations “we don’t talk to women like that” in our city. For some odd reason, Media Matters seems less concerned about Ed Schultz’s radio show, despite Schultz calling Laura Ingraham a “slut” on MSNBC.

Media Matters has been waiting for this opportunity for years, and they’re mobilizing. They’re compiling lists of advertisers who don’t want to be heard on Limbaugh’s show. This is the same blueprint they followed with Beck; they tried to silence him by cutting off advertising dollars after Beck said that Obama had “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”

The left has been dying for years to stop Rush and talk radio. And with the help of the mainstream media, which hates talk radio’s alternative voice and revenue stream, they are making headway.

But Rush’s support is far stronger than Media Matters thinks, and he will not be cowed into submission. As Brian Glicklich, spokesperson for the Limbaugh Show, wrote in Politico yesterday:

Make no mistake, Brock’s “marketplace of ideas” offers only one brand: Brand Brock. All others will be forced off the shelves with intimidation and lies. Media Matters for America stands for censorship, and nothing more than that. Their ginned-up election year anger is directed at the words of their media political opposition — similar expressions are ignored when used by their allies ….

This is Brock’s cynical marketplace of ideas. He will fail, as every censoring thug has in this country. Americans are smart enough to make our own decisions about what media to consume. We don’t need self-appointed monitors. Black-list censors are some of the most reviled characters in U.S. history.

This is the thuggery of the left at its finest – and under the guise of a 501(c)3 charitable organization, which is not answerable to market forces. This is the America that Obama and his allies strive for – an America in which businesses are shut down for not obeying the dictates of the ruling administration, or complying with the political orders of its allies. Yes, Media Matters and its friends have the First Amendment right to do what they’re doing. But their thug tactics – with the cooperation of a sitting administration, no less – smack of un-American tyrannical bullying.

In the end, of course, the Media Matters campaign will fail, as it must, because Americans will not be ordered about like lackeys when it comes to their political and business choices. But the fact that the Obama Administration and Media Matters share the same playbook when it comes to quashing opposition bodes ill for the country.