Talked yesterday with an old friend who called, drunk, asking for help. David Yachimowicz once was Rush Limbaugh's biggest fan. Asked him if he still listened to the man. He said no -- but that's because he no longer has a radio. He's living on disability, at a Salvation Army.
A small detail, but it fits. Limbaugh is the king of modern-day denial, and his rise to the role of thought leader of the GOP has be very bad news for the Republican Party. Smart voices on the right, such as David Frum, Daniel Larison, and Rod Dreher are attacking Limbaugh, and now lefties too are getting their licks in. For Obama and the hard-working Democrats, Limbaugh is looking like an enormous gift...
Here's Timothy Egan, a tough-minded columnist for The New York Times, on the Fears of a Clown:
For Democrats, this is all going to plan. It was James Carville and associates who first cooked up associating Limbaugh with the opposition, as Politico reported. Then on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Limbaugh was the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Limbaugh played his role, ever the fool. A brave Republican could have challenged him, could have had a “have you no shame” moment with him, giving the party some other identity, some spine. Instead, they caved — from Steele, to the leaders in the House, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence, to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who would be ridiculed by Limbaugh for his real first name, Piyush, were he a Democrat.
You could almost hear their teeth clattering in fear of the all-powerful talk radio wacko, the denier of global warming, the man who said Bill Clinton’s economic policies would fail just before an unprecedented run of prosperity.
