Epic fail

By Carl

Often, I hear the accusation from right wingers who visit my humble little blog that I use a quotation from a fictitious character at the top of the page to defend my liberalism. It goes like this:

Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things... every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

True. It was a line of dialogue from a character, Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits), on The West Wing.

Quoting a fictitious character has one great advantage, however. I don't have to defend his life to anyone:

The conventional strategy in such cases is for the administration in power to avoid talking about a mere radio critic. That would elevate him to the level of the president.

Which, it turns out, is exactly what the Obama team wants.

On Sunday's "Face the Nation," Rahm Emanuel was more than happy to build up Rush: "He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party, and he has been up front about what he views, and hasn't stepped back from that, which is he hopes for failure. He said it, and I compliment him on his honesty. But that's their philosophy that's enunciated by Rush Limbaugh and I think that's the wrong philosophy for America."

Rush has this coming, to be sure. He has spent the past thirty years deconstructing, even destroying, good politicians and policies not for the greater good of the nation, but for the greater good of Rush Limbaugh's wallet.

And called himself a "comedian" to boot. Remember, nothing he says should be taken seriously, yet it almost always is by the ignorant rabble that infest this great nation.

I made an observation on another blog yesterday that stupid and evil share a symbiotic relationship. There are sweet spots in this symbiotic relationship which can be and are exploited.

"Wingnut welfare" it's been called: the inability of a certain class of people to get and hold productive jobs has created a class of people whose only job is to mock and tear the rest of us who actually DO produce things of value down.

What do these untermenschen want? To quote Lance Mannion:

They need an alternative history in which being angry, selfish, resentful, greedy, and defensive of nothing but their own right to be angry, selfish, resentful, and greedy is the definition of patriotism and in which instead of standing in the way of progress it's the way to bring it about.

Hear, hear!

The grunt work for this newspeak is done not by the people who most loudly advocate for it, no no! That would be heroic, but it would also mean taking a public stance which would immediately erode their influence!

Instead, the grunt work is done by the commoners, even if those commoners hold fairly respectable positions like Member of Congress, Senator, or even Party Chair. It is they who have to defend him, defend his statements and comments, and ultimately defend his life for him.

These watercarriers genuflect at the altar of the Pronouncers merely because the Pronouncers have a microphone and a network of some sort. Limbaugh has 13.5 million listeners in a single week.

That's not many in a land of 310 million, to be sure, but in a Republican Party that has seen its base contract from roughly parity with the Democratic Party to being ten percent behind the Democrats after eight years of Bush.

In other words, if I'm Michael Steele, I'm not apologizing, I'm sending Limbaugh packing! But 13.5 million people in a party of less than 28 million, he can't do that easily, without destroying the party itself.

It's hard to believe that less than eight years ago, Karl Rove was talking about a permanent Republican majority.

By putting Limbaugh front and center in the line of fire, Emanuel is doing what a draft board could not do: making Rush pick up a gun and defend himself.

We know from Limbaugh's history that he cannot do this, face to face. Remember the time he was to host the Pat Sajak show in 1990, and when confronted by hecklers for ACT UP, they emptied the studio out and a visibly shaken Rush was forced to kowtow to his guests?

And the clue that he has been married and divorced three times tells us that strength in the face of his rageaholism, ultimately, beats him down, that he would rather fail and give up than fight for something, anything, worth having.

Unless he's going to admit that the women he's "loved" are disposable.

Bring the sad, sadistic little clown out of hiding, and take away his microphone and his little studio, with the thick walls and the lonely little sound board. Put him in front of people and make him answer for his hatred and his terrorism.

It's like popping a big fat pus-filled angry inflamed zit: it will hurt to do, but once it's done, you can bandage up and move on.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)