Gorsh...all I can say is

Yeh yeh yeh, yeh yeh, yeh!

"many of their more extreme positions are easily debunked by, well, facts and their wingnuttiest and hacktastical voices are so far removed from reality that, in the context of the snarky tubes, they end up looking self-satirical"

But this is their "liberal media" meme. Debunking with facts proves you're a liberal and most certainly not a believer. That's how they think and they are not going to change. Until the GOP grows the fuck up and sheds these "faith" looney tooners, the GOP will wallow in the mud.

Excellent points, all. New media is all about fact checking, and double checking, and sourcing a lot of different places for info. But the right is all about spouting a(n apocryphal) "bullet point" and saying it over and over and over and over. And over.

FrictionSoul's dead on: it's the ideological orthodoxy that eschews facts over "what's right in their gut" mentality. Facts are province of the intellectual tricksters and underminers of the "true way" (whatever the fuck that is--changes on a daily basis, but it inevitably involves white folks and mono-syllabic jingo-blab.

Same with the humor thing: why are there sooooo many more liberal comedians? Anyone? An ability to critically look at things (and facts) and play around with humorous iconoclastix and inherent contradictions? NOT something that's condoned by the acolytes of the orthodoxy...No sir. No betcha.

Back in 2000, I did a research paper for a US Politics class in which the chief distinction found between liberal and conservative sites was that the former were hyperlinked all over the place, but the latter were almost closed. I postulated at the time that the liberal side was better-equipped for the internet, and that would prove a huge advantage in future election cycles. Now I feel completely vindicated.

Honestly, Bob, what really is the difference between Limbaugh and, say, the Huffington Post? They both distort the truth, even when the Huffpo provides links to the "traditional" media, i.e. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, etc. Quotes from people on both sides of the aisle are frequently taken out of context by both Limbaugh and the Huffington Post. The only perhaps reliable source for somewhat "unbiased" reports on US politics and politicians seems to be from European sources -- the outside looking in. I thank God (yes, I do believe there is a power greater than myself) that I learned German in order to read (and listen via Radio Deutsche Welle) what non-Americans are saying about US. After all, they seem to have learned all too well from the USA what freedom of the press truly means.

There he goes again. Putting things in an ideological box to make sense of the other side.

It's so easy to say talk radio survives because the right needs to be comforted by the obfucation of truth. There are plenty of right wing blogs that have been much more truthful than the MSM like the Times, the Post and the 24 hour Obama support stations like MSNBC. How much of the general public know anything about Frank Marshall Davis, ACORN, Saul Alinksy methods, Kalid Al-Mansour, Rhasid Khalidi, Security measures taken off Obama's credit card donation site, national civilian security force just as big as our military, etc.

People listen to talk radio not to learn something, but to hear a voice that already agrees with theirs. Liberals don't need talk radio and it hasn't worked for them because they can turn to the MSM to find their liberal views.

So Sarah "peeeuuu" Palin is the poster child for irrational and delusional thinking for the RNC/GOP lie machine.....

Absentee Governor
Absentee Mother
Absentee Candidate

....."peeeuuu" Palin needs to give up and concede to her party and the rest of this nation that she is a complete liar and ignoramus.....

"She needs to go back to college and spend another 6 years staring at walls..."

The "mainstream" media need to start doing some journalism and stop writing tabloid trash.

Palin is Trig's mother.
Palin never banned books.
Palin never charged for rape kits.
Sarah Palin was never for Alaskan independence.
Palin knows what countries comprise NATO.
Palin knows that Africa is a continent.

That being said, I don't care for her.