With the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Diego Union-Tribune both filing for bankruptcy, I’ve begun to fear for the life of California’s sole remaining big city paper, the Los Angeles Times. Mostly because, since they continue to publish Jonah Goldberg, death with dignity isn’t really an option.
Here we go again. Rush Limbaugh is public enemy No. 1.
Ever since he pushed that grapefruit into Michelle Malkin’s face.
Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh’s statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails.
Speaking as someone who has read Jonah’s unedited fanboy emissions on The Corner, I would urge — no, beg — him to avoid the “*-strokers” construction.
Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too.
I hear that Limbaugh was so touched by Jonah’s support that he declared they were now BFFs 4evah, and invited him to join Rush’s Brotherhood of the Traveling Sweatpants.
Of course I want the financial crisis to end — who doesn’t? But Obama’s agenda is much more audacious. Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state.
By “every major news outlet,” Jonah means “a thing I stole from Charles Krauthammer,” and “a crazy guy at Human Events who still hates Roosevelt.”
And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort?
Only if you think “shock” and “disgust” are synonyms.
What movie have they been watching? Because I could swear that conservatives opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do.
Well, it’s what conservatives say…
It’s Aesopian. The scorpion must sting the frog. The conservative must object to socialized medicine.
Jonah will now perform the touching ballad, “Corner of the Sky,” from Pippin. (”Rivers belong where they can ramble/Eagles belong where they can fly…”) And while the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog probably isn’t by Aesop, the fact that Jonah correctly identified the story’s dramatis personae proves that he’s even more cerebral than Selwyn Duke.
Besides, since when did hoping for the failure of ideological agendas you disagree with become unpatriotic?
The America First committee hoped Lend-Lease would fail, and you could hardly call them unpatriotic. Even their name says Merry Christmas.
Liberals were hardly treasonous when they hoped for the failure of George W. Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme.
And there’s no moral difference between trying to prevent Bush from destroying the safety net of Social Security, and hoping the entire U.S. financial system collapses so you can crawl out from the rubble and chant, “neener, neener.”
Regardless, the war on Limbaugh from the left is a tired rehash. In 1995, Bill Clinton tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush. In 2002, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democratic opposition, claimed that Limbaugh’s listeners weren’t “satisfied just to listen.” They were a violent threat to decent public servants like him.
Geez. You tell your listeners some guy is “the devil,” then somebody happens to mail him an envelope full of weaponized anthrax, and suddenly, you’re the bad guy?
Does anyone think that Republicans, absent fear of Limbaugh’s lash, would be throwing flower petals at Obama’s feet as he sells the Great Society II? If that’s true, I say thank goodness for Limbaugh’s lash.
BZZZT! I’m sorry Jonah, but you just set off the Too Much Information alarm.
Just because the Democrats’ shtick is old and often dishonest doesn’t mean it’s tactically dumb. Limbaugh and other right-wing talkers are popular with a third of the country. Fairly or not, they turn off moderates and self-described independents (and, for the left, conservative talk radio is the font of all evil). Most politicians would prefer to have 70% of the public on their side at the cost of losing 30%, even if that requires being less than fair to the 30%.
When will America finally treat its Dittoheads with the respect they’ve earned?
…I do have a suggestion that would help on both fronts. Bring back “Firing Line.” William F. Buckley Jr., who died almost exactly a year ago, hosted the program for PBS for 33 years. He performed an incalculable service at a time when conservatives were more associated with yahoos than they are today. He demonstrated that intellectual fluency and good manners weren’t uniquely liberal qualities. More important, the “Firing Line” debates (models of decorum) demonstrated that conservatives were unafraid to examine their own assumptions or to battle liberal ones.
But Jonah, who could we possibly find to host it?
Hey…
Wait a minute…! Why, without your glasses and face-mullet, you’re…you’re beautiful…!