rush limbaugh

We've seen an awful lot of time devoted by conservative commentators about who is a Nazi, who used the Nazi symbols first, and what political movement resembles the Nazis.

Stop. It's a waste of time. (this is directed at you, Rush)

What the Left is successfully doing is starting up a political sideshow that our camp feels compelled to address, and then retreating into the swamp knowing our forces will get tied down in an indecisive quagmire far from the main field of battle.

Don;t make a big deal about every stupid LaRouche poster or insane Nancy Pelosi remark. Invoke Godwin';s Law and move on.

Say whatever about Sarah Palin, but at least she had the good political judgment in railing against the "death panels" to address a legitimate concern in the bill itself, not get into a useless dialogue about a dead dictator.

In any event, if conservatives must raise the specter of what socialism in practice is like, might I suggest there are plenty of fine examples from nice, friendly regimes who were American allies.  I suspect the Democratic party and their SEIU muscle would be quite happy with the "Old Labour" government of the UK pre Maggie Thatcher. I suspect most Americans would be quite appalled to be governed that way. 

Better yet. Stick to the bill. Stick to Obama's rationale.  We have a limited amount of airtime (only three hours a day. Mr. Limbaugh) and bandwidth to use in opposition. We'd better start using it wisely.   

TX GOP invited me to the McCaul fundraiser last night in Houston.  Had I known El Rushbo would be speaking, I would have gone. Why didn't anyone tell me?!?

For a guy out of office and not going to seek any, people are paying an awful lot of attention to Colin Powell.

And they shouldn't.

This puts me at odds with folks of the right who are irate at Powell and those who welcome his continued participation.

Hey, if Colin wants to stay a Republican that's fine. The bottom line is he never was a very partisan Republican and I don't think we should lose any sleep if he disagrees with much of what the party is doing. (as an aside, lets also not scream in horror everytime some Republican says he's not a Rush fan.   Makes us look rather thin skinned) 

Powell is one of those folks who although they emerge from humble beginnings are now firmly entrenched in the D.C. establishment. He has never sought elective office not campaigned much for others. and indeed suggested in 2000 he would have been willing to serve in a Gore administration. Nope, he's the inside guy to staff the less partisan levers of the federal government.  An establishment guy.

And from 1980 to 2008 that was usually a place where a Republican was pretty welcome, since we either held the White House or Congress for 26 of the 28 years.  And now it isn't.

Powell may use the rationalization that the party drifted to the right, though clearly it was more vocally conservative on many issues prior to George W. Bush's definition of the party. And using Sarah Palin as an excuse won't wash.  Evidently the equally derided Dan Quayle was insufficient reason for Powell to search for the exits back then.    

I also reject the charge by Limbaugh that Powell was solely motivated by racial kinship in his Obama endorsement.  Had Obama been unacceptable to the Beltway bramin, he'd have been unable to gain Powell's support.

Nope, this was all about Dr. Gallup. Powell is a symptom of much of what defines a moderate--they are dyed-in-the -wool frontrunners. Had McCain been leading Obama into the homestretch I have no doubt the General would have been side-by-side with Mac singing his praises.

The argument being made now by the Beltway establishment is that we need to cater to the interests of folks like Powell to gain back our path to elective success.  I'm not for RINO bashing as a path to power, but let's be real. This proposal is simply backasswards.

Moderates won;t come back to the ranks of the Republican party because we beg them. They will come back because we look like we are going to win some elections and we make the otther guys look extreme or incompetent. The DC press has cause and effect reversed.

Indeed consider this. If Powell was convinced that the GOP couldn't mount a comeback he wouldn't leave the door open to come back in.  A general always thinks strategically.

Colin Powell endorsed and worked for Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43, all of whom were to the right of John McCain..  It wasn;t the policies that drove him off in 2008, it was the popularity. Powell's influence would have sunk with the ship had he endorsed McCain.

I think the Republicans should be a "big tent" party. My point is the first thing to do is to build the tent, not worry so much about the folks who will always stand around the periphery waiting to be cajoled inside.

Rush Limbaugh.

We need more discussion on the intersection of media and culture. -Matt Moon

I just read John Derbyshire's brilliantly timed article, "How Radio Wrecks the Right" in AmConMag.  I first picked it up at CPAC but had no time at the conference to read the article, until just now.  Derbyshire argues that the mainstream perception of conservatism is the lowbrow version from the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Ingrahams, Savages etc.  Derb does not discredit lowbrow conservatism entirely, he rightfully believes however that the public perception of our movement should be somewhat more than this.  Derb quotes liberal E.J. Dionne, when he said: "The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet, and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity. ...Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans."

This reminds me of a point made by Peter Hitchens in his book, "The Abolition of Britain" when describing the effects of destroying the BBC monopoly in favor of the free market on television airwaves.

"Far from restricting television the authorities encouraged it. Winston Churchill insisted that television cameras should record the Queen's coronation in 1953, giving the new medium its greatest fillip. A Tory government then went on to destroy the BBC monopoly, brushing aside traditional Conservatives who feared the moral effects and listening only to those whom the free market was sacred above all. Lord Reith, the founding genius of the BBC, had warned that it was only the brute force of monopoly which allowed his corporation to take a conservative moral position. He was rapidly proved right, as competition for ratings became the unanswerable argument for laxer and laxer standards of taste and language, and bolder and bolder excursions into pornography and violence."

Before any libertarian goes ballistic, let me say, that I support the free market option any day.  What we are seeing with lowbrow conservatism is simply radio entertainers working to increase ratings in the free market.  But if this is the base of conservatism in the free market, I will happily compare it any day with its counterpart on the left.  While MTV may not consider itself political, it is no doubt driving cultural liberalism.  MTV works to build ratings just as our lowbrow side does with terms like  "Washington Compost" and "New York Slimes."  Lowbrow conservatism is 30,000 miles above lowbrow liberalism.

Derb is right though, that this mainstream perception of conservatism only consisting of these radio entertainers is a problem.  The pie is not fixed, and the answer is not to diminish or even criticize these successful radio personalities but to build, build build.    Uncommon Knowledge, a program by Peter Robinson and revived by National Review, is a terrific show.  Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, is no Buckley (nor does he pretend to be) but this show gives conservatism more than a fare shake and has some solid content.  Dinesh D'Souza, an original thinker, can challenge the best on the left and is incredibly well rounded.  Whether it's the religious department, history department, political department or the cultural department, Dinesh can concisely articulate the strength and superiority of conservatism. It is often said that converts to Catholicism are better communicators for their new found Religion than those born into it.  Dinesh, born in India, is a phenomenal voice for American conservatism.  More D'Souza is a great thing for conservatism. 

Both highbrow liberalism (NPR) and conservatism (Firing Line, Uncommon Knowledge) have existed, in large part, not from free market demand but from public funding, which is a poor reflection of our culture.  Ultimately, we have a cultural problem where the need to be constantly entertained, even with our news, is paramount to all else.  In short, the problem is not the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Ingrahams, Savages; the problem is with us, let's demand more.

These haven't been the best couple of weeks for Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, or Bobby Jindal. (OK, let's carve out a possible exception for Limbaugh.)

What these three people have in common is that they're all significant figures who have taken fire from different elements of the conservative movement at the behest of the Obama White House and the Kos/TPM/Olbermann triangle.

It's time this stopped.

Conservatives need to decide who we want to see succeed and who we want to see fail. We then need to calibrate our reactions to the inevitable missteps from either camp accordingly. If someone we want to succeed comes under attack, we hold our fire and close ranks -- unless it's clear they've become a long-term liability. If it's someone we want to see fail -- like Jim Bunning -- we unload until they get off the stage.

Limbaugh, Steele, and Jindal are all important personalities that we should all want to see succeed. The larger and more influential Rush's audience, the more mobilized the base will be against Obama. This has nothing to do with Rush exerting policy leadership over the GOP -- and everything to do with Rush as a popularizer of conservative principles and a rallying point for opposition. The best reaction to the Limbaugh "controversy" is for GOP politicians to avoid it entirely -- while Rush's audience grows and grows.

Michael Steele made a tactical mistake in getting drawn into this argument, but I still want him to be a successful RNC Chairman. Steele was elected Chairman as a fresh face and a reformer, a basic orientation the Republican Party will need to embrace in 2010. He remains one of the most compelling public faces of the party. If I were a Democrat, I would rejoice if Michael Steele were somehow made less relevant. Moreover, his challenge of the party's blind support for incumbents -- conservatives' #1 frustration with the RNC -- is probably more relevant to his leadership as Chairman than his Rush comments.

And some conservatives have gleefully joined in on the pile-on against Bobby Jindal for his delivery of the non-SOTU response and stayed mostly silent when it came time to counter the left's coordinated attack against Jindal's leadership during Katrina.

Taking a step back, and it's easy to see why the Obama team must be rejoicing. Some of the Republican Party's most charismatic and influential voices are being attacked -- from within. Conservatives appear flailing and divided, embroiled in controversies against the leading talk show host, the party chairman, and one of the party's rising stars.

I could deal with the "flailing and divisive" narrative if it were aimed at public embarrassments, like Bunning, or against more expendable, transactional pols -- people whose removal would not hurt the cause and in fact could help it.

We should be highly vigilant -- however -- when the attacks are aimed at people who would be significant public scalps for the Democrats, and who are not easily replaced.

At some level, we have to project a basic level of confidence in the people we choose to elevate -- whether it's on the radio, at the RNC, or in the statehouses -- especially if these are the kind of people we say we want -- younger, aggressive, reformers, etc. If we are too eager to throw people like Steele and Jindal under the bus when we were celebrating them not so long ago, conservatives overall appear indecisive and uncertain in their leadership. 

Ultimately, the journey out of the wilderness won't happen without a leader. We will ultimately have to learn how to get on the bus with somebody, warts and all. This is what a mature movement did with Reagan. And it's what the left did with Obama. I'm not pronouncing anyone the leader right now, but if we fall into the left's trap of delegitimizing important conservatives and potential rising stars from the get-go, we will never know what it is like to have that kind of leadership because only the utterly mediocre will be let through the netroots/MSM filter of Republican leadership.

I have always enjoyed reading Christopher Buckley's books.  He has a strong flair for characters and situations that I find quite humorous and insightful.  I did think that his last couple were a bit weak in the follow-through but all in all I've always thought highly of him as a writer.

I have never felt that he was nearly as conservative as his father.  Though it can be argued that you don't really know a fellow through his fiction work (which is primarily where I know him from) I think that a sense of an author's attitude toward life does come through.  So when Mr. Buckley announced to the world that he had decided to vote for Barrack Obama I was neither greatly surprised nor greatly disappointed.

I think that Christopher has been careful to not make the claim that his father would have voted for President Obama but I could be wrong about that. 

In the most recent article of Mr. Buckley's (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-27/my-brush-with-...) he decides to take aim against Rush Limbaugh, taking offense first because one of Rush's comments about Mr. Buckley's father, William F. Buckley in response to a caller identifying Rush as WFB's heir apparent in the conservative movement.  Rush's response?

" One of the questions I always ask, "What would Bill say?" When I was stuckon an issue or an opinion, "What would Bill say? What would Bill think?" andI think Bill would probably thank you and say, "Yes, madam, you're veryintelligent, very wise, and you're right."" 

To which Christopher Buckley says, " I found them a bit…de trop.  That’s French for “a bit much,” " 

Well I'm sorry Mr. Buckley but like it or not Rush has far more claim to the mantle of head of the conservative movement than any other living person today and I'm sure that WFB would have indeed been in agreement. 

But Mr. Buckley's greatest ire is reserved for Rush's clear statement that he hopes the President's policies fail.  I fail to see the crime in wishing for the failure of policies that one sees as harmful to the country so I am rather mystified by all the crying and howls of outrage coming from the likes of Mr. Buckley and those further to the left of him.  Why shouldn't we want these policies to fail?  We love our country and we want it to be strong and free and the policies of the President appear to us to be going down exactly the wrong road...Finally Mr. Buckley quotes himself from before the election about Barack Obama,  

" If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of theDNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has(somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he willalmost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmysummer zephyr." 

Looks like that's exactly what the man is doing doesn't it?  But I've yet to hear from Mr. Buckley an acknowledgement of reality. 

I've stayed away from the Rush Limbaugh discussion since it seems the ultimate in Seinfeldian debates about nothing.

My overall sense is that the Frums and the Douthats of the world would be well served by staying away from this argument. As Ross himself has written, the grassroots needs elites -- and the elites need the grassroots. By trying to isolate Rush, the elites break down this elegant separation and veer into micromanaging the grassroots -- a losing proposition, particularly against a brand as sticky as Rush. By staging a power play against Rush, they also play into the Democrats' far-fetched notion that Rush is the GOP's leader -- an 11% proposition -- rather than letting him be as an entertainer and provocateur and popularizer of conservative ideas.

I missed Rush's CPAC address and watching it later on YouTube but was left wondering "What's the big f'ing deal here?" In content, the speech was no different than what Rush has been saying for the last 20 years. Why are we all reacting as if any of this is new? If Rush was going to damage the GOP, he would have done it by now. (In fact, the last time we had Rush in a situation like this, things didn't turn out so bad.)

It's one thing to reject spokespeople with neither egghead credentials nor talent, like Joe the Plumber, or those who are positively cringe-worthy, like Coulter. Rush belongs in neither of these categories. There is value in having provocative voices who know how to string two sentences together with arguments rooted in conservative ideas, not cultural pastiche. And though provocative and sometimes impolitic, Rush's arguments are usually calibrated and thought-out in their own way. Wanting Obama to fail from wrecking a country we all hope succeeds is not something a GOP politician should necessarily say, but is something Rush should be able to say from his perch outside the party. CPAC featured speakers who were still peddling the Obama-is-not-a-citizen nonsense to applause from the crowd. Let's distance ourselves those bumbling ignoramuses, not successful, well-honed voices like Rush.

There's an interesting article by David Brooks reflecting so many of the topics I've been engaged in today titled A Moderate Manifesto:

You wouldn’t know it some days, but there are moderates in this country — moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, just plain moderates. We sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. We like his investments in education and energy innovation. We support health care reform that expands coverage while reducing costs.

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

The U.S. has always been a decentralized nation, skeptical of top-down planning. Yet, the current administration concentrates enormous power in Washington, while plan after plan emanates from a small group of understaffed experts.

The U.S. has always had vibrant neighborhood associations. But in its very first budget, the Obama administration raises the cost of charitable giving. It punishes civic activism and expands state intervention.

The U.S. has traditionally had a relatively limited central government. But federal spending as a share of G.D.P. is zooming from its modern norm of 20 percent to an unacknowledged level somewhere far beyond.

Brooks goes on to discuss the eery feeling that moderates have as they're wedged somewhere between unchecked liberalism and Rush Limbaugh's brand of conservatism, hoping they can "try to tamp down the polarizing warfare that is sure to flow from Obama’s über-partisan budget".

I think he nails the increasingly grim national mood of so many moderates and centrists who voted for Obama nicely.  I call it Buyer's Remorse.

Note:  a great companion piece to this article is ddemilo's post titled Cramer:  Does Obama Care About the Stock Market?

by  Lance Thompson

A recent controversy the media have embraced, rather than examining the wisdom of spending more money than America has ever had, was sparked by commentator Rush Limbaugh when he dared to say that he hoped that President Obama failed to remake the economy and the government.  Liberals gasped at this, likening it to high treason.

Some Republicans on the Sunday shows have been quick to disavow Limbaugh’s statement as well.  House Republican Whip Eric Cantor said “no one wants this president to fail.”  Congressman Mike Pence echoed the sentiment.  Congressional Republicans participated in Obama’s Fiscal Summit on 23 February, engaging in “break-out sessions” and reporting their “findings.”  They acted as if the responsible Republican “no” votes on the stimulus package were in need of an apology, and that nothing would be worse than being labeled “partisan.”

For all those Republicans whose convictions lead them to go along to get along, I have a solution.  And it is certain to be respected by the Left, because the Left came up with it.

While the outcome of the war in Iraq was still in doubt, the Democrats did everything they could to bring about defeat for the United States.  Democrats in Congress called the war criminal, immoral, and unwinnable.  Democrats introduced various resolutions to end the war, pull out the troops, and cut off funding.  Of course, Democrats were smart enough to know that these actions, while solidifying their support among liberals, was not going over well with the families of our troops.  Thus, they came up with a bumper sticker to plaster over their shameful actions:  “We support the troops, but not the war.”  This, they thought, allowed them to have it both ways.

This solution can easily be adopted by Republicans who can’t bring themselves openly to defy the president.  All they have to say is, “I support the president, but not his policies.”  Painless, isn’t it?  Let’s all try it, shall we?

I support the president, but not his Politburo of a cabinet.  I don’t support the collection of tax cheats, terrorist sympathizers, baby killers (if Governor Sebelius is confirmed as HHS Secretary) that the president has appointed to his administration to carry out his socialist agenda.

I support the president, but not his spendaholic stimulus bills, bailout bills, redistribution of income and tax hikes on anyone who actually works for a living.  I don’t support his plunging the nation into a bottomless pit of debt and sticking responsible Americans with the tab.

I support the president, but not his Secretary of State’s nuzzling of Red China, subsidies for Hamas to rebuild Gaza into a terrorist base, and abandoning former Soviet Republics to the increasingly belligerent Russia.

I support the president, but not his outsourcing of executive policy to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, so they can rush legislation through Congress without letting most members of the legislative branch even read it. 

I support the president, but not his plan to nationalize health care and give a bureaucrat authority over my own medical needs.

Wasn’t that easy?  Republicans who still want to be invited to interviews on the MSM, chic Washington parties, and The View, can embrace this two-faced construction.  They can gush over Obama’s diction, his wife’s taste in clothing, his lavish entertaining.  But they can still oppose the policies that are remaking the nation in the socialist image.

Speaking for myself, I don’t support the president or his policies, and I doubt that any future conservative leaders do either.  Those who like to play both sides will not earn, nor do they deserve, the support of conservative voters.  Our future leaders will be those who are not afraid to state their principles and live by them.

Of course, if the president decides to reverse course, cut taxes, beef up the military, get rid of the criminals in his own administration, reduce spending, and stop giving the money of working people to non-working people, I’ll gladly support him and his policies.  But I’m not holding my breath.

http://www.lowdowncentral.com/feature-article/2009/3/3/supporting-the-president.html