March 20, 2012

Rush Goes X Files on Me and “Showdown”

Rush Limbaugh.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultravod/120460275/">Dan Correia</a>/Flickr

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My new book, Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party, which comes out Tuesday, generated a burst of media attention on Monday. Huffington Post published an excerpt in which House Speaker John Boehner flees the Grand Bargain deficit-reduction talks with President Obama after House GOP colleagues warn Boehner that House majority leader Eric Cantor is poised to lead a mutiny against the speaker. Politico summed up a few of the more gripping moments in the book, including a meeting in which Obama expresses frustration with the Fox News-driven political culture. (Drudge linked!) Mediaite also picked up this Fox News tidbit, and Fox News’ Bret Baier pushed back. USA Today zeroed in on a portion of the book in which Obama compares himself to the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post dissected the book’s account of Obama’s pivot toward deficit reduction. Paul Krugman responded to Sargent’s post.

And then there was Rush Limbaugh. Referring to a Washington Post article published this past weekend on the collapse of last summer’s Grand Bargain talks (casting the Post piece as more negative toward the president than it was), the recently-besieged talk show host suggested that my book was part of some dark conspiracy related to that article. “The plot thickens,” he huffed. I believe he’s suggesting that a book a year in the making (which has a slightly different take on that episode) was cooked up and released this very week to counter a newspaper story. But it’s hard to tell. At least he didn’t call me a slut.

Listen:

 

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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