Monday, January 26, 2009

Rush goes upside Obama's head

(BUMPED; UPDATES BELOW) You've got to pick your fights, and Obama's choice Friday to pick a fight with Rush Limbaugh was stupid beyond words. Never mind that Rush has a radio audience of 20 million, the dude is also not a bad writer:
If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.
Expect to see Rush on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal sometime this coming week. That's the most predictable venue for Limbaugh to respond in, and then the media will pick that up and start asking Obama questions about it, so who's distracting who?

In other words, by picking this fight, Obama is getting himself into a quagmire, giving publicity to the one person who knows best how to turn that publicity into an issue-focused argument highlighting the flaws of Obama's economic plan which, as Rush says, "anyone with a brain knows" won't work.

UPDATE: Linked by Five Feet of Fury.

UPDATE II: Linked by Ed Driscoll, who expects "fireworks" when Rush goes on the air Monday.

UPDATE III: Linked by Melissa Clouthier, who says:
Can you imagine GW calling out Keith Olbermann? Keith Olbermann is beneath President Bush and beneath being addressed. It would make Bush look small to even acknowledge Olbermann's loony ravings. Ostensibly, President Barack Obama . . . takes Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh's ideas personally. Is it ego? Is it that he simply cannot imagine that any thinking person wouldn't agree with his magnificence?
Whatever it is, it's decidedly unpresidential and is an ill omen for Obama's administration. A roster of presidents who were obsessed with their media critics -- Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Carter -- is not exactly a list of White House all-stars.

UPDATE IV: Leonard Pitts calls Limbaugh "disloyal." Remember how the Code Pinkos disrupted State of the Union speeches and congressional hearings and if you dared to condemn them, you were stifling dissent? All Rush did was offer to his opinion, on his own commercially syndicated program, and he's "disloyal." Maybe if Rush were to bomb the Pentagon . . .?

UPDATE V: Jay Homnick at The American Spectator:
Surely the Arlen Specters and the John McCains and the Lindsey Grahams would not like to be seen as Dittoheads. They can only prove their vaunted sophistication, their acclaimed moderation, their lauded toleration, by becoming the useful idiots of the Obama juggernaut.
These idiots are "useful" only to Democrats.

18 comments:

  1. Didn't Obama learn anything from Bill Clinton's disastrous attempt to pin the Oklahoma City bombing mess on Rush Limbaugh type listeners? Turned out the First Responders at the Oklahoma City site weren't too happy about it -- most of them were Rush Limbaugh listeners.

    Nothing like proving Bill Buckley's point about being ruled by the first 500 names in the Boston phone directory than the faculty at Harvard.

    It takes an expensive Ivy League education to pull something that stupid. Or, in modern parlance:

    "What would Tony Rezko do?"

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  2. Love the LOLrush.

    I'm expecting the Democrats to revive the crime of lèse majesté at any moment.

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  3. I have been re-visiting National Review's blog, The Corner, since Friday, when Obama made his inappropriate and childish comment about listening to Rush. There has been nothing written. How many writers contribute to that site.... and they all have no comment at all? None have anything to write about it??? No thought at all? None???

    Then Rush responds to Bryron York, of National Review, and Byron then posts Rush's response on NRO. Still.... nothing at all from ANY of the other writers. No comments, no response at all, NOTHING!

    Why?

    Most blogs have commented one way or the other about this, and commenters are all stating how they can't wait for Monday morning to get here so that they can listen to Rush's show. But the one blog that actually gets the response from Rush doesn't have any opinion whatsoever and can't seem to find the time to comment on the subject matter?

    I used to love National Review. Now, it has lost its way and with the exception of a handful of it's contributors, I just don't have the stomach to read through their beltway-focused words and spineless, gutless arguments for softly selling out their conservative principles. Is their relevancy in the DC-Manhattan Beltway more important than their conservative principles now?

    If National Review wants to make a left turn and do whatever they need to do to "support this President and give him a chance", then so be it. It is their product and they can do with it as they please. But, I would only ask, in return, that they have the decency and respect, for those of us who truly are conservative and who don't sell out our principles so that we will be liked by the other side, to stop referring to their blog and publication as conservative. Truth be told, it is right-of-center, it is "moderate Republican", but it is not conservative! Words mean something!

    Keep up the very good work, Robert. You, and other true conservative writers, will help to preserve conservative values and will ensure that they are not squashed completely from the political landscape by the left, not the "go along to get along, give him a chance" folks like those at National Review.

    In this election, what I found most disturbing was not the actions of the left, but the actions of the so-called right. What happened to their spines?

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  4. WTF, at least El Rushbo is constitutionally qualified to be President!

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  5. Your absolutely correct. Calling out Rush makes as much sense as sticking your hand in a bee hive.
    Your gonna be stung! Often & repeatedly.
    Just in case, you had better bring some medication along for the deed ,least the stings have a allergic reaction. Obama being a narcissist with messianic tendencies, would think himself above all political injury. Also relying on his bedfellows in the media for backup, thinking its safe to go after Rush. Since they mock him.
    Yup Jimmy Carter on speed. The more fool Obama.
    JMO

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  6. Rush Limbaugh was born in 1951 to an American mom “Millie” and an American dad lawyer & WWII Fighter Pilot in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Since ‘President’ Obama now wants to silence El Rushbo even before BHO has a chance to try to re-establish the “fairness doctrine” to silence all conservative talk radio, I’ve got three questions (but answers to only two of them):

    FIRST QUESTION: Who IS the actual and lawful 44th President of the USA?

    ANSWER: Joe Biden

    Biden was initially the Acting President for at least 5 minutes under either the Constitution’s Article 2 or the Constitution’s 20th Amendment, from 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, having already taken his Oath of Office and before Obama completed his ‘oath’ at approximately 12:05 PM, 1/20/09. Under the 20th Amendment if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, or alternatively under Article 2 if the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term, being 12:00 Noon 1/20/09, which ability and/or qualification includes that he take the Article 2 oath “before he enter on the execution of his office,” then either the Presidency shall devolve on the Vice President under Article 2 or the Vice President shall act as President under the 20th Amendment. (The importance of the oath in ‘commencing’ an ‘Obama Presidency’ — rather than merely the 1/20/09 Noon time — is confirmed by the re-take of the ‘oath’ by Obama at the White House on 1/21/09 after the first ‘oath’ was NOT administered by Justice Roberts NOR recited by Obama in the words as required under Article 2.)

    This is significant because at such time that the Supreme Court finally rules on the merits on Obama’s disqualification as not being an Article 2 “natural born citizen” (clearly he is NOT under either and/or both of two theories — (1) BHO refuses to show Birth Certificate to deny Kenyan birth/res ipsa loquitur “action speaks for itself” or (2) BHO admits dad was Kenyan/British, not American, citizen at Jr’s birth), Biden’s automatic status (without needing to take a separate Presidential Oath) of being President would be predicated upon four different bases: First, having been Vice President under Article 2; second, having been Vice President-elect under the 20th Amendment; third, having been actual President in the hiatus before Obama took the ‘oath(s)’; and fourth, retroactively deemed President during the full period of the Obama usurpation so that the acts of the Federal Government under the usurpation can be deemed authorized and/or ratified by Biden’s legitimacy.

    SECOND QUESTION: Who will be the 45th President?

    ANSWER: Hillary Clinton

    One must assume that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been aware of all of the above. Biden’s wife recently “let the cat out of the bag” on the Oprah Show that both Biden and Hillary had considered alternatively Veep or Secretary of State, in either case, setting up Hillary to be President on a vote of the Democratic Congress if need be.

    THIRD QUESTION: Is Obama an unwitting victim of this troika or a knowing participant?

    ANSWER: Yet undetermined.

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  7. As Dr. Clouthier suggested. He is unable to believe that any thinking person would ever disagree with him in the absence of some malign influence. A lot of liberals have this problem. They are unable to understand how conservatives think. Seriously, they aren't faking it. They simply cannot follow the thought processes. So they blame Limbaugh or Fox News or develop fanciful conspiracy theories.

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  8. For a though experiment, consider Pres. Bush having blown Kieth Olberman a kiss: would Olby's head have exploded?

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  9. Jon Stewart played the clip of Rush's interview with Hannity, out of context of course, and referred to it as 'arguably treasonous.' That wasn't even the punchline, just your run-of-the-mill political characterization as brought to you by comedy central, the one network whose political coverage won't make you laugh.

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  10. HA! What a laugh! The notion that Obama should have been more discreet in his calling out of that fraud Limbaugh. As if Obama should be scared? Of what?

    For all the bluster about how foolish it was for BO, the only thing that will come out of this is that Rush will try to capitalize on this by selling more cheap trinkets and cheesy cornball t-shirts or father's day coffee mugs.The idea that Rush will somehow frame the debate with an op-ed article is only playing into the hands of The One...
    After all, as far as most Americans are concerned, any party beholden to a talk show host( and a pasty, fat, load like Rush at that!) is a joke.
    I repeat: Any party beholden to talk show hosts is a JOKE.
    This becoming a major story is good for BO and the Democrats.Rush is the poster boy for the irrelevancy of Conservatism....

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  11. @Y4E:
    You might have missed the bottom of the NRO link:

    One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:

    "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."



    Olberman was less than toe jam to Bush.
    In tipping his hand this early, Obama has kind of blown it. Obama either pretends like Rush does not exist (the wiser route) or risks a 1st Amendment Vietnam for his presidency.
    Admittedly, there are copious nitwits in this country who'd believe an attempt to scapegoat a right-wing talking head for whatever goes wrong: but are those nitwits sufficient to carry a re-election?
    Hardly think so.

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  12. "In tipping his hand this early, Obama has kind of blown it. Obama either pretends like Rush does not exist (the wiser route) or risks a 1st Amendment Vietnam for his presidency."

    I think my next vacation I'm going to the la-la land of wishful thinking( without the Obama Derangement Syndrome) that you guys live in. I'm thinking about riding in on a high horse with Reagan, John Wayne and Jack Bauer.
    Ah, ignorance IS bliss.....

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  13. @Y4E:
    Yeah, guys like Washington, Lincoln, Reagan and Wayne touch the foundational ethos of the country.
    You really need to prefer John Lennon to John Wayne, so your utopian "Imagine" can comfort you.
    Those with a clue will support and defend your Constitutional right to wrongheadedness.

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  14. Oh smitty!
    Were you wearing your flag pin when you wrote that?
    Or was it stuck to the side of your head?
    John Wayne touched the foundational ethos of this country? You realize he was just playing make-believe in all those movies he was in. And why did you put
    two Hollywood actors on that list?
    But the bigger question is why are Cons still engaged in a 1950's dialogue with themselves, full of 1950's rhetoric?
    John Lennon?
    Seriously, you need to get out and get up to speed with the 21st century...
    BTW, John Wayne's suicide touched on the American ethos. That guy was a bloated coward. Some hero....

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  15. Oh Y4E!
    Here, have a go at Evan Sayet deconstructing just how out-of-speed the amphetamine burnout ideas of the left really are.
    While John Wayne himself was certainly mortal and fallable, the classical archetype he played remains vital, and shall long outlive the degenerate swill posing as 21st Century wisdom.

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  16. Oh Y4E, continued!
    I wouldn't bother your lotophagian bliss any further except to point out a fresh, theraputic post over on Big Hollywood.
    If the shoe fits, burn it, and someday, you'll thank me.

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  17. "The debate about what is “art” or “not art” is better left to another article but I believe one of the biggest factors in determining what is “not art” is how narcissistic the work in question is."

    Smity, if you insist on citing this kind of bunk in defense of your John Wayne paradigm, then I am going to have to take you less seriously than I already do.
    The quote from the Big Hollywood post is a shining example of a group of people having no business talking about something they know nothing about.
    I base this on the fact that Conservatives are incapable of making art of any kind. Art is always free of ideological dogma and moral platitudes.
    ...
    My point is that Big Hollywoods self-gratifying, long-winded pontification on what is and isn't art is as funny as reading an essay by Mussolini on the merits of the free market.

    Give me your list of top 5 Conservative "artists".
    Let's see if I haven't poked several holes through
    Endre Balogh's transparent yet sad and ill-informed attempt at "bullshitting a bullshitter"...

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