Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, March 1, 2009

TOM WATSON GETS IT

Limbaugh in the Lead: A Gift for Obama

Looking for all the world like the sweating floor manager on the late afternoon shift at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in an unbuttoned shiny black shirt and undersized sport coat, Rush Limbaugh leaned his meaty hands on the lectern at the CPAC conference and slipped a greasy dollar bill into the G-string of the writhing conservative dead-enders packed into the garishly lit Omni Shoreham in Washington DC.
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If there's any doubt that the GOP's own Paulie Walnuts is now firmly in command of the Party of Lincoln, the "breaking news" style coverage of Limbaugh's bellow-cose rant dispelled the notion. CNN, for one, went wide - with the kind of uninterrupted live footage usually reserved for Presidents and Popes, followed by a panel of analysts to weigh and consider the import of the speech to this republic of ours. There were other dancers on the stage, to be sure - including Ward Connerly, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly and Karl Rove - but only Limbaugh's hour-long ramble (he went over by 30 minutes) garnered opposition leader status. "As the movement searches for a front-and-center spokesman to provide inspiration and direction, Limbaugh's refusal to tilt toward the center may place him out front in a Republican Party already suffering from a disappearing moderate wing," wrote Tom Schaller in Salon.
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Leading gullible Republicans into the hills of guerrilla ideological resistance during the nation's toughest economic crisis in 80 years constitutes a gift of incredible political proportions for the Obama Administration. Instead of principled point-by-point opposition by a chastened party of experienced professionals ready for tough dealings at the bargaining table, President Obama is blessed with clownish truculence and pure rejectionism - embodied in the Republican response to the President's forceful Congressional address by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a moment of excruciatingly tone-deaf ideology rescued only by the attention lavished on its shockingly poor delivery.

President Obama, of course, is aware of this lumbering and clumsy gift from the right - so much so that he sent chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to Bob Schieffer's CBS studio this morning to declare Limbaugh "the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party."


Tom Watson

12 comments:

Unknown said...

I love it !

Let Rush lead the Republican party talking points for the next 4 years.

I hope Palin/Jindal is the Republican party ticket for 2012.

All of this will ensure that President Obama will win reelection.

Anonymous said...

I am already looking forward to the debates! Palin vs Obama?? Bwahahahahaha!!!

dmarks said...

By then he'll have 3 or so years of budgets with $2 trillion dollar deficits to defend.

Dave Miller said...

dmarks, using the percentage arguments that the GOP used for years to defend their own deficit spending, the increase in govt spending as it relates to the economy is projected to be less than 2%.

Besides which, Obama, has included war spending in that amount, something never done by Bush.

Shaw, don't you find it interesting that the group that is currently hammering Michelle for her sleeveless look, and Obama for no tie and going shirtless in Hawai'i, has not said anything about Limbaugh showing up sans tie and looking like he needs a year of Jenny Craig.

If he is indeed the public face, or voice of the GOP, I couldn't be happier.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I actually hadn't read about the criticism over Michelle Obama's nekkid arms. So I guess I'll have to catch up and find out what the controversy is about.

But the photo of her on the front of my blog couldn't be any more beautiful and dignified--so I don't know what the prob would be.

And yes, we want, with all our excitable little hearts, to see Rush Limbaugh become the Leader of the GOP.

That would be an enormous gift to the Democrats and President Obama.

There are a few moderate Republican blogs I read and follow and one in particular where just the other day I read how appalled they are that people take clowns like Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, and Beck seriously.

But I think Limbaugh and Coulter should go on a nationwide tour and put themselves out there as GOP 21st Century Leaders!:

A sweaty, blowhard demagogue with a history of illegal prescription drug use and a woman who called 9/11 widows "harpies," and on national teevee claimed their husbands were probably going to divorce them anyway.

And the Republican Base just eats that crap up.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw, here are a few links...

Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0226-sleeveless-michelle-obafeb26,0,7395463.story

Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/michelle-obamas-sleeveles_n_170629.html

ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6986019&page=1

Handsome B. Wonderful said...

Clearly Rush Windbag is the head of the Republicanistical Party. I'm calling them the Republicanistical Party until they stop their childish game of saying the "Democrat Party."

The RNC Chairman Michael Steele is supposed to be the head and he is pathetically trying to make that known.

However, we all know it's Rush when he gets so much coverage (not just his CPAC speech). Steele can't command that kind of air time and audience as Rush can.

I think the reason why we are hearing so much from the new head of the GOP Rush Windbag is because all the other sensible Republicans have left the party. The only ones left in the party are the 20% crowd who supported Bush no matter what.

It's the same with Congressional Republicans. The only ones left are the radical ones that listen to Rush who live in safe, ruby red districts.

If they keep clinging to anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-stimulus, anti-Obama, anti-universal health care, anti-union, anti-bipartisanship then how is it that they are NOT the party of no?

They have nothing constructive to add--they just say no. I call John Boehner (how is that not pronounced boner??)"Dr. No." It's my homage to James Bond villains.

They are the party of the past. They have lost the next generation of voters to the Democratic Party. Still, we can't rest on our laurels...we must keep on guard and not over-reach.

We must keep building the party and reaching out. We need to fight them where ever they stick up their pasty white skinned heads.

dmarks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shaw Kenawe said...

Well said, Handsome B.

dmarks said...

"I'm calling them the Republicanistical Party until they stop their childish game of saying the "Democrat Party."

That will only work when the Republican Party is full of "Republicanisticals". Since the Democrat Party is at this point filled with "Democrats", "Democrat Party" still flies.

Shaw Kenawe said...

dmarks,

When Republicans call the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party," all that means to me is that their brains are not nimble enough to understand the difference. This happens a lot to underdeveloped minds.

It's also a reflection on what a bunch of eunchs are in charge of the party now, if that's the best they can do: Mispronounce the name of the Democratic Party.

That really stopped the Democrats in the last election, didn't it, and made the country think less of Democrats. NOT.

There are now more people in this country that are registered as Democrats than there are registered Republicans.

Their puny subversive "Democrat Party" didn't do a thing for them.

They lost. Twice.

dmarks said...

Then tell me what the substantive difference is?