#562: Neil Cavuto

Neil Cavuto is a political pundit currently employed by Fox News and Fox Business Network. He hosts Your World with Neil Cavuto and Cavuto on Business, as well as Cavuto on FBN. He is also senior vice president and managing editor of business news for FBN, which basically means that he is to blame for its contents. He is also known for being one of the primary strategists behind Fox News’s Benghazi coverage and for serving as a microphone for a variety of loons and cranks such as Pat Boone.

That, by itself, might not be enough to qualify for a separate entry, but Cavuto seals the deal with his rather rabid climate change denialism, which includes all the major denialist talking points, including but not limited to (deliberate?) confusing weather and climate, smearing, and playing the victim. He has also, given his position, been able to host and serve the interests of a range of prominent climate change deniers as guests, such as Chris Horner.

Diagnosis: Cavuto’s influence is rather scary, and he uses it to enable rather insidious forms of denialism. A not insignificant enemy of civilization.

#238: Rush Limbaugh

A short entry like this can obviously not do full justice to the epicenter of lunatic wingnuttery that is Rush “not a martyr” Limbaugh, so we’ll confine ourselves to a short list of randomly selected highlights.

One of the claims that best characterizes Rush “big, fat idiot” Limbaugh, is the reason he gives for not accepting man-made global warming – this is in response to a caller asking “Your belief in God, how does that tell you that global warming is a hoax?”: “I just intellectually cannot accept the fact that a loving God which has created all this beauty and has blessed this country – I cannot believe that a God like that – would punish the human being he created for progress, for improving the quality of his life.” This is an interesting take on the problem of evil. God punishing Haitians with an earthquake killing half a million people – not a counterexample to God’s love; punishing Western countries’ progress with no concern for the environment – inconsistent with God’s goodness. I think, however, that this belief excellently illustrates Limbaugh’s general pathologically narcissistic way of thinking. (Concerning climate change, he also said that the “alleged” scientific consensus “is just a bunch of scientists organized around a political proposition. You can't have consensus in science”. Anyone who fails to recognize the idiocy of that statement should at least read this). He has blamed Al Gore and environmentalists for the BP oil spill as well. The logic is unidentifiable.

Since he rejects manmade global warming, he also attempted to cover his back by claiming that the July 2011 heatwave itself was a government conspiracy to justify global warming.

By spring 2009, Limbaugh seemed to have become de facto leader of the GOP. Following Limbaugh’s claim that he was “wanting Obama to fail”, Limbaugh demanded apologies from Eric Cantor and Michael Steele for saying Limbaugh's comments were unacceptable. Both apologized.

Limbaugh is generally more well-known for his rank dishonesty and ignorance than for his lunacy, though there are good examples of the latter. Examples of the former are his commitment to family values while being caught returning from the Dominican Republic with a mislabeled bottle of Viagra, his calling – as a chickenhawk – soldiers who spoke out against the Iraq War "phony soldiers” while himself avoiding the draft in 1969 due to an “anal cyst” (lasting for years and years, apparently), and his promise to to leave the country if the Obama-driven health care bill passed: “I'll go to Costa Rica for healthcare.” (Costa Rica has universal health care). More on Rush and health care here, and this one is to the point as well. His claim that Obama created the recession as a payback for racism is a clear example of lunacy however, as is his denial of global warming mentioned above. And of course there is his claim that the Obama administration, always busy trying to undermine the country, was emphasizing the Aug. 2 date for raising the debt limit because Ramadan begins on Aug. 1.

Limbaugh is critical of feminism, maintaining that “[F]eminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society”. He also popularized the term "feminazi", referring to feminists "to whom the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur”; more here. And according to Limbaugh “the only thing cruel about the death penalty is last-minute stays.” On the Abu Ghraib scandal, he said that “This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation ... And we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release?”. And he has asserted that African-Americans are “left behind” socially because they have been systematically trained from childhood to hate America by figures such as Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and the Obamas. To top it off, he recently argued against paying repairs to American natives by claiming that the natives were the real killers and real beneficiaries of the settlement of North America. His brand of Barton-style revisionism is insane in its combination of ignorance and bigotry.

More here. Some of the falsehoods peddled in his book “The Way Things Ought to Be” are listed here (and a good, but too polite discussion, can be found here). Pat Boone has compared Rush Limbaugh to Thomas Paine, but Boone is not generally recognized for his mental abilities. His take on the Holocaust is also worth a read. Limbaugh is also sympathetic to creationism, by the way.

For an extraordinary display of delusional projection, see him accuse Shephard Smith of cowardice and everyone for tribalism and attempting to divide the country. This degree of serious lack of self-awareness verges on (ok, crosses the border to) clinical mental illness.

Rush’s slightly dumber younger brother David is a columnist for WorldNetDaily, and shares his brother’s views, though lacks Rush’s affability and diplomatic skills. He is also more oriented towards standard religious fundamentalist themes.

Diagnosis: His martyr and persecution complex is intense, and Limbaugh lives it out through an unsophisticated combination of bigotry and ignorance. The very epitome of a delusional wingnut, this crank has, of course, far, far too much influence. He is a really contemptible being.

#208: Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is a central figure in (and editor of) the delusionally wingnut “media watchdog” Accuracy in Media (AIM), most famous for accusing mainstream media of missing (or deliberately suppressing) all the real conspiracies out there. Their most famous stunt (of which Kincaid was to a large extent the architect) was making allegations that President Bill Clinton was connected to the suicide of Vincent Foster. AIM contends, contrary to all evidence, that "Foster was murdered” and faults the media for not picking up on the conspiracy. They have even gone to court for documents and recordings linked to the case (and failed).

AIM has been deeply involved with Fox News, but didn’t fail to criticize them for broadcasting "The Heat is On," which reported that global warming represents a serious problem. Kincaid argued (well, incoherently complained) that the piece was one-sided and stated that this "scandal" amounted to a "hostile takeover of Fox News". In general, AIM seems to assume that objectivity means giving both sides of an issue equal time (regardless of whether both sides have any basis in reality), but only applies the principle when they feel that the fundie wingnut side has been neglected. They are also highly critical of the U.N.

Here’s Kincaid ranting against libertarians for daring to think that gays are human beings with equal rights and that the First Amendment actually applies to things Kincaid doesn’t fancy. He commits most of the know fallacies associated with anti-gay bigotry in the process.

He also reacted unfavorably to media criticism of Uganda’s draconian anti-gay laws, claiming that the media criticism amounts to persecution of Christians.

Kincaid thinks he has evidence that Obama is a communist. The reason he thinks that is probably because he does not have the slightest clue about how to discern evidence from delusionally insane paranoia.

Diagnosis: Rabidly delusional wingnut who apparently thinks “accuracy” means “roughly matching my paranoid delusions” – and he is completely insane. AIM still exists, however, and is apparently well funded to boot. That’s the sad and scary part.

#184: Brit Hume

Brit Hume is an American commentator and television journalist. Since 2008, he has been a senior political analyst for Fox News and a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday. He is an ardent conservative even though he himself maintains that he is fair and balanced (which is, of course, fair enough). His main claim to an entry in the Encyclopedia concerns his advice to Tiger Woods In the wake of the revelation of Tiger Woods' habitual adultery, Hume stated:

“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question […] the extent to which he can recover […] seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'”

What nails his application is his stance on global warming – which is based on … the Oregon petition. Also check out the predictable dishonesty here.

Diagnosis: Not exactly a match for his great namesake, Brit Hume is really your traditional, fanatically religious denialist. A common condition, but one that qualifies for lunacy. Impact unclear, but conjectured to be moderately dangerous.

#168: Sean Hannity

Hannity needs little introduction. But in any case he is a famous Fox News talk show host discovered by Rush Limbaugh who seems to think that “peace” means “blowing the shit out of dirty foreigners”.

Compared to the insane bozo (or perhaps fraud) Glenn Beck, Hannity is a slick liar who may be more intelligent than he appears to be, but who has a background of palling around with neo-nazis like Hal Turner (see Sullivan’s comparison of Beck and Hannity). He has recently been involved in a charity scam as well.

Now Hannity may be more a paid PR agent for the extreme right than a genuine believer, and as such he may be completely devoid of intellectual honesty and completely uninterested in truth, rather than a true loon. But his real beliefs could be very far away from those he actually espouses and still make him a loon. His sole argument against global warming was “doesn’t exist”, for instance. And his interview with con man John Edward … well, you cannot fake this; seriously.

He isn’t very good at reading material that doesn’t conform to his ideology either.

Bonus: see Hannity squirm when his own dirty tricks are used against him.

He is described in some more detail here.

Diagnosis: Another important motivator for ignorance and idiocy, Hannity may not quite be the inane nitwit he portrays himself as (he may instead be completely intellectually dishonest). Some things seem too hard to fake, however, and I think it is safe to say that he is moronic (or delusional) enough to qualify for an entry.

#17: Glenn Beck

This guy needs no introduction. A non-comprehensive list of his travesties can be found here:

http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/glenn_beck

Beck has, among other things, written the book “Arguing with Idiots” - an apt title. Also suffers from Nazi Tourette's.

Diagnosis: Idiot. Has a lot of fans, but the hope is that his influence might in the end be self-undermining.