Outside the Beltway

Limbaugh on ScrappleFace

James Joyner · Tuesday, April 6, 2004 · 1 comment

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that I had several visitors to the site who followed searches for ScrappleFace. Puzzled, I e-mailed Scott Ott and asked what was up and he responded that he’d apparently been mentioned by Rush Limbaugh on yesterday’s show.

A transcript of that mention now appears on Limbaugh’s site: From Rush’s Stack of Stuff: ScrappleFace: EIB Quality

Have you heard of the website ScrappleFace? It’s a fabulous parody website, actually created in my own image. This is EIB quality. Just to give you an example, here’s a Scrappleface story. Remember, this is parody.
“In the aftermath of news that 308,000 new jobs were created in March Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry said today that corporate fat cats are padding their payrolls with unneeded workers to help George Bush win the election.”

Now, doesn’t that sound exactly like something you would see on a Democrat website or hear some loony liberal parrot?

“‘These wealthy special interests are so desperate to give Bush some good news they’ve hired 308,000 people they don’t need,’ said Mr. Kerry. ‘Some say this is an expression of hope for a better future. I think it’s the worst sort of cynicism. Many of these same 308,000 will someday lose their jobs and that tragic loss must be laid at the doorstep of George W. Bush. He did nothing to stop his wealthy cronies from hiring these future unemployed people.'”

You got ’em nailed. I’m sharing this with you because this is the kind of stuff that has sprung up in the last 15 years that did not exist 15 or 16 years ago before this program existed. It just didn’t happen. There is a counter to all of what you think is still the so-called partisan media mainstream bias. They’re not nearly as dominant as you think. I’m not suggesting you be overconfident out there, but at the same time it certainly is no reason to panic. Some people are not happy unless they’re upset about something, but don’t be truly troubled by this. It’s way too soon anyway.

While I’m a bit bemused by Limbaugh’s taking credit for starting ScrappleFace–without so much as a mention of Al Gore’s vital contribution in inventing the Internet–it’s good to see Scott getting this recognition. Not only is it a terrific parody site, ScrappleFace was the first major blog to recognize OTB and is still among my top referrers every month.