candygirl

The Limbaugh Liability

How Rush is making the GOP the party of wimps.

By Jonathan Alter | Newsweek Web Exclusive


Rush Limbaugh, the man who did more than anyone else to create the modern Republican brand in the 1990s, is now destroying it. Everyone knows he has "jumped the shark" culturally—become a black-shirted joke even as he dominates the headlines. But it's worse than that for Republicans. Limbaugh has taken the great GOP calling card—toughness—and shredded it. The party of Lincoln is in danger of becoming the party of Jell-O.

Witness the specter of party leaders from Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to Republican Party chairman Michael Steele all issuing craven apologies to Limbaugh after uttering the truth, which is that Rush's rhetoric is "ugly" and that he was wrong to say he hoped President Obama would fail. The monster the GOP collectively created—Rush's "dittohead" army of conservative listeners—makes life miserable for anyone who dares criticize the Great Bloviator. By enforcing right-wing political correctness, the dittoheads are making their party leaders look weak.

Strength, of course, has been the great, well, strength of the GOP. Starting with reactionary vitriol directed at the New Deal (echoed today) and extending through the Cold War, Republicans have long had the advantage of looking and sounding more muscular than Democrats. For most of the last century, conservatives have been depicted as "rock-ribbed" and liberals as "whiny."

The problem became especially acute in the 1970s, when former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Jimmy Carter was turned into a girlie man. An editor jokingly entitled a Boston Globe editorial about Carter “More Mush From the Wimp” and it accidentally ran in the paper. This symbolized public attitudes toward liberals, and the caricature paved the way for Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory and the 1994 GOP takeover of the House of Representatives.

Limbaugh was a key player in that takeover. For two decades, he has provided a daily three-hour national advertisement for the GOP specifically and the conservative movement in general. Because most mainstream media types in Washington and New York don't listen, they never fully understood how big Rush had become.

But nothing lasts forever. Rush's audience remains huge, with a weekly audience of more than 20 million, and will stay large for as long as he broadcasts. If his listeners can forgive him sending his poor housekeeper into a parking lot to score drugs for him, they will forgive anything. But these folks no long represent the American mainstream. In fact, while 28 percent of Americans still identify themselves as Republicans, 29 percent call themselves independents. Plenty of the indies might still be listening to Rush, but they don't take their marching orders from him anymore. To them, he's just another entertainer.

When Obama first mentioned Limbaugh in a meeting with Republicans during his second week in office, he was chastised for elevating him in a way that didn't befit a president. But it quickly became clear that any contest between Barack and Rush was not really a contest at all—and that this is a fight the president is happy to have. The president's popularity is in the 60s, and the entertainer's, according to internal Democratic polling, is in the 20s. So Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs are now piling on, describing Limbaugh as the "intellectual force" and "de facto chairman" of the party.

It works. And it will keep on working until enough Republicans grow a spine. When they show enough guts to ignore the thousands of calls and e-mails from dittoheads, maybe they'll get their party—and their self-respect—back.

© 2009

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**CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN **

gmyers

The people he talked to the other day disagree with their opinions. He said he hopes Obama fails if he's trying to make the US a socialist country. And I agree with him on that. The democrats and Obama just don't like it when someone speaks out publicly about what they're doing. They'll just have to get over it. He has the same freedom of speech they have. I'm glad theres someone to question what they do and keep us informed about it. And the democrats make me laugh talking about the republicans needing to get their respect back. And we'll see in a few years how popular the democrats and Obama are when all the wasting of tax payer money comes out. I bet the next election republicans will win hands down. Unless Obama gets ACORN to help him again by registering non existent people. I wonder how much ACORN will get for all their "help" during the election.

speedygirl

For me, as far as Rush is concerned, it's not just the message, it's the messenger. He is one morally bankrupt man and very hard to respect.

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anothersta

Saul Alinksy's Rules for Radicals

13) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it (Alinsky 1972: 130). This is perhaps Saul Alinsky’s most controversial rule and is the counter to the common idea that we should not make things personal. When pursuing the changes in the inheritance law for paintings he targets one individual. He will often find out who the CEO is in a company and hound that person. In the organophosphates debate it is one scientist that he targets and the validity of his findings.

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If you can't get to DC on 9/12, come on down to Quincy! http://www.quincyteaparty.com

speedygirl

If one doesn't respect the messenger as a person, nor support his ideals then he in no way deserves my support, for I would be compromising my own beliefs. It's just hard to take a person who apparently thought he was above the law, seriously. He's a perfect example of do as I say not as I do. I used to listen to him back in the day and all of his anti drug talk, etc...we know how that all turned out. He's been caught lying and I'm tired of liars in both parties. Call me radical, lol.

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gmyers

I am too. I don't trust politicians anymore. They lie too much and a lot are down right crooked.

LuvBigRip

Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat for saying he wants President Obama to fail -- but a lot of Democrats felt the same way about former President George W. Bush during his second term.

An August 2006 poll conducted by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics showed 51 percent of Democrats did not want Bush to succeed. Thirty-four percent of independents also did not want Bush to succeed.

By comparison, 90 percent of Republicans said at the time that they wanted Bush to succeed, and 40 percent of Democrats said the same.

Conservative radio talk show host Limbaugh says he doesn't want the economy to fail -- just Obama's policies. But his comments last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference drew sharp criticism from the White House.

After CPAC, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CBS' "Face the Nation" that Limbaugh's stance was the "wrong philosophy for America."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/firs...ted-bush-fail/

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The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

janelle

It's all a diversion for the administration. It won't work. Not after the way they drug Bush through the mud for 8 years. Now we all have to bow down to Obama, our Messiah.

Don't get caught up in this petty talk from the White House. They have an enemies list, at least Bush was above all that.

Ever heard Keith Olbermann say Bush should be impeached and on and on about how loathsome he is when he was still president. I'm not buying their whining about criticism of Obama. Wish they would not be such whiners. If they have a good policy then it will work, nothing anyone says about Obama will hurt. They should get on with the business of the economy. The more they talk abour Rush the more we know they are empty suits.

LuvBigRip

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: "I certainly hope he doesn't succeed."

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...ted-bush-fail/
"We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I'm wanting them to turn against him," Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: "They don't want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails."

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

The press followed Carville's orders, never reporting his or Greenberg's desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party's top strategists, that Bush should fail.

That omission stands in stark contrast to the feeding frenzy that ensued when radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wanted President Obama to fail. The press devoted wall-to-wall coverage to the remark, suggesting that Limbaugh and, by extension, conservative Republicans, were unpatriotic.

"The most influential Republican in the United States today, Mr. Rush Limbaugh, said he did not want President Obama to succeed," Carville railed on CNN recently. "He is the daddy of this Republican Congress."

Limbaugh, a staunch conservative, emphasized that he is rooting for the failure of Obama's liberal policies.

"The difference between Carville and his ilk and me is that I care about what happens to my country," Limbaugh told Fox on Wednesday. "I am not saying what I say for political advantage. I oppose actions, such as Obama's socialist agenda, that hurt my country.

"I deal in principles, not polls," Limbaugh added. "Carville and people like him live and breathe political exploitation. This is all a game to them. It's not a game to me. I am concerned about the well-being and survival of our nation. When has Carville ever advocated anything that would benefit the country at the expense of his party?"

Carville told Politico that focusing on Limbaugh is a deliberate strategy aimed at undermining Republicans.

"The television cameras just can't stay away from him," he said. "Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we're going to succeed."

Greenberg added: "He's driving the Republican reluctance to deal with Obama, which Americans want."

In 2006, 51 percent of Democrats wanted Bush to fail, according to a FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll.

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The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.

speedygirl

They're both a couple of blowhards. I wouldn't want to see either of them be the face of the Republican or Democratic parties.

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