Someone please tell me who is in charge of the GOP. Do they know? No Congresselephant has any meaningful stature. The RNC chair just showed that he will crawl and beg if more powerful men tell him to. How is the religious right doing these days? Jim Dobson just retired. Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins are f*cking nuts. Ted Haggard sells mortgage insurance door to door.
At the time it seemed like a perfectly good idea to build up a guy like Rush. Before Drudge conquered Mark Halperin’s world Rush could get insane ideas ‘out there’ and keep them alive until popular pressure “forced” leaders to take up causes that would embarrass them to bring up cold turkey. It turned out that the base loves the stupid shit as much as they respect a guy who never compromises, but that wasn’t a problem. It also didn’t seem like a problem when Clear Channel wiped out local voices, some liberal but most conservative, to make a national monoculture of Rush. Why worry about dozens of personalities when you can control two or three?
Percentage-wise not a lot of Americans love Rush Limbaugh. The folks who do, though, love him a lot. Without those drooling dittoheads the GOP would fight Greens and Larouchies for folding chairs on election night. It goes without saying that a guy who never has to worry about elections and controls the beating heart of a party will have slightly different incentives than public officials have to worry about. Still, the party would only worry about a noisy ignoramus with Limbaugh’s potential swing in the unlikely event that the faithful have nobody left to love.
Obviously in a world of Reagan and shining white knights named Bush that would never happen. Still, if it did happen, there’s always a chance that a skilled Democrat could figure out that conservative lizard brains always rally around their icons, and it would be awfully tempting to bait an ego like Rush to claim his place at the top of the Republican pecking order. I know it sounds crazy. But if that happened it would get awfully hard for (comparatively) sensible apparatchiks to stuff their big fat drug addicted genie back in a bottle.
jcricket
Newt to the rescue!
No wait, Romney!
Joe?
Zombie Reagan?
Goldwater?
The ghost of Teddy Roosevelt?
Paul Maud'dib
Give me Rush any day instead of the Obamessiah. Rush speaks truth to power and he obviously scares the shit out of you whiney little tards. What has Obama accomplished? Absolutely dick.
Walker
Teddy was more liberal than any Democrat we have had in the White House recently.
C Nelson Reilly
Answer: Huckabee
MattF
Ya think? Also, authoritarians need an authority figure, more so than your average person. There’s just got to be a big Dad– without one, there’s only buzzing, messy, confusing reality out there.
Comrade Jake
They are desperate for someone to rally behind. Honestly I think Jindal’s piss-poor performance precipitated a lot of what we’ve seen over the past five days.
They’ve got nuthin. And they’re facing a dude who has more political skill in his left thumb than anyone on their side has in their entire body. I mean, who’s their best guy right now – Mitt "the douchebag" Romney? Seriously?
The result is a community that is scared shitless, but is trying very hard to pretend otherwise.
martha
Oh dear. Tbogg rules, again.
What we’re witnessing is a perfect example of a leadership vacuum writ large. Scary. Anyone who does any strategic planning for organizations should be playing very close attention.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Paul Maud’dib: Decent parody, but you spelled everything right (possibly exception of "whiney").
sgwhiteinfla
The Republicans still live by switchboard polling and Rush takes ample advantage of that (as do other right wing shock jocks). They truly believe that Gallup is wrong and the ditto heads calling in to their offices are more representative. But thats like putting up a poll on RedState. OF COURSE you are going to get more wingnuts calling you if you are a Republican, thats the base of your party. But they are convinced that it shows that Rush has some kind of magical reach when if you look at who Rush has promoted in recent history none of them have succeeded and none of his gimmics ala "Operation Chaos" has worked. Just notice how on any issue the Republicans will always revert to "I had X amount of calls to my office backing me up" to justify when they vote against the will of the people. Also notice how these fools consistently promote the myth that Rush has 20 million listeners when its really more like 3 or 4 million. But honestly I am all for them continuing in that fashion because that just means more failure coming up for them in the mid terms next year.
SpotWeld
… Jesus?
El Cid
For the past 40 years they’ve seen themselves as a revolutionary force always denied complete power.
Under Bush Jr., they got absolute and complete power. They tried every wacked out plan they could and though that much was enough to maybe break the entire world’s economy, it wasn’t near enough of the wingnut fantasies of what was to be done the day the real conservatives were in charge — i.e., the small business Southern white angry male right wing near fascist wish list.
They can’t pretend anymore that they’ve never had a real chance at power and thus promise what they would do if they had power — they had all power, and depending on your perspective, either turned out to be awfully venal failures or they turned out to be regular politicians who failed to put the Bible back in school and to abolish the IRS and throw out all the Mexicans and generally remake us into their ’50s / ’20s fantasy.
Dennis-SGMM
Don’t look now but the troll at #2 misspelled his own nick.
Frank Herbert seems to think that it’s spelled Muad’dib.
Conservatively Liberal
Rush is the leader and that is the way it is. Today Rush pointed out that Mikey Steele is NOT the head of the conservative movement, he only heads the RNC. That tells you who is in charge: El Rushbo the Fat Bastard.
I quoted this from my post in the pileup thread because I think we need a way to define this problem of Peak Wingnut:
The
inmateswingnuts are in charge of theasylumRepublican party.Comrade Jake
Not to put too fine a point on all this, but: we should be very thankful for Obama. I suspect the difference between him and the alternatives in 2008 is going to grow exponentially clear over the next couple of months.
pattonbt
When your ideas fail you go to philosophy. When your philosophy is debunked you go to rhetoric. When rhetoric pales in comparison to the pain of the real world you are truly fucked.
Rhetoric is all the R’s have right now and given the current crises most people just want them to STFU and stand in the corner for a while in timeout.
So the more the R’s keep up this loud fail business, the deeper they dig their own grave. But I cant blame them, this is who they are. They may know they have failed and are done. But they damn sure dont want to give up their individual status and power. So what choice do they have? They will clap harder and harder and harder and pray for the one in a million miracle that can save their ass.
They know that in any new paradigm they will be nobodys. The will end up alone in the bunker at the end.
JGabriel
Paul Maud’dib:
A guy naming himself after a fictional drug addict, praising Rush? I call parody.
C’mon, Paul. That’s just a little too obvious.
.
TCG
Limbaugh has well made over 100 Million Dollars doing this shit. Think about it 100s of millions of dollars just to talk shit.
Two questions:
Why would he stop now; and
Does he know that he is leading his party further into the wilderness?
Answer: Limbaugh’s ability to address those questions have long passed. He’s locked and loaded into his current course of action. His course is set. The sad fact of the GOP is that the Party has merged its credibility with Limbaugh’s.
Now they deserve each other.
It is sad. And it is unfortunate.
Paul Maud'dib
@Dennis-SGMM: When all else fails, attack the messenger, not the message, right?
Rush is right about you passive aggressive namby pambies.
PS: You obviously aren’t aware that Dune is a conservative work of fiction.
Comrade Stuck
The only thing that can possibly re-unite the disparate idjit factions of the GOP into a viable electable party is the same thing as last time. Losing elections and a growing hunger for power that becomes so great over time they are willing to sweep their disdain for one another under the rug and hold each others sweaty hand.
And even then, when that occurs years from now, they will be faced with overcoming a growing dem demography of increased minority voters and complete the huge task of wooing back moderate fiscal conservative New Englander’s who have had it up to here with the fundies and southern ideologues, and their hateful social constrictions.
This time, they will have to find and embrace an icon that is truly a compassionate conservative. I’ve never seen one, but then I’ve never seen a Unicorn either.
Of course, the wildcard is always the possibility that dems will fuck things up to such a degree, wingers could win as the default party of desperation. If that happens, there might not be much left to govern anyways.
Paul Maud'dib
@JGabriel: Blast!
Fear is the mind killer. And so is Rush.
Conservatively Liberal
@Paul Maud’dib:
And you aren’t aware that you look really funny running around with your head up your ass.
Your point?
ThymeZoneThe Plumber
Well, it’s this guy.
Who did you think it was?
GuyFromOhio
Its all fun and games until fat boy uses his microphone to incite something really, truly horrific – assassinations, bombings, beatings, the sort of shit the lizard brainers and birthers are just ACHING for right now.
It’s only a matter of time.
In the interim, I strongly favor putting Geddy, Alex and Neil in charge of the GOP.
Mike in NC
Not Mike Steele, he’s still wiping the Limbo off his chin. They’ll try to pump up Jindal as the token self-hating colored guy until they get serious about the next election cycle, when they trot out some current/ex-governor of a southern state who meets the male WASP criteria.
pattonbt
@Paul Maud’dib:
WOLVERINES!!!
Jess
Maybe when you’re out of junior high and less clue-impaired you’ll be able to tell the difference between shaking with laughter and shaking with terror. But I don’t have high hopes for insight from someone who borrows icons from second-rate fiction and misspells them.
burnspbesq
The Tories have wandered in the electoral wilderness for twelve years, and there is no David Cameron on the horizon for the Republicans.
The next Republican President (assuming there is ever another Republican President) is probably a first-year law student right now.
JGabriel
AdNag gets the best headline out of this. The story title is a little longer, but the Times front pages it as:
G.O.P. Apologizes to Limbaugh
Sweet humiliation.
.
AhabTRuler
The headless body of Agnew?
TheFountainHead
Is it possible that Stephen Colbert is actually in charge?
Comrade Stuck
@Paul Maud’dib:
He has managed to hang the GOP around the neck of a fat, sweaty, bigoted loud mouth.
I’d say that’s a pretty good week/
burnspbesq
@Mike in NC:
Hayley Barbour? Mark Sanford? Yeah, bring it on. They’ll get approximately the same number of electoral votes as McGovern.
TCG
The fact of the matter is that Rush is a coward.
He will not debate anyone without:
The Mute Button.
The Teleprompter
The Ear Piece feeding him lines.
He is not stupid, but he can only frame issues around his own sorry mind. He cannot engage the larger world. He has a small niche but significant niche
The facts remains that this guys makes 100s of millions of dollars as an info-tainer, but he cannot build a movement like Reagan did or Obama has started to do. He can only feed you idiot lines. Deal with it.
Matthew Hooper
Either we’ve been listening to the right-wingers rant too much, or the number of actual right wingers has diminished too much, or the conservative mindset has moved beyond the realm of parody, but it’s gotten to the point where I can no longer tell the spoofers from the trolls.
Paul? Are you making a funny? I kinda got lost on the "Obama hasn’t done jack" comment. Most conservatives are fairly upset that Obama has, in fact, been up to a huge number of shenanigans, and wish that in fact he would do less jack, so…
Comrade Kevin
@Paul Maud’dib:
Dune. Arakis. Desert planet. Is that the home planet of the Rush Limbaugh?
Ah yes, here’s a picture of him:
http://landfantasy.free.fr/Auteurs%20Z/Zug/Baron%20Vladimir%20Harkonnen.jpg
AhabTRuler
Are there any literary devices of a humorous bent that have not been brutally slaughtered? Irony? Sarcasm? Satire? Farce? Panto? What? It ate everybody.
GAME OVER.
burnspbesq
I imagine Molly Ivins and Steve Gilliard laughing their asses off in Heaven, while Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley shake their heads in dismay and claim to have had nothing to do with any of this.
AhabTRuler
No. Not Dune. That’s not quite it.
I’ve got it! Really more of this sort of thing, entirely.
JGabriel
@burnspbesq:
Really? Because I imagine each of them pointing at the other, screaming "It’s his fault, goddammit!"
.
AhabTRuler
@JGabriel: Really. I imagine them both screaming in agony as molten sulphur is poured down their ever-healing-and-flaying throats. Huh. Guess it’s just me, then! ;-)
calling all toasters
Trig Palin.
JGabriel
AhabTRuler:
Not just you, ATR, I imagine they’re in hell too. But I’m better at dialog than description.
.
AhabTRuler
@JGabriel: What can I say, I have a flair for the old–school.
jrosen
@Paul
I think you and I read a different work of fiction. In my copy of Dune the central character is called MUAD’DIB. Not Maud. Were you thinking of Bea Arthur? Or are you really a Harkonnen in disguise?
RandyH
When are we going to just start calling these folks what they have revealed themselves to be – A Cult.
These are a few million scared, dumb white guys who require a tyrant, daddy-figure of a Leader to worship at the knees of. He even tells them what they are to think from day to day. I wonder how they get through the weekends without his radio show. I’ll bet they even unconsciously bow when in his presence.
Michael
The bench ain’t deep – they ran off the talent, and what’s left can’t articulate a coherent theme or the reasons for the theme they have.
Steele is so weak – he got a full facial from Lord HawHaw Harkonnen in public, and is expected to say he likes it. He’ll disappear like JC Watts – only Watts pretty much had the guts to give a reasonable sort of "fuck you" before he left. Steele isn’t that gutsy.
So what does that leave them with? Fat, angry, middle aged white guys, who are going to try and yell at young voters, women, minorities, gays and people who are struggling about how everything is the fault of "them goldurn comsymp libruls".
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@RandyH:
Exactly. A Cargo Cult, to be exact.
It’s my new term for them, and I think it’s just about perfect.
Shawn in ShowMe
All they’ve got is Crist, and he’s on their shit list after a very public endorsement of Obama’s stimlus bill.
Brick Oven Bill
The answer to the question depends on what the definition of the phrase “Republican Party” is. I will define it as a political party that supports a small government, stresses the importance of personal freedoms and responsibilities, and honors the Founding. This party should not be confused with the modern Republican Party.
Tom Coburn is in charge of this Republican Party in the halls of government. He is an important figurehead and may be a future President.
The body of this Republican Party is the non-civil servant workforce, which consists of a minority of Americans.
The heart of this Republican Party is the guy with the towing business, or the machine shop, or the plumbing business, who puts in the long hours and makes things happen, and is currently being demonized.
Rush is probably the voice for now, but he is proud of claiming to be a businessman. I don’t want to sound like a cheerleader, but do I believe that Beck will relief Rush of his ideological leadership duties.
Hope that helps. It might not be much, but at least these guys have birth certificates.
KevOH
Rush is like a superbowl MVP. After being instrumental in winning the big game, he may phone it in for a few seasons while still under contract. His team may even be a contender, but ultimately bolts for free agency and the big money. Rush will never again be instrumental in bringing about a republicans victory, but what does he care he has his hundred mil or so.
The dittohead fans defend him remembering past glory, but Rush honestly could care less. The sad thing is everyone loses, especially the base.
Wile E. Quixote
@Paul Maud’dib
Well for starters he handed McCain’s ass to him in the last election. Hey Paul, tell me what your Daddy Bush ever accomplished. Not Bush the Sr., who actually served his country honorably and well during World War II, ran for congress and won, served as an unofficial ambassador to China, ran the CIA and was a credible presidential candidate in 1980 and successfully saw the war started on his presidency to a close. No, I’m talking about Bush the Jr, you know, the fuckup who was president for the last eight years. What did G.W. Bush ever accomplish before he was elected and what did he accomplish while he was president?
Oh, and Rush sure has accomplished a lot. He’s flunked out of a third rate college in Missouri, dodged the draft during Vietnam because he had an infected pimple on his ass has been married and divorced three times, is a recreational user of Oxycontin, destroyed his hearing by using Vicodin, got busted for abusing pain-killers, likes going to Costa Rica to fuck young girls, or young boys, oh, and is disgustingly obese. Yeah, that there is one Hell of a record of accomplishment.
Sure, he’s made a lot of money, but then so did Bernie Madoff, because suckers are born every minute and the Republican party is full of suckers, indeed they’re the only ones left in the GOP.
JGabriel
Shawn in ShowMe:
Crist was already on their shitlist regarding rumors about his sexual orientation. That may be what freed him up to endorse the stimulus package.
.
handy
Currently being demonized how, and by whom? The deceit in all the "Dems want to raise all our taxes!!!" canard is that mid-to-large companies are just like Joe’s Pizza shop. You know they aren’t, by a long shot, but that would spoil all your fun having tantrums around marginal tax rates and health care being forced down people’s throats.
Well don’t we all have a lot to look forward to. I’m sure Glenn Beck will provide plenty of entertaining material for both left and right.
And finally…
Yeah too bad about that John Boener, what a shame to discover he was the illegitimate spawn of an obscure Himalayan yak cult. Oh, wait, that’s not who you’re talking about? I forgot that this Republican Party you speak of burns bright in the hearts and minds of people who are dumb enough to actually put their hopes into the tall tales of a con artist from Kenya.
Keep hope alive!
Comrade Jake
@Brick Oven Bill:
Then why do you try so hard at it? I don’t even know where to begin with you, your posts are so full of fail.
Mike in NC
Dead and gone for over 20 years.
"Tom Nutjob, MD". He needs a show on FOX.
By whom exactly?
O’Reilly hates you. Deal with it.
Calouste
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Spot the things that the GOP has in common with this. I count about 7.
d-man
Paul M…
That is some pretty funny spoof. LOL
N M
Dear Paul Maud’dib. How do you like your crypto-Islamic heritage? How is the jihad on Arakis going? Now that you are on Earth, have your fedaykin joined joined up with Saddam’s fedayeen death commandos? Shared a little training in desert warfare?
What a retarted nick for a seeming conservative-leaning guy. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but let me guess — you are suspicious of muslim people and think their "freedom fighters" are in fact terrorists? Can’t you see that Arrakis/Dune/Desert planet is the middle east, spice is oil, the empire is US? Again, what an f’ng retarted nick.
I guess I’ll close with my favorite quote from Dune:
"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late."
– Bene Gesserit proverb, Dune (Frank Herbert)
Anoniminous
Tom COLBURN?!??!
The dude who thought there was an outbreak of lesbianism epidemic in Oklahoma?
Fifi
Bah humbug …
Fat Limbaugh is breaching his contract with the GOP : keep the rabble excited and rake in the dough but don’t mess with actual politics. He’ll be quickly put to pasture if he becomes counterproductive.
Brick Oven Bill
I had a very uplifting experience this past summer. This was back when gas was expensive and I decided to save the world by unlocking the secrets to the energy contained in North America’s 400 years of oil shale deposits. Sigh.
Anyway, I owned a Ford Focus with 150,000 miles, a cracked windshield, a smashed passenger side window, three of four operating engine cylinders, no windshield wipers, about three inches of leaves, fast food wrappers, and miscellaneous debris on the seats, and no key. I decided to fix it up.
My professional life for the last couple of years has consisted of dealing with government pinheads like the one who stood me up today because of light snow, and the ding-bats who don’t know where the smart guy with the two desks is really at. These people are pretty bad.
The tow truck operation was sharp. I spent several hours in the office, waiting for the locksmith. A very tight operation this towing business was, and you didn’t mess with the guy who owned it. The locksmith showed up and explained to me the mechanics of these smart keys which cost me $180. This guy was very good too, and proud of his business. I ended up buying a backup key from him for another $30.
The automotive repair shop replaced the faulty coil under budget. I panicked when I found out that my lights did not work as it was getting dark, these guys went out of their way to help me figure out the wiring.
That was my recent experience with the former Republican Party. They are still there, and they are patient, to a point. Don’t get me started about the guys with the FFL at Ace True Value, or the cops at the pawn shop. My Ford Focus works great, by the way. This is why I enjoy hearing people talk of the right side of future history.
Chuck Butcher
@Fifi:
If you were a Republican pol that would be a comforting thought, but in their current nationally neutered state they can do no such thing. See the past week or so.
Rush’s percentage of their hard core base is larger than their owned percentage of it. They are stuck with him until he either does something too outrageous or gets bored with the whole thing. Or until they take such a beating in the election polls that evidence wakes up both of them.
John S.
Tom Coburn? PRESIDENT?!?
Jesus, BOB, open a window while making those model airplanes on Fantasy Island.
Fifi
@Chuck Butcher:
The elected pols are meat puppets anyway, so who cares? But the big money behind the GOP won’t put up with an erratic, out-of-control Limbaugh. It’ll be interesting to see his advertising rates over the year if he keeps going on that ego trip. If they feel they have to cut their losses, they will.
stickler
BoB:
God bless those doughty folks in Wayne, MI, who built your Ford Focus. But, um, you realize, surely, that you could probably buy a used Focus for far less than you’re going to spend fixing the window and rooting out the varmints on your outdoor museum auto?
As to our host’s original question: no, no one is in charge of the GOP right now. Nobody. Vacuumville. Thus, Rush. (And, for that matter, Steele.)
It’s going to be an entertaining year or two.
Chuck
He’s the president, Son. Pay attention, grownups are talking.
Chuck Butcher
@Fifi:
You are honestly proposing to me that they’d shoot the golden goose to protect 248-187 House and 1 Senate vote where 3 Rs are screwed if they don’t play? Those $s folks know better than Rush that if we go off that cliff they’re not making money on adverts for anything. The Rs are neutered and not getting out without a meltdown and a business man will look at balance sheets, including political ones.
The Dems own fixing this mess, for good or ill. Now if Rush got all doped up and said something that brought the Secret Service down on him… If Rush kissed and made up with Dems that’d do it because the audience would walk.
Onihanzo
@Brick Oven Bill:
Hand me a butterscotch candy before you regale us with another one.
mannemalon
Congressman Barrasso too scared to say Rush is wrong (Video)
LOL. Must see popcorn TV.
Dr. Loveless
I’m sure everyone has seen this, but it’s worth reposting.
A Bully Gets Bullied.
I think it’s fairly well-known in media circles that Rush (1) is a head case emotionally, and (2) melts like a Jell-O mold on a hot day if anyone actually challenges him (which is why he only addresses handpicked crowds of admirers). Kinda like a certain former President everyone is trying to forget.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
The answer of course is Obama and Emmanuel. They’re steering it by remote while giving the idiots inside just enough control to think fighting over the wheel will make a difference.
And look, there’s Bobby Jindal! He’s clinging to the hood and screaming "I cast these demons OUT of the transmisson!" And aaaw, how sweet. John Boehner has just turned to Mike Pence and said "I’ve always loved you."
More popcorn?
Ash Can
As far as I can tell, whoever made Michael Steele apologize to Limbaugh is in charge of the GOP. If it was Limbaugh himself, then it must have involved one ugly-ass beatdown behind the scenes. If it was someone else — the inmates at some conservative think tank, maybe? — then what on earth is their objective in this epic immolation?
Yes, I’m munching popcorn and pointing and laughing along with everyone else; don’t get me wrong. But this is so much more than what I thought I could reasonably expect for the GOP in terms of karma/payback that it creeps me out a little.
Conservatively Liberal
@Ash Can:
I agree in a way. It is rather much more and much sooner than what I expected from the right. I thought they would sit back, assess the landscape and then proceed. Rather they have just kept cranking it up, passing 11 long ago and headed right up into the dog whistle frequencies. I am reading calls to violence in right wing blogs, the comments are real nasty with outright calls for the death of the President. Of course, these people proclaim that it is only the patriotic thing to do.
I think the problem is the lack of leadership in the Republican party. Not having a leader at the top has left a huge void that nobody is ready to fill. At this point, political physics kicked in. As they say, nature abhors a vacuum. So the land bound mass with its own gravitational field (aka: Fat Bastard) has moved in to fill that gaping void.
I think it is a nice fit, they carry him well. These fuckers are the bottom of the barrel, the bitter dregs, so to say. All these people know is to hate anyone ‘not like them’. I remind myself of this every time I start to feel sorry for them.
Clears the guilt right up.
Power surges here, storms hitting the south Oregon coast. Good thing everything is on APC units here…lol! The power goes out and eight of the suckers start beeping. At least everything is safe and I can stay online unless the power goes dead for some time.
Just got another one…lol
slightly_peeved
No – that’s what Rush accomplished when he went to the Dominican Republic. Or what he said when he got there and rang room service.
"Dick? Absolutely!"
miss wild whiskers
Dennis: Thanks, I was going to point out the same thing about the Dune reference. Pretty sad. Sounds like Antan.
Conservatively Liberal
Fix’t.
Ash Can
@Conservatively Liberal:
I certainly agree. What surprises me, though, is that up until he issued his public apology, Steele appeared entirely willing to step in and fill that void himself. He either didn’t have the support he thought he did, or that support was (very) abruptly taken away. The whole situation is sending out fishy vibes.
If in fact everyone in the GOP (other than Michael Steele up until yesterday, and now him too) is cowering in fear of Rush Limbaugh, then the party is on life support. The Crists and Huntsmans and Schwartzeneggers might as well go underground like the resistance networks of WWII, wait until the insanity blows over, and regroup from there. I continue to agree with the commenter who remarked recently that it would be the moderate governors who ultimately save the GOP from itself.
Having said this, though, I think it’s entirely possible that the blowover of the insanity may not take that long. As "party leader," Limbaugh’s days (hours?) inside his bubble of lockstep opinion are numbered. After he’s defeated every would-be usurper and stands alone as undisputed head of the GOP, Obama will engage him directly — as he should, in his position as the Democratic counterpart. It might be the form of a joint press conference, it might be in the context of a bill signing. But it will definitely be like turning a fire hose on a wad of cotton candy. Rush’s implosion would come in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.
As the kids on the intertoobz say nowadays, heh indeed.
El Cid
Snark aside, this f*@%er can go eat sh!t and die:
The Republicans wage a 30 year jihad against the working classes, against anyone but the top 0.5%, and conduct the greatest transfer of wealth upwards since the 1920s, and maybe since the Gilded Age, and he still reels out this redbaiting sh!t and demands to be called a "moderate".
F*@% you, David Brooks, you miserable little faux intellectual who thinks your trendy burps are ‘sociology’.
DrDave
Tim:
You broke the code!
@Ash Can:
God, I hope not.
Seriously though, I know some of these lizardbrains pretty well and they are not changing their positions. They love Rush, all he stands for and they are willing to go to the mattresses for/with him. Stupid bastards, the lot of them but they will have their years in the wildness and it is well deserved.
Rick Taylor
@d-man:
Agreed
Left Coast Tom
I don’t think so. I think throwing out one line about Limbaugh and letting the Republicans, themselves, prove who their real leader is was the right move.
Obama should let others…minions, perhaps, engage Limbaugh directly.
zoe kentucky
Just out of curiosity, how do you know that all of these people are republicans? Or are just assuming that? Or are you just buying into the "Joe the Plumber" mythology?
According to the wisdom of BOB the "heart" of the Republican party are (white) men who own small business that personally earn far less than $250k .
As small business owners they’re far more likely to be worried about how to pay for health insurance for their employees or having enough work in a tight economy to be profitable. I’d know, as a small business owner to makes things happen and puts in long hours. I don’t feel demonized. If anything, I think the uber-rich Wall Street traders and bankers are being demonized right now, and rightfully so. It’s not mentioned very often but I sincerely doubt that many of them are liberals.
I love this *idea* that some in the GOP are trying to sell– that the Republicans represent "real Americans" like Joe the Plumber– but that’s the problem, it’s just an marketing concept. Most people have seen through it and the more time the GOP spends screaming about raising taxes on the rich the less they’re convincing anyone that they care about the middle class.
By the way, I’m married to an ex-mechanic who runs an auto shop– and it’s not filled with republicans.
Mary
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19517.html
Steele to Rush: I’m sorry
speaks for itself
woody
For the real answer, look at the interlocking boards of directors of the 50 biggest corporations in the country, and select the dozen names you see most frequently. That’ll about cover it…
woody
Oh, and it’s the same for the Dims…
Jon Karak
I’m no fan of Rush Limbaugh, but referring to him as "drug addicted" is just petty and infantile. Change the name to "welfare queen," and this sort of crack could have come strait out of the 101st keyboard brigade.
Jon Karak
= straight
priscianus jr
Brick Oven Bill,
You have given us a touching description of what the Republican Party likes people to think it is, not what it actually is. The Republican Party is the party of mega-corporatism and banks too big to fail. The Republican Party is the party of Wall Street, big pharma, bloated, obsolete military contracts, "total information awareness" spying on everyone in the country, The Republican party is the party of country clubs and racism. The Republican Party is the party of corruption, scams and closet sexual perverts. The party of selling our country to the highest bidder, to be deposited in offshore banks. Most of all the Republican Party is the party of utter bullshit, because if they told even a small percentage of what they really are about nobody would ever vote for them. And that, of course, is where Rush comes in. Although none of this is absent in the Democratic party, the Dems are rank amateurs and hangers-on compared to the real pro’s. All that Ozzie and Harriet stuff is very nice, but you have to understand it’s about the equivalent of John Gotti’s annual neighborhood weenie-roast, on a national scale.
Kenneth Fair
What I loved most about the whole Limbaugh-Steele episode was watching both Gibbs and Emanuel welding Limbaugh to the Republican Party while tut-tutting about Steele’s need to kowtow to him. You could tell Emanuel was having to work hard not to break out into a happy dance right then and there.
Cal Gal
I think that FINALLY the left is coming around to the tactics of creating their own memes. And Rush as the head of the Greedy Old Plutocrats (or maybe I need to change that to Greedy Obese Plutocrats) is the first one they’re pushing hard and successfully.
Now we just need a sobriquet for him that doesn’t offend people of weight.
I’m thinking Rushatollah. Maybe Rushatollah of the Retaliban Party? I mean, they’re the ones who compared themselves to the dictators of thought, and lately they’ve shown they really mean it.
Or maybe the Rushlican Party?
Reminds me of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"
"I play it the Rushlican Way.
Wherever Rush puts me,
There I’ll stay.
Whatever Rush tells me,
That I’ll do.
Whatever Rush thinks,
I think so, too."
Deborah
See, when Steele criticized Rush a few days ago I figured that the entire reason was to show that, contrary to that poor GA congressman and the building "Rush is Republican spokesperson" meme, prominent Republicans had no problem relegating Rush to his proper status as entertainment. That it wasn’t what particular criticisms Steele made, just that it be reported that Steele made them and didn’t back down.
And so he then gets sonned and calls Rush and grovels within 2 days? Plouffe and Axelrod, with weeks to plan, could not have designed a more perfect takedown of the Republicans.