"You Can Fool Some of the People All of the Time" Part 2: Rush Limbaugh, the Official Voice of the GOP

by Damozel | The Nutterdammerung continues apace, as Rush Limbaugh once again admits that he and his GOP sycophants hate America,.  Meanwhile, Obama's popularity soars to an all-time high. 

Meanwhile the disgraced Tom DeLay calls Limbaugh "a role model."  Perhaps, Joan Walsh concedes, he is a role model...for Tom DeLay and his ilk.

"It's irresistible to respond: Really?...A thrice-divorced, drug-abusing, Parkinson's-mocking, cigar-sucking egomaniac, a poster boy for meanness, overindulgence and excess?....Imagine if the Democrats had an unelected leader of Limbaugh's stature, who in the wake of 9/11 wished for President Bush to fail -- and who got other Democrats to join him...

So for now the future of the party is an admitted Oxycontin addict who plea-bargained his way out of a drug conviction, who mocks children and Parkinson's sufferers, who exhibits strange sexual fears about our first black president (why is he worried about "grabbing his ankles?"), who was famously detained on a Dominican Republic vacation for carrying Viagra without a prescription?  (Salon)

But I want to be just as fair and balanced as Rush is.  For a defense, then, of Limbaugh's hopes for defeat of liberals at any price, Jon Swift: Rush Limbaugh Gives Republicans Hope Again

"I hope he fails." Limbaugh said of Obama. "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president."....

Inspired to hopefulness by Limbaugh, Swift sets forth all the things self-styled conservatives hope Obama fails to do:

1. Change the tone in Washington.
2. Fix the economy.
3. Get people to stop hating gays.
4. Institute universal health care.
5. Broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
6. Prevent a big disaster from devastating an American city.
7. Prevent a terrorist attack on American soil.
   

With respect to the hopes of conservatives that Obama will fail to prevent a terrorist attack, the great Swift comments:

Although this is one thing we shouldn't actively hope for, at least out loud, a terrorist attack on American soil would go a long way to restoring George Bush's image by proving that all of his efforts to prevent another one after 9/11, which President Obama is unraveling, worked. Americans will undoubtedly blame Obama for a terrorist attack especially if we point out that it was probably due to his closing Guantanamo and ending waterboarding of suspects. This is something that Republicans should quietly pray for, especially if it happens in a place where there are a lot of Obama voters like New York, then deplore it when it happens and unite behind the President for a week or so before we point out through anonymous spokespeople that it was Obama's fault. Rush Limbaugh, however, can start blaming Obama as soon as it happens. That's why Republicans are lucky to have him as the voice of the party. He's the only one who can say what we are really thinking.

Meanwhile, a poll by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal suggests that the part of the public that isn't part of the Republican "base" doesn't seem to see things quite the same way as Limbaugh and his kind.  Oddly, though people seem to care so much for his policies much, Obama's rating "is at an all-time high." 

Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House.

"What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "And against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank."

But what about the Republicans, eh?  What about them?  As Oliver Willis says, "Surely the brilliant combination of Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Rush Limbaugh is far ahead of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid!"

Er...no?

By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession.

This ought to put the ol' shotgun shine in Rush's eyes.  (I can't see this photograph without thinking of Tony Soprana).

Meanwhile, Republicans are upset that Dems have begun to refer to Limbaugh as the GOP's leader.  Walsh again:

But come on: Did Nancy Pelosi make Rep. Phil Gingrey apologize to Limbaugh last month for criticizing him? Did Howard Dean make Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele crawl to Limbaugh  exactly 51 minutes (according to "Hardball") after Limbaugh attacked him on his radio show yesterday, and say he hadn't meant to call Limbaugh's behavior "incendiary" or "ugly"? Is Harry Reid the reason it's impossible to find one, even one, Republican to criticize Limbaugh on the record -- without then racing to kiss his ring and apologize?  (Salon)

Memeorandum has more.

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