Andrew Klavan: Take the Limbaugh Challenge

Andrew Klavan is a writer of suspense thrillers and motion picture screen plays. His novel, True Crime, was made into a film, which Klaven wrote and Clint Eastwood directed and starred in. Andrew Klavan is also a conservative who is not afraid to speak out.

Andrew Klavan has inveighed against the discrimination against conservatives in Hollywood and has compared George W. Bush to Batman the Dark Night as the despised, unappreciated hero. Now Andrew Klaven has thrown down the gauntlet and has dared his liberal friends and enemies alike to "take the Limbaugh challenge."

Andrew Klavan's target consists of those people who are pretty sure that hate Rush Limbaugh but have not actually listened to his show at length. Andrew Klavan's characterization of people like that pulls no punches.

"Why are you afraid to spend a couple of hours listening to Limbaugh's show and seriously considering if and why you disagree with him?

"Let me guess at your answer. You don't need to listen to him. You've heard enough to know he's a) racist, b) hateful, c) stupid, d) merely an outrageous entertainer not to be taken seriously or e) all of the above.

"Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do."

The thought occurs: Please don't hold back, Andrew Klavan, tell us what you really think. The anger behind that statement is heartfelt, but understandable in context of what Andrew Klavan has had to put up with in his career as a writer, especially in Hollywood. Andrew Klavan put it very boldly in his article on discrimination of conservatives in Hollywood.

"In film land business meetings, the executives, producers and talent feel free to wax on about how stupid President Bush is, how evil American foreign policy is, even what awful human beings conservatives are. Hollywood rightists, meanwhile, are reduced to holding secret gatherings to confess their beliefs in sympathetic company."

Roger Simon, the former Hollywood radical turned Post 9/11 conservative (for all but social issues) tells similar stories in his new memoir Blacklisting Myself. The Limbaugh Challenge is no doubt directed against those people who have made Hollywood business meetings such a torture for people like Andrew Klavan even more so than people who were just taken in by President Obama's attempt to make Rush Limbaugh the Devil.

What is the Limbaugh Challenge?

"Therefore, I am throwing down my gauntlet at your quivering liberal feet. I hereby issue my challenge -- the Limbaugh Challenge: Listen to the show. Not for five minutes but for several hours: an hour a day for several days. Consider what he has to say -- the real policy material under the jokes and teasing bluster. Do what your intellectual keepers do not want you to do and keep an open mind. Ask yourself: What's he getting at? Why does he say the things he says? Why do so many people of goodwill -- like that nice Mr. Klavan -- agree with him?"

Rush Limbaugh's ratings soared during the weeks that President Obama was attacking him as the fount of all evil. No doubt a lot consisted of people who were wondering what all the fuss was about. No doubt others were taking their own version of the Andrew Klaven Limbaugh Challenge.

To quote Glenn Reynolds, quoting George Lucas, "As I said, if you strike him down he shall only become more powerful than you can imagine . . . ."

Indeed.

Source: Andrew Klavan, Official Website

Why Are We Whispering?, Andrew Klavan, Washington Post, August 9th, 2008

What Bush and Batman Have in Common, Andrew Klavan, Wall Street Journal, July 25th, 2009

Take the Limbaugh Challenge, Andrew Klavan, LA Times, March 29th, 2009

Post on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, March 29th, 2009