Another Coffin Nail – Boss Limbaugh

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

As with so many of the Presidents tactical actions there is more than meets the eye with this whole Boss Limbaugh (one of Mr. Oblermann’s best name coining’s to date)  imbroglio. There are those on the left that  are still suffering from eight years of Republican induced PTSD that are worried that we are elevating Boss Limbaugh to levels that will cause us trouble. They say, “Don’t feed the troll! Ignoring him is the best way.” Or “We have more important things to focus on”. The problem with this view is that they are ignoring the political situation and the gains that the Democratic agenda can make through tacitly encouraging this to continue.  

First off, none of this would have been able to happen if there were not a major structural problem with in the Republican Party. They have really been leaderless for more than a year. Sen. McCain was not elected to be their nominee by acclimation, drawing their Party into a cohesive whole. In fact it was just the opposite, he was for all intents and purposes out of the race for the nomination. It was only the fact that other, supposedly better, Republicans seemed to fail the test one after the other that revitalized his chances. St. Rudy of 9/11 could not get enough money together to get in soon enough. Gov. Romeny suffered from the nearly unforgivable sin of being a Massachusetts Governor, not to mention his late conversion to the orthodoxy on guns and gay citizens not being allowed to have full rights. Gov. Huckabee was not willing to kiss Focus on the Family founders (sorry for the alliteration) ass to get to be the anointed one, so he was out.

In the end, even Sen. McCain as the last man standing had to bend his principles to get the grudging acceptance of the party base. This is not leadership; this is a massive game of “Farmer in the Dell” where the Cheese stands alone. It also set a pattern where the Republican base came to expect the leaders to cow tow to their will, and any transgression or disagreement had to be redressed with a public acknowledgement of fault by the leader.  They made an art of making any leader that did not toe the line, that would say that they were going the wrong way publically change to adhere to the orthodoxy.

Now we get to Boss Limbaugh and his nihilistic construction that while he wants the United States to succeed, he wants the policies of the man and the Party that now controls this nation’s government to fail. Not being one to look to closely at any position that might in some way serve to elevate his listenership, Boss Limbaugh refuses to this day to understand that one can not succeed without the success of the other. The political team in the White House knew that they had a gold mine on their hands once they saw the first Representative having to grovel and apologize to the bloated Boss Limbaugh.

In the days since the CPAC convention the main story on nearly all political news programs has been obsessed with the question if Boss Limbaugh is the real leader of the Republican Party. He is has forced an apology from RNC Chairman Michael Steele, weakening the man that was supposed to revitalize the Republican Party, his antics have every Republican Senator and Representative being asked if they do or do not support Rush and his “Obama should fail” statement.

All of this allows the Democrats to keep moving forward with their agenda with a complete lack of organized resistance from the Republicans. It is not that they are not still on cable news shows; it is just that no one wants to hear anything from them except about Boss Limbaugh. As much as Pat Buchannan shouts and bloviates about the policies of the Obama Administration, it all has to be tied back to the question of who leads the Republican Party. The clear answer is that no one does.

This is the best part of this tactic of elevating one of the most inflexible and die-hard movement conservatives in the nation. It not only reminds soft Dems and Independents why they voted for and should continue to vote for Democratic candidates, it freezes the Republican Party. After two crushing defeats in a row, where literally tens of Senator and House seats have changed hands, any Party must assess where it is and why the voters repudiated them if they are to maintain any relevance.

We were starting to see little glimmers of this, as some in the Republican Party (though not those in power) started to acknowledge that what they were doing was not working and began, in a small way, to grope towards ideas that might allow them to build a new foundation of their Party to return to, if not prominence, at least some kind of parity with the Democrats. Now they can not do so without crossing the man, that though he holds not position in the party structure nor office in the nation, is the defacto leader. Any Republican who would make a common sense effort to change policy direction on issues from the economy to immigration is going to find him or herself compared to Boss Limbaugh’s positions and be found wanted by the legions of ditto heads that will blindly follow him.

There have been many nails in the Republican coffin, and it always seems to the Dog that each is the final, but it seems our President and his political team have hammered a spike into it that may once, finally and perhaps for a very long time to come, have sealed the corpse of the Republican Conservatism into an uneasy grave. So, we should not do anything to keep the Republicans and Boss Limbaugh from doing grave and heinous damage to their ability to sway public in this internal fight. While the Dog values the loyal opposition, none in this group would ever have actually qualified for that critical job. When your opponents are shooting themselves in the foot (chest and face) you should do nothing but stay out of the way. Well, maybe hand them some ammo to reload, but that is all.

This is how the Dog sees this, what is your view?

The floor is yours.