I know, I know, how many times can you write "The Republicans got it wrong again" before people's eyes glaze over. Still, a column by movement conservative star Ramesh Ponnuru deserves some little notice even if it's just for entertainment value. Fr'instance, did you know that the Limbo controversy was created by the Democrats? Specifically, Rahm and Bob Gibbs? Ramesh does.
Obama aides Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs knew what they were doing when they declared Rush Limbaugh the leader of the Republican opposition. They were putting Republican politicians in a trap. Repudiating Limbaugh would mean alienating millions of conservatives and declaring Limbaugh's plainspoken conservatism - which many of those politicians share - outside the lines of the national debate. But neither could Republicans allow the insinuation that they take orders from a radio host stand. If voters got that impression, they would look weak. Worse, the polls show more people dislike Limbaugh than like him.
Fortunately, Ramesh explains, those wily Republicans were able to "escape" the Democratic "trap" by "saying that the White House was talking about Limbaugh in order to avoid talking about Obama's failure to come up with a financial-rescue plan." Genius!
Except, of course, that none of that is true.
Let's see, that's him, Sarah Palin, and a 14-yr-old kid who wrote a book about the wonderfulness of conservative values and honor because only a 14-yr-old could be naive enough to believe they have any. (I'm waiting for the book that kid writes when he's a disillusioned 24-yr-old pissed off because he just found out Rush Limbaugh lied to him.)
But my real interest in this incoherent defense of the indefensible (not that Ponnuru is ever anything but incoherent) lies in the level of confusion within GOP ranks about what's going on here. Ramesh speaks for a lot of conservatives when he splits them into two warring groups, and get the names here: the "traditionalists" and the "reformers".
In one camp are those who believe that the Republican party must modernize its message to account for changing circumstances. The columnist David Brooks has called these people the "reformers." Against them are the "traditionalists," who believe that Republicans need only recommit themselves to Ronald Reagan's agenda to succeed again.
The traditionalists push for upper-income tax cuts. The reformers want to cut the payroll taxes paid by the middle class. Traditionalists often deny that global warming is real. Reformers just want to make sure that our answer to it is cost-effective. The traditionalists want to hold the line on government spending. The reformers think that it's more important for Republicans to advocate market-friendly solutions to problems such as rising health-care costs and traffic congestion.
As usual, the terms are Orwellian - the reverse of factual. "Traditional" would be the "reform" position pre-Reagan (sort of) and the "traditional" positions are really "extremist" positions developed in the last 15 years by radcons like Newt Gingrich, David Addison, Dick Cheney, and James Inhofe.
IOW, they can't even tell the truth when they're talking to each other. No wonder they're all mixed up.
In movement conservative circles, Reagan is now the "traditional" figure. The whackos out on the fringe of Whack City are now the center, the heart, the soul (if one can use such a word when discussing cold-blooded, lizard-brained Righties) of the True Republican Party. The Establishment. And, as Ponnuru patiently explains, anybody who takes on Rush is going to alienate The Establishment, which is against everything good conservatives believe, right?
It is not a smart battle for the reformers to fight. Most of their differences of opinion with Limbaugh do not really rise to the level of principle. (Whether global warming is happening and what risks it poses are empirical questions, not ideological ones.) Moreover, the vast majority of conservative voters agree with Limbaugh, not the reformers, on most of these questions. If Limbaugh were to disappear tomorrow - which, by the way, he is not going to do - most conservatives would still put upper-income tax cuts at the top of their agenda. It's not as though they believe what they believe because Limbaugh told them to.
It would be destructive for the traditionalists to attempt to purge the reformers, who have some good ideas. But for the reformers to attempt to purge the traditionalists, who outnumber them, is just plain batty. If the reformers succeed, it will be by persuading traditionalists such as Limbaugh, not bulldozing over them.
You can't take anything a propagandist like Ponnuru says without checking it but if the Limbo crowd - which numbers a few million at best - truly outnumbers the "reformers", the GOP is on a self-destruct course of magnificent proportions.
OTOH, that's hard to believe. Whackos breed like rabbits in the good ole US of A, but the vast majority still inhabit the central sections, not the fringes where Ponnuru and Co live, if you can call what they do "living". If the "reformers" were allowed to get a toe-hold in the party, they could actually do some damage. But Ramesh's message to them is a clear "Forget it. It ain't happening."
Which is the best of all possible news for both the country and the Left. Limbo's influence (and even Ramesh admits it) is waning because the hate-filled, arrogant message he specializes in has become exceedingly unattractive now that the entire country is suffering from the results of taking it seriously. Limbo as the face of Republicanism is a death knell. He and his message are both ugly, elitist, and snide.
Besides, Limbaugh plays a valuable role within conservatism. His show, like Fox News, is not as high-flown as conservative intellectual journals such as The New Criterion and First Things. But those publications have small circulations. Their influence is long-term and indirect. Conservatism needs mass media, too, to affect day-to-day politics: to jam phone lines; to pull the national conversation rightward. It needs Limbaugh and the many like-minded talkers elsewhere on the airwaves. Doubtless they could do their jobs better, as could the conservative writers who scorn them. But if Limbaugh did not exist, conservatives would have to invent him. And it would be hard to do - as liberals have found when they have tried and failed to come up with their own successful radio shows.
Talk radio is the only medium that conservatives dominate in America. Is it really shrewd for conservatives to begin their political exile by attacking the leading figure in that world? To ask is to answer.
(emphasis added)
Clearly the bolded message is totally false and everyone whose has passed the stage of sticking their tongue out to express displeasure is aware of it, but lizard conservatives really believe it. One can only hope that Ponnuru's position will become the dominant one in the GOP because it will take them out of the playing field for another 80 years.
Yahoo.
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