The only thing really "controversial" in Rush's monologue is the belief that liberalism is a bad thing, which is something that every real conservative ought to believe. And Limbaugh, as he made clear from the outset, was
to a "major American print publication" which was "asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency."
The fact that Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" was a response to such an insipid inquiry -- this newspaper was actually framing their inaugural commentary in terms of "Hope,"
-- has received too little attention. One of the basic tactics of the Ransom-Note Method is to separate the stimulus from the response in this manner. In other words, someone sees or hears something outrageous, says or writes something outrageous in response, and the smear merchants then
the response, so that it is presented without adequate reference to whatever stimulus produced it.
BTW, sometimes conservatives are guilty of using the same technique, turning a 15-second audio clip into an hour's worth of a talk-radio denunciation. Unfair rhetorical methods are unfair rhetorical methods, whoever employs them. (Where I come from, I never heard of a "fair fight.") But the way the Left uses this tactic is
. What makes the Ransom-Note Method so lethally effective? Three things:
You see this "punk factor" in the GOP all the time, but never so much as when unfair charges are leveled against a prominent conservative fighter like Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. A cowardly punk never admires or strives to emulate success, but always envies and resents it. The punk's habitual
modus operandi is to encourage others to join his efforts to undermine the prestige and authority of successful leadership. The punk assembles a coalition of losers, an army of naysayers who sit around griping and grumbling about everything, telling each other how unfairly they've been treated, and blaming all their woes on the successful people.
Opportunities for OpportunistsSuccess is attractive. But any successful effort also attracts cowardly punks, who desire to benefit parasitically from the vision and hard work of others. And so during what we might call The Golden Age of Conservatism -- the 25 years from Reagan's 1981 inauguration to the GOP debacle of the 2006 election -- the conservative movement attracted a lot of shrewd self-interested people who saw the "conservative" label as a vehicle for their own personal ambition. Hello,
David Brooks.
American Spectator publisher Al Regnery was born and raised in the conservative movement and worked in the Reagan administration. His father, Henry Regnery, published many of the classic works of conservatism, including William F. Buckley Jr.'s
God and Man at Yale. Last spring, I interviewed Regnery about his book
Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism. I asked Regnery for his thoughts on how the movement had seemed to lose its way in recent years, and his reply was memorable:
"You look back in the earlier times, there were no opportunities, so there were no opportunists," Regnery says, noting how liberals heaped abusive epithets on Buckley, Goldwater, and other early conservative leaders. "Later on, you have all these people who figure it's probably a pretty good political thing to do. And so they start talking about being conservative when they're running [for office], but they really aren't. So when they get to Congress or wherever they go, they're pretty easily dissuaded."
Regnery was speaking specifically about Republican politicians, but what he said could be applied with equal truth to "conservative" intellectuals like David Brooks -- parasites who latched onto The Movement for the opportunities it offered, rather than from any courageous conviction of the need to stand athwart history and yell, "Stop!"
The Crapweasel CoalitionWhen the chips are down, when the GOP is hurting from electoral disaster, when the conservative movement is discordant and demoralized, nothing helpful or constructive can be expected from the David Brookses, the parasitical opportunists, the pathetic fleas who ride on the elephant's ass.
Brooks revealed himself as a worthless punk with his "
National Greatness" nonsense in 1997, which ought to have resulted in his immediate disfellowship as a heretic to the faith. Yet because he was deemed useful to the ambitions of others -- having kissed all the right asses in his sycophantic ascent -- Brooks was allowed to remain in the congregation, sowing discontent and promoting heresy among fellow congregants, which brought him to the attention of the
New York Times.Here's a clue for the youngsters: If the
New York Times ever offers to publish you, you're doing something wrong.
It is cowardly punks like David Brooks, and all their sorry crapweasel imitators, who make the Ransom Note Method such an effective weapon for liberals. What has become known as "the 11th Commandment" --
Thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow Republican -- is usually, and wrongly, attributed to Ronald Reagan, and it is also widely misunderstood.
The 11th Commandment was actually coined by
California state Republican Party chairman Gaylord Parkinson during the 1966 GOP gubernatorial primary. Parkinson had seen how, during the fight for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, the milquetoast moderate opponents of Barry Goldwater had done the Democrats' dirty work for them, by labeling Goldwater a radical warmongering demagogue. Thus, once Goldwater won the nomination, all LBJ's henchmen had to do was to repeat the accusation: "Barry Goldwater is a paranoid wacko extremist -- as even his fellow Republicans agree!"
David Brooks is not a candidate for public office and is therefore not covered by the 11th Commandment. Thus to denounce him is no sin and, as a neutral objective professional journalist, my first obligation is to the write The Truth:
David Brooks is a crapweasel.
Furthermore, the next time some genuine conservative who's trying to accomplish something useful says something subject to misinterpretation and thus finds himself under attack by the Ransom Note Method, I will invoke what I call the 12th Commandment:
Thou shalt have no mercy on a crapweasel.
Don't say you weren't warned, punks.
UPDATE: "Read the whole thing," says Kathy Shaidle, and aren't you glad you did? Think about it: Would any wise man risk The Wrath of Kathy by disobeying her?
UPDATE II: Another woman whose righteous wrathfulness reminds me of my wife,
Monique Stuart advises, "It’s well worth a thorough read!"
UPDATE III: "
If you don't read it, my Irish wife will hunt you down and kill you."
UPDATE IV: "The Other McCain once again
enlightens on the nuts-and-bolts of the manipulation of thought through the manipulation of language."
UPDATE V: Dad29 praises "this perceptive observation."UPDATE VI: James Fulford links and comments.
UPDATE VII: WELCOME, INSTAPUNDIT READERS! Please leave a comment, buy a book, check out
Britney Spears, or
watch this inspirational video.
UPDATE VIII: Now a
Memeorandum thread (
Rule 3), we're linked by Pat at
So It Goes In Shreveport and Chris at
Point of a Gun. Meanwhile,
No Sheeples Here came up with this artwork:
UPDATE IX: Speaking of artwork,
Lady Godiva invokes Commandment XII, even if she's a little confused as to the Seventh Day.
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