Rush Goes Ballistic
This morning on the radio, Rush Limbaugh was fulminating about the disaster that was about to befall the Republican Party if John McCain is nominated.
I think that we’ll probably have to stop amnesty again. I think that you’ll get very frustrated. Like, Senator McCain will be going out of his way to make deals with Democrats, reaching out to them. That’s what’s launched him, in his mind, to where he is. He will reach out to the media. I think you’ll get more of the same. The death tax will be coming back. There will be any number of things that we’re on the verge of cleaning out and wiping up. We probably won’t get income tax cuts made permanent if Senator McCain is elected. Because, remember, he forms alliances with Democrats in the Senate, and that’s I think what he will do as president — and that’s going to frustrate you. It’s going to frustrate a lot of us, and there’s not going to be a whole lot we can do about it, other than behave as we did during the first amnesty bill and flood Washington with attention. You have to fight for it.
He went on to say that there are so many “unprincipled Republicans who would vote for Bozo The Clown if they thought he could beat Hillary Clinton”. Like many Democratic pundits and Bloggers, Rush assumes Hillary will be the nominee, thereby giving weak kneed Republicans a reason to back McCain. Obama vs. McCain would certainly put the War vs. Peace theme back into the election. As I suggested a couple of days ago, Democratic pundits like Krugman who still think Limbaugh and Hannity have power, are not paying attention. It’s actually fun hearing Rush admit he can’t control events anymore.
I see nothing “ballistic” or otherwise percussive about Limbaugh’s obviously sincere sounding of the claxon. He says he’s been watching McCain daily for years now. Why doubt him? And how likely is it that someone would pay such attention to a subject without developing strongly held opinions about it?
If you’ll look again at Mr. McCain’s resume, you’ll see that he has a liberal record, a moderate record, and a conservative one. That is the simple reason for his broad appeal, and also the simple reason why the small but growing minority of GOP voters who are conservative purists bristle at the prospect of a McCain presidency.
McCain’s lifelong political hero has been Theodore Roosevelt, a man whose popularity, and whose agenda, consciously transcended partisanship. And if it tells you anything useful about the man, Sen. McCain has made full use of the Congressional library to continue his amateur TR scholarship.
Some of us doubt that the man has what it takes to be the next “Theodore Rex”, the most popular president since Washington. Moreover, Limbaugh’s correct: McCain has made a career of meeting Old Guard liberals halfway. If you happen not to have a problem with halfway, then good for you. But why mock those who do have? Even Hellen Keller once said, “I don’t give a damn about semi-radicals.” Nothing halfway about that great American.
Rush just seemed a bit more frustrated that the Republican power structure wasn’t listening to him anymore. I personally think Teddy Roosevelt was the greatest Republican since Abe Lincoln. He busted the trusts and created the National Park Service. Thats more than you can say for most presidents.
Rush’s very job is going ballistic; the content is almost immaterial; he’s all about presentation. He appeals to all those sad sack guys whose greatest moment in life was when they got sent in to the last football game of their senior year in high school as second stringers…
Rush is brilliant at tapping into that seemingly infinitely deep pool of suburban male angst in those guys who think that scowling their way through life is macho. They listen to Toby Keith proudly proclaiming that he’s a real Ford truck man…while playing a Japanese guitar… The growl maketh the man… Rush is the philosopher-king of red-neck America which is why those are the red states…
I think Rush Limbaugh is an amazing American. He’s very intelligent, witty, and passionate. And when I hear him talk about America and the opportunities that it presents anyone who is willing to work for success, it makes me proud that I live in this wonderful country with wonderful opportunities. People who don’t like Rush Limbaugh either haven’t really listened to him or don’t understand why America is great and what makes it that way.
Problem with what Rush says is that government doesn’t actually go anywhere unless you meet the other party halfway.
Rush is a moron. Simply put, he thinks like an old fashioned Conservative like it’s 1950 again. McCain isn’t that bad, even if I don’t like the guy.
Rick’s right – it is a lot of immaterial blathering that turns so many intelligent people off. Rush lives off the attention of so many angry, resentful people who have no reason to be other than they want it to be “their” way.
What I love about Rush is that he’s such a perfect example of right-wing conservative hypocrisy. He gets his stash of Viagra confiscated in the Dominican Republic…let’s see…unmarried conservative guy traveling alone needs to get his dick hard in a Caribbean nation…what’s that about? Three guesses, and the hint is “oldest profession in the world quite available here…” Then Rush, who thinks drug takers are scumbags, gets strung out on OxyContin and develops a habit that would kill most people.
Yep, amazing American, if you think that what made America great was talking out the side of your head. Duplicitous, mean-spirited blow hard, if you ask me. Yes, intelligent enough to spin words galore, but not a nice man, and not intelligent enough to ever even consider another side to any opinion he may leap into.
The trouble with the Rush Limbaughs (and Cheneys and Bushes) of our country is that there is no way they will ever change their minds on anything, no matter what the evidence is that comes to light. That’s “flip-flopping” and it’s a sign of weakness. They’d rather send an innocent man to the gas chamber than have DNA evidence shoved down their throats. They’d rather make up some other excuse for a war than admit that the reasons why they chose to spend trillions on a mis-adventure like Iraq were all bogus. They can never be wrong because their egos are too fragile.
Rush is a hardworking guy with a certain degree of cleverness. So was Hitler.
Excuuuuuse me but don’t you mean Rush Limbag?
Well, Jon, I guess on your blog the name Rush is just so much red meat! Can’t think what’s wrong with an entertainer excelling at voicing his political opinions in this hurly-burly chattering agora of ours. I dig all those national treasures who do it so successfully. Carlin, the old New Leftie who’d probably deck Rush on sight, is equally good at it. Likewise the cerebral Socialist Gore Vidal. Will Rogers, a diehard New Dealer, was classic. Dennis Miller hits his mark fairly regularly. So did Abbie Hoffman do, until he went completely on the lam. From a greater remove than this audience of yours affords, I’m sure you’d agree that the content of these people’s opining is not as important to Us the Peeps as is the latidunarian sheer freedom with which they opine. It’s a sign of rosey-cheeked good health in our body poly-tic (as you know, from the Ancient Greek word poly, meaning many, and tic, meaning bloodsucking vermin).
Because of your post I did something I haven’t done in a very long time: I read about and listened to what Rush and his partners in this are saying about McCain. All makes sense to me, and no, there’s nothing the least bit ballistic about it; it’s straight talk, from one Yank the way he sees it to his fellow Yanks, who can take it or leave it as they please. Good going, Citizen Limbaugh! Now, go back to preaching to your choir…
There are things in Rush’s speech that I agree with. However, I don’t think that McCain reaching out to other people is a sign of weakness. Every argument and bill in Congress has various sides to it, and the next President is going to have to start working with people of all parties or not get anywhere.
Problem is that Rush thinks that there is no compromise, no middle ground, no idealistic promotion for the common good. Every time I hear him talk, it’s about the negative, ultra-Conservative bullshit that gets people riled up. Which is what he wants – he’s a talk radio entertainer. He’ll veil his angry, hypocritical views behind the misnomer of straight talk.
Doesn’t really matter anyway – he’s inconsequential to the equation of politics. All he does is polarize a few people with extreme ideas and self-worth issues.
mcclaud, I appreciate your equable, even-handed tone (especially in this medium!), but I feel that you’re mistaken. Many people who prefer not to deal with Rush choose to minimize him. A mistake.
I work in politics and for 20 years my job was to do daily battle with conservatives. I watched Limbaugh go from a recently unemployed radio personality, now with a small-town audience of approximately seventeen unemployed alcoholics, to the multimillionaire who revived AM radio and built a daily listenership of unprecedented millions.
I also watched him grow from a small-time smartass to a man of considerable jurisprudential knowledge and stone-cold political instinct. No kidding. A Democrat’s nightmare. Any Kospun nonsense about his being washed up, or having an audience of inconsequential, unthinking persons, is just that: nonsense. (A lot of that about just now, and admittedly I’ve spun some of it.)
This turns out to be a very important post of Jon’s, because this evening it is apparent that Mr. Romney cannot win the nomination, not least because Mr. Huckabee, who’s one of our guys, is acting as the spoiler he was meant all along to be (yay! chalk one up for the home team!), so that there’s (a) no point in concealing the long play that’s already ended, and (b) Mr. McCain will get the nomination unless Rush from the one side and Hillary’s oppo shop from the other (beginning Wednesday, through the usual cutouts) succeed in crushing McCain in the coming weeks. And you know what that means? Enter Emperor Bloomberg, who has his own press all ginned up to clear McCain out of the way, just as it helped to do to Rudy by running our defamations regarding his fictive felonious lobbying.
See how it works? Pays great too, but only for awhile. I don’t expect you to believe me. But I do expect you to keep watching.
Trust me on this one thing, though: Jon could not have posted a more topical commentary.
Oh, and Jon, I agree with you about TR. What’s more, his son Kermit was one of the greatest intelligence officers in U.S. history, and his son Ted was the most highly decorated officer of WWII—something that FDR kept out of the press as part of his decades-long effort to conceal his indebtedness to his wife’s uncle Theodore. The dirty secret was simply that Theodore and Eleanor were of the sturdy trunk of the Roosevelt family tree, whereas Franklin was from a comparatively undistinguished and remote branch. Mums the word, but John McCain isn’t the first politician whose lifelong hero was TR; FDR was.
Hugh-I think Rush has lost control of the Republican mainstream. The party, like the country, is moving towards a more progressive politics. As an admirer of TR, my guess is that you can live with that move. Thanks for keeping the discussion so civil.