That joke doesn't get old.
My man at NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard, wrote up a good piece about recent revelations from the left that they want to make Limbaugh the new Republican bogeyman--used to scare the public into submitting to their nefarious plans.
Well, new revelations suggest that Democrats began a smear campaign against the conservative talk radio host last October, and now it's really caught steam.It almost goes w/o saying that I think their plan will fail--most importantly, because Rush is a far better communicator than George W. Bush. And because Rush already has 20 million regular listeners.Apparently, the Left feared its message would be muted without having George W. Bush to blame for all the world's problems, and Limbaugh made a nice substitute as the object of their disaffection to distract the public from real issues.
Given White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's connections to key media figures such as ABC's George Stephanopoulos as well as CNN's Paul Begala and James Carville, disseminating the hate was a piece of cake.
I don't want to say Emanuel & Begala & Carville & Co. are dumb, but this strategy strikes me as pretty stupid. Seriously, folks, when you are the establishment, it doesn't help you to elevate the competition.
I don't think there is a smarter, more persuasive communicator of conservative ideals that Rush Limbaugh. If these people are persuadable, they will be persuaded by Rush.
Note that I'm not talking about the leftist progressives who already hate all things conservative. These people are dead to reason until they realize how much their feel-good policy preferences suck in the real world.
Independents--the same ones who were persuaded about offshore drilling. The same ones who have begun to turn against the spendulus. The same ones who are skeptical about bigger government & higher taxes--these people will turn to Rush and large numbers of them will be persuaded by him.
UPDATE 6:17pm BST: Jonah Goldberg weighs in on El Rushbo's controversial statement that he hopes Obama "fails":
Here we go again. Rush Limbaugh is public enemy No. 1. Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh's statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails. Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too. Of course I want the financial crisis to end -- who doesn't? But Obama's agenda is much more audacious. Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state. And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort? What movie have they been watching? Because I could swear that conservatives opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do.European elites and visiting liberal American backpackers love Europe. All they ever see are the tourist traps. They don't see the vast numbers of welfare state lower class--many immigrants--who live, for instance, in the banlieues of Paris.
These people--and their equivalents in Germany, et al--firebomb the cars of the wealthy every night. And the liberal elites of these countries just don't get it. They think, 'we gave these people welfare and universal healthcare and public housing, what the hell more do they want!?!!'
I don't want to go off on a rant here, because what I have to say on the subject could occupy at least a fortnight's worth of my intermittent posts, but is this what you all want America to look like?
In Europe, the lib elites keep throwing more money at the masses because unlike America, there is no chance in hell of the elites ever allowing the hoi polloi to move up to the next income bracket.
This is why these types of socialist policies should never translate to America: Here, the poor don't stay poor forever. There is a lot of movement from one bracket to the next. That just doesn't happen anywhere else.
If Obama gets his way, it might not happen in America either.
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