Jabba the Rush

Limbaugh Addresses America Once More!

Rush Limbaugh addresses the nation... - watch more funny videos

Ideas vs. Tantrums

Great article by David Frum over at The New Majority sizing up the battle between the leader of the country, President Obama, and the leader of the floundering Republican Party, Boss Limbaugh:

Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them
rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

Limbaugh Hates the Constitution

Good old Rush Limbaugh was given an award at CPAC last weekend for his "defense of the Constitution."  Hilarious that in his CPAC speech he would then quote the Declaration of Independence and say it was from the preamble to the document he is supposed to have so expertly defended:

We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

It's somehow so fitting that the Republican "Defender of the Constitution" has seemingly never read the document.

Obama's First Presser...

Barack Obama held his first press conference this evening, and of course, the focus was on the stimulus package that will hopefully come up for a vote tomorrow.  My favorite part came in response to a question from conservative Mara Liasson, who asked what lessons the President has learned from this whole stimulus debate.  

Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans were brought in early and were consulted. And you'll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there. I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that's the lesson I learned.

But there was consultation. There will continue to be consultation. One thing that I think is important is to recognize that because all these -- all these items that you listed are hard, that people have to break out of some of the ideological rigidity and gridlock that we've been carrying around for too long.

And let me give you a prime example -- when it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility. Again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

It seems a lot of people who attack the President for his lack of bipartisanship always fail to mention that Obama initially had 40% of his stimulus going to tax cuts because that is precisely what Republicans wanted. Rush Limbaugh, the de facto leader of the GOP, railed against Obama's bill and proposed his own "plan", which portrayed Obama's plan as 100% spending, and then Rush demanded that 46% of the stimulus go to tax cuts.  

The Republican side of the debate looks as if it's based entirely in the realm of intellectual dishonesty.  God bless consistency.

GOP Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh

An excellent open letter to Rush Limbaugh was published this morning on Politico.com, from a former staffer for House leadership:

Dear Rush,

Congratulations! You have been selected by the Obama administration, the mainstream media and 20 million of your most passionate followers to be the new head of the Republican Party.

As such, you are given all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a true political leader. 

Your mission is simple: Restore the Republican Party to its former greatness by single-handedly helping Republicans to regain control of Congress and to offer a reasonable and viable alternative to President Barack Obama.

You should be honored that the Obama administration has selected you, El Rushbo, to lead the Republicans in such a quest. Obviously, they find you to be a formidable foe — politically adept and a proven vote-getter.

Since we are a party of metrics and accountability, we would like to see your plans to make Republicans more competitive. While your supporters are passionate and energized, we would like to see how you are going to expand your base of support. While 20 million listeners is an impressive number, Obama had nearly 70 million voters. Fifty million is a pretty big gap to make up, but we are certain that, with your effervescent personality, you will be able to close that in no time.

We would also like to see your plan to help Republicans compete in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, the West Coast and Florida, in the big cities and in the suburbs. Republicans have been pretty much wiped out in all of those areas in the past two elections.

We would like to see your plan to attract more women’s votes. While we always get creamed by single women in elections, even married women turned against us this time. Not sure if calling female leaders “feminazis” really works in this atmosphere, but we are willing to hear you out on that. We got killed by America’s fastest-growing voting population, Hispanics, in the last election. What is your plan to attract these voters? I know that you despise any kind of nuanced position on immigration reform, but we would love to see any of your ideas for getting some of these voters in the next election.

We got completely demolished by the African-American vote in the last election. No surprise there, given the top of the ticket. But we are wondering how referencing our president’s race in any way, shape or form is productive or relevant to the current discussion. Please let us know.

Another problem area is independent voters, who went with Obama big time in the last election. Not sure why. Maybe they liked his saying he would govern from the center. Now, we all know that was just rhetoric, but will we really attract independent voters if we decide to move further to the right? Just asking. 
There are plenty of ways to point out deficiencies in the opposition’s plans. And believe us, we know there are many dumb ideas that are coming from the other side. But our research shows that the American people actually want help with certain things (the failing education system, the high cost of health care, the sagging economy, etc.). Do you have any good ideas that you can share with us — ideas that will be seen as reasonable by the American people — that can serve as a viable alternative? Or is it your plan to simply oppose every idea that comes from the Obama administration?

Anyway, congratulations on this big promotion. We are proud of you, and, of course, we are all “ditto-heads.” Please get us your plans as soon as possible, because we have a lot of work to do. 

Sincerely,

The Republican Party