Comparing Rush Limbaugh To Daily Kos?

A lefty friend commented on one of my posts below that there really isn't any difference between liberal bloggers like moveon.org, daily kos, Okie Funk, Sooner Thought...etc. copying each other and what conservative talk radio and conservative bloggers do.

He agrees that many liberal bloggers do re-post what they read on each others blogs as fact but goes on to claim that conservative bloggers merely re-post what they hear on talk radio ...as fact.
Sounds reasonable....and fair, as long as you don't actually think about it or analyze it, that is.

Here is the chain of "command" and difference in the two... liberals at moveon.org and daily kos posts a "story", the story gets picked up by other liberal bloggers and spread in CLOSED forums, liberal groups like mediamatters (founded by Hillary Clinton and other Democrats to combat talk radio) claiming to be "unbiased" take these stories and validate them, (name an example of media matters disputing daily kos or moveon.org) where they then go to the main stream media like the NY Times and are re-printed again in a CLOSED forum. The AP is another group of liberally biased "journalists" who write and post stories (some times aquired from liberal bloggers like moveon or kos) on the AP wire service to be copied and re-printed by newspapers across the land... as fact, again in a CLOSED forum.
Examples: Dan Rather, Jason Blair, David Podvin and Jamil Hussein for starters.

There is virtually zero accountability on the above chain of command reporting... (without talk radio)

Conservative talk radio (like Rush Limbaugh), take previously reported news stories and OPENLY debate, debunk, refute and sometimes even confirms them... in an OPEN forum. Anyone can call in and call BS on them if they have the goods (or even just think they do). Rush AND Sean love to let liberals come on their show and talk away... it usually proves their point.
Rush rarely uses rightwing bloggers as his source for his opinions (and qualifies it when he does), and very rarely do conservative bloggers use Rush as the source for their opinions or posts.
The mainstream media rarely (if ever) takes a story from talk radio and reports it as fact.... but the opposite is true... the mainstream media DID take a story from liberal bloggers about conservative radio -RUSH (phoney soldiers) and reported it as fact, when it was a lie.

By the time Rush or Sean discuss their opinion on a story, most conservative bloggers have already formed an opinion, posted about it on their blog and when it is discussed on talk radio... say "yup, Rush agrees with me" (or not).
Example: Today (Monday) Rush Limbaugh at 12:45 pm Central referred to a Washington Post editorial which I posted about on Saturday and Engram posted about last Friday. I'm pretty sure Rush didn't get the story from here (or Back Talk) and spread it, no ...we came to the same conclusion without ever knowing (or caring) what the other would say. So, if anything, Rush says what bloggers say (since we said it first) and not the reverse as my friend claimed.

comparing moveon.org (or daily kos) to Rush Limbaugh is like comparing Tokyo Rose to the Armed Forces Network... however it would be quite easy to draw a comparison between Tokyo Rose and moveon.org, daily kos and many in the media today.

Extremist liberals (so defined by moderate liberals) claim anyone who disagrees with them are "extreme right wingers"... (according to Okie Funk, Feinstein is a rightwinger) when in fact, by any real standard conservative talk show hosts are moderate conservatives and not extreme in any fashion.
Examples: Do you hear conservative talk radio hosts claiming that we need to force people to become Christians by law? No.
(Liberals want God and Christianity removed with laws)
Do you hear conservatives saying we need to eradicate all liberal bloggers and liberal newspapers with laws? No.
(Liberals want talk radio shut down with laws)
Do you hear calls to take out our rightwing guns and retake the country from Democrats by force? (Democrats took out their best lies to "Take Back America" by force) No.
Calls to lock-up Bill Clinton, put alGore in a nut-house, ban Hollywood from making political statements? NO, of course not... (but liberals want Bush and Cheney locked up, Rush put in a nuthouse and to ban all conservative opinion as "hate speech").

These would all be examples of rightwing "extremism"... instead conservatives tolerate and even debate over fake Documentaries, fake news stories about phoney soldiers, fake news stories by phoney journalists and phoney liberal bloggers calling a US General a traitor during a time of war (for reporting validated US successes in that war) and phoney claims that alGore won in 2000... Kerry in 04 and phoney claims that Bush is a liar on every subject. Extreme? Yup.

My friend has gotten it wrong. There is no comparison whatsoever between liberal bloggers and conservative talk radio... and in fact I would argue that they are opposites in most aspects.

A while back this same friend accused Rush of making unsubstantiated attacks on liberals in the same way moveon.org attacked Rush on the "phoney soldiers" hoax... without giving any examples of such. I asked him to provide just one example of an unsubstantiated attack by Rush on anyone...ever. I'm still waiting for that one example... which should be easy to find if what he claimed were true. In contrast, I can provide dozens of unsubstantiated attacks on Bush and conservatives by liberal bloggers.

I do understand however why most liberals and Democrats would want conservative talk radio to "go away" or simply be discredited, then they would have no one to answer to at all... wouldn't THAT be nice?
Just like in the good 'ol days when there were only 3 major networks (all liberal) and no talk radio (or internet) to dispute them.
-red

UPDATE: 10/16/07- My Lefty friend informed me that I took his words out of context... here is what he said.
"There is a lot of commonality in the posts on liberal and conservative blogs. Often the posts on right wing blogs mirror what was on talk radio that day and left blogs often mimic the Daily Kos, AmericaBlog, etc."