Michael Steele Gets a Limbaughtomy

So a couple of posts ago, I mentioned the fact that Rush Limbaugh was hoping for Obama's presidency to fail. This isn't a case of his words being taken out of context. This isn't some vast conspiracy between the gay mafia and the Jew-run liberal media to discredit his enormous, doughnut-laden ass. The man said, on the radio, of his own free will and volition, that he wants Obama to fail. Our nation is at war and on the brink of economic collapse, and Rush is rooting for us to go down in flames.

The Democrats naturally pounced on Rush's treasonous remarks and immediately began portraying the shambling behemoth as the de facto leader of the Republican Party. They called for the Republicans to pull free of Limbaugh's orbit and do what was best for our nation. Sure it was hyperbolic and overwrought, but it was certainly effective. And it's not like the Republicans had any right to complain about it. Back in 2002, they had succeeded in labeling people who disagreed with Bush as villains who hated American soldiers, freedom, and the baby Jesus.

I admit, I was feeling pretty optimistic. I had predicted that the Republicans would distance themselves from Rush's bullshit and put the needs of the country first. And at first, it looked like that was actually going to happen! RNC chairman Michael Steele even went so far as to dismiss Rush's diatribe as "entertainment," adding, "It's incendiary, yes. It's ugly."

Well, I got to enjoy the feeling of being right about something for, oh, two days or so. Then Rush said some mean things about Steele on his radio show, and Steele lost his nerve and apologized, acknowledging Rush as a "national conservative leader." At least, I'm *assuming* that's what Steele said. It's kind of hard to understand him sometimes with his mouth full of Rush's cock.

So is Limbaugh truly leading the GOP these days? I know the millions of Klansmen and crazed loners who tune into his show every day like to think so, and the speed at which Steele flip-flopped seems to lend credence to the theory. I think it's sad that Steele, whose mission at one time was to broaden the appeal of the Republican Party by appealing to political moderates and people of color, has decided it would be more prudent to toe that ever-divisive party line.

One item of interest was a Newsweek interview with David Frum, an uberconservative pundit and former Bush script speech writer, best known for coining the phrase "Axis of Evil." Frum discussed the attempts of the Democrats to tie Rush to the Republican Party, and claimed that Rush had caused the GOP considerable damage by allowing himself to be portrayed as their leader. He actually referred to Rush as "kryptonite." So I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Rush whines about it on the air and Frum calls to apologize.

What can I say? I was foolishly optimistic, and my hopes have been crushed like the young Filipino boy that Rush keeps chained to his bed. After briefly glimpsing the light of hope and change, the GOP has gone scampering back to the safety of Limbaugh's gargantuan shadow.

Sigh. I'm too depressed to rant about it anymore. So I'll just close with a joke I heard from Stephanie:

Q. What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
A. One is a flaming Nazi gasbag, and the other is a dirigible.

Bada bing! Good night, ladies and gentlemen!

Rush Limbaugh Hates America

Last month, just before the inauguration, Rush Limbaugh went on the record stating he hoped Obama's presidency would fail.

My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." Why? They didn't give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I'm not talking about search-and-destroy, but I've been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed.

The fact that anybody still listens to this ham-addled retard confounds me. The fact that that people still buy into Sean Hannity's batshit crazy rants, or believe a word that comes out of Ann Coulter's gaping anus of a mouth haunts me and mocks my childlike faith in God.

I can't get my head around *wanting* the president to fail. I despised Bush and just about everything his administration stood for. But if we were going to be stuck with him, I wanted him to succeed, because I wanted our nation to succeed. I felt our justification for invading Iraq was total bullshit and I was firmly opposed to the war. But once we were committed, I hoped desperately that we *would* find those elusive weapons of mass destruction. It would have been worth listening to Bush and his team of incompetent profiteers gloat for the next six years, just knowing that we had been justified and that the lives lost had served a purpose other than supplementing Cheney's retirement fund and indulging Bush's fantasies of being a grown-up "war president."

I had no faith in Bush. But I still hoped for the best, for all the good it did.

So now Obama and his administration are scrambling desperately to clean up the mess they inherited. The Republicans have publicly stated that the time has come to put aside petty partisan politics and work together for the good of the country. They haven't pledged blind obedience to Obama, and they certainly have no intention of rolling over for him (as the bitter debate over the economic stimulus package shows). I may not agree with the Republicans, but I do believe that most of them are arguing passionately for something they believe. They're not stonewalling just to piss on Obama's head.

Even most of the conservatives have pledged to support Obama, albeit with a hint of passive-aggression. They spent the last decade trying to convince us that disagreeing with the president makes you a terrorist, and now they're being forced to navigate that field they so gleefully mined. So here, in the reddest of red states at least, I'm hearing a lot of statements like "Well, Obama may be a Marxist leftist antichrist, but he's still our president and I respect him!"

Since just about anybody with a soul is hoping for the best for Obama and our nation, who does that leave listening to fucktards like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter? They've lost their mainstream appeal and now they're stuck with the same stupid and uninformed fanbase that they had when they started. The kind of people who would happily watch this nation burn just for the opportunity to say "I told you so."

Although Limbaugh, et. al. claim their biggest fear is a liberal America, that's total bullshit. Their biggest fear is that people will no longer care about the manufactured "left/right" schism they've spent the last couple of decades exploiting. Once that division fades, the relevance of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter will fade with it.

Here's hoping...

Which Came First, the Chicken Hawk or the Egghead?

So apparently Rush Limbaugh put his cloven hoof in his mouth last month and referred to military personnel who are opposed to the war in Iraq as "phony soldiers." Since his incredibly retarded faux pas, Rush has been scrambling to cover his ass. He claimed that he was the target of a smear campaign being run by Media Matters. As evidence, he offered up a heavily edited transcript of the broadcast in question, in which he cut out over a minute and a half of the conversation and changed the offending phrase to "phony soldier" so he could claim he was specifically referring to Jesse MacBeth.

Anyone with more than a quarter of a brain could see through Rush's pathetic revisionist attempts. So of course, Limbaugh's rabid supporters are all foaming at the mouth about the vast liberal conspiracy and how the Democrats have mounted a massive Machiavellian campaign to destroy their messiah. It all sounds pretty retarded, but you have to remember that these are the same people who believe that Bill and Hillary masterminded the murders of over a hundred people, or that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

Joining this brain trust in their kneejerk defense of Rush Limbaugh, martyr, is Representative Eric Cantor from Virgina. Cantor feels that the poor, oppressed conservatives have suffered for far too long at the hands of the oppressive Democrat regime, and is calling for them to unite and stand with Rush against the liberal attacks. He's got a petition and everything. Way to fight the man, Eric! Rush Limbaugh could be just the drug-abusing, draft-dodging college dropout you need to pull the conservatives together and make the klavern mighty once again!

(Interesting fact: Despite the raging hard-on Limbaugh has for putting our soldiers in harm's way, he managed to avoid military duty in Vietnam because he had a pimple on his ass. Of course, when you're talking about an ass that big, that was probably one hell of a pimple. But still...)

One of the outspoken Democrats insisting on an apology from Limbaugh was John Kerry, whom you may remember orchestrated an intricate scheme involving hundreds of soldiers in Vietnam to defraud the U.S. military out of a Purple Heart. Oh, those cagey liberals!

Anyway, Kerry called Limbaugh a "cheerleader for the Chicken Hawk wing of the far right" and said he was "an embarrassment to his Party." Of course, Kerry made his own blunder back in 2005, when he stated that there was no reason "that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children." Ironically, it was Rush Limbaugh who feigned outrage and accused Kerry of calling the U.S. soldiers terrorists. Kerry, in his usual rambling, long-winded way, attempted to explain that he *hadn't* said that, but Rush has never been one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. Somehow, he parlayed Kerry's moment of ill-advised dumbassery into a massive rant about how liberals love tyranny and hate freedom and that's the real reason why they oppose Bush and Jesus.

Now, I understand a vast part of politics is pretending to be outraged over things your opponents say so you can claim the moral high ground. And I'll be the first to admit that the attack Kerry is leading is more about political opportunity than actual indignation. But it's not a vast liberal conspiracy like the ones that dominate Limbaugh's fantasies. (Actually, I suspect most of Limbaugh's fantasies involve wearing a panda suit and getting spanked by Ann Coulter, but I digress...)

So yeah, Kerry's a total opportunist here. Once you strip away all the posturing and overblown responses, you're left with the fact that Rush Limbaugh made an ill-advised, off-the-cuff remark. Lord knows when you spend three hours a day talking out of your ass, you're going to say some stupid things. If this were an isolated incident, Rush could simply admit that he misspoke and things would eventually settle down. Unfortunately, Herr Limbaugh has spent the last decade propping up his retarded world views by attacking the patriotism of many decorated veterans just because they disagreed with him. So now that he had dug himself into this hole, the Democrats aren't going to let him out of it without an apology.

But things are never that simple, are they? The Republicans claim that this whole chain of events was set into motion when MoveOn.org took out a full page ad in the New York Times accusing General David H. Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" and referring to him as "General Betray Us." Outraged that the Democrats would so flagrantly attack a decorated military hero, Republican Senator John Cornyn drafted an amendment to "strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus." The amendment passed. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer drafted a similar amendment condemning the attack on Petreaus, as well as the Republican attacks on Max Cleland in 2002 and John Kerry in 2004. Oddly enough, that one didn't get enough votes to pass.

So now, the Republicans are demanding an apology from the Democrats for the attack on General Petraeus. The Democrats are claiming they weren't behind the ad and, besides, they've already publicly condemned it. Meanwhile, the Democrats are demanding an apology from the Republicans for Rush's gaffe, and the Republicans are claiming it's all an elaborate smokescreen to draw attention away from the General Petraeus issue. The battle lines are drawn, and both sides are polarizing between Limbaugh and Kerry, each claiming the other side bears responsibility. It's a question of which came first, the Chicken Hawk or the Egghead?

But the Republicans have a point. To assign a nickname as hateful and disparaging as "Betray Us" to a man who has served his country faithfully in the armed forces is, in the words of Rush, "contemptible" and "indecent." It sort of makes you wonder where MoveOn.org got the idea, doesn't it?

Well last January, after Senator Chuck Hagel (a Republican Senator and decorated Vietnam veteran) sided with Democrats in a vote, Rush had this to say: "By the way, we had a caller call, couldn't stay on the air, got a new name for Senator Hagel in Nebraska. We got General Petraeus and we got Senator Betray Us, new name for Senator Hagel."

So in case you're having trouble following: The Democrats are demanding an apology for something stupid that Rush said. The Republicans are claiming that the Democrats are simply trying to draw attention away from something stupid that MoveOn.org said. Only it turns out that MoveOn.org was simply rehashing something stupid that Rush said.

Sigh. It's like the Circle Jerk of Life...