“I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation.”–Rush Limbaugh
“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.”–Some guy

Rush Limbaugh is conducting the most successful Guerrilla Theater By a Conservative since Ronald Reagan appeared in cinemas nationwide with Bonzo the Chimp. Al Sharpton has even denounced the gorilla as racist.

Scrappleface:

2009-03-05) — President Barack Obama has reportedly written another private note to his Russian counterpart offering to halt deployment of a defensive nuclear missile shield in Europe, this time in exchange for Russia’s help in dealing with U.S. talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh. …

Dealing with Mr. Limbaugh has taken the Obama administration’s focus off of other global trouble spots like North Korea, Iran and Chicago.

Every time Obama announces a new trillion-dollar program, he says he’ll pay for it with tax increases on the rich. That money has been promised about ten or twelve times already. The East European Missile Shield will be the same way. For example, if he wants mosquitos in Africa to stop biting people, he’ll offer not to deploy the Shield if they’ll stop biting. The point is, he wants to get rid of it. He’s Reagan in Reverse: “Strength is Provocative”, not “Peace through Strength”.

Patterico:

I hope Rush Limbaugh fails in his attempt to set himself up as the de facto head of the conservative movement.
It’s good for him personally. I get that. And I love hearing the guy hold forth. I wish him all the success in the world for his radio program.
But some of the things he says are designed principally to stir controversy and draw attention to himself. Like saying he hopes Obama fails. Rush knows his comments will elevate his profile and make him seem more important.
I know: when he says he hopes Obama fails, he doesn’t mean he wants to see Americans suffer. He just doesn’t want liberal policies enacted because he thinks they’re bad for the country. I get it. I agree with that.
But, you know, that’s nuance.
The problem is, Americans have short attention spans and don’t always do nuance well.

Democrats tried to manufacture America’s Defeat in Iraq order to Get Bush!. If voters can swallow that, then they can process this, too.

Goldstein:

“Better that Patterico fails, I think”

Patterico (and Allah) are not only conceding the linguistic ground to the left, they are now actually helping perpetuate what, at least on Patterico’s part, he knows to be a lie** — an out of context quote whose real meaning he admits to understanding, but whose complexities will be lost on those of, well… let’s just say lesser intellectual stock — in order to avoid confusing people who can’t be bothered to get the actual context correct, or who aren’t at all interested in getting it right. All so these folks might find it more difficult to despise the right for the way the left has decided to portray it.
Is that about the gist of it? — that it’s just too damn difficult to demand that what we mean be presented honestly, and so rather than fight that kind of complicated battle, it’s best just to learn to self-edit in a way that placates those who don’t do nuance well — while simultaneously castigating those willing to do the work of fighting the difficult battles?
My. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations…
I fear if this is the counsel conservatives take, the game is already lost.

Allahpundit:

Why the fixation on Rush as a “private citizen”? The idea, I take it, is that Obama’s bringing the enormous power of the presidency to bear on a poor, defenseless Joe Public, but Limbaugh’s anything but defenseless (as today’s debate challenge proves) and considerably more powerful, I think we’d all agree, than the average congressman who would be considered fair game as a public official. If the White House had picked him out of a phone book or was rooting around in his trash, that’d be an egregious breach of privacy, but he’s one of the most powerful people in American media, with a following in the millions, and they haven’t done anything untoward (yet?). In fact, strictly speaking, they’re not “going after” him at all. They’re going after the GOP, to tar them by association with Rush and they’re willing to inflate his influence to do so. It’s Republicans who are suffering from having to thread the needle between defending Limbaugh and rejecting the “I want him to fail” rhetoric. What harm has Rush suffered? His stature’s never been greater, as he himself acknowledges right here.

“What harm has Rush suffered?”–Well, the President of the United States had his IlliNoise Machine pal Durbin introduce legislation designed to get Limbaugh’s show kicked off of some stations. It has passed the Senate.

It amounts to a Bill of Attainder. Think about it; the president denouncing you personally and passing legislation aimed specifically at your business–-Obama’s like Hugo Chavez without the parrot. And there’s this:

Michelle:

“Can you help us come up with a message for Rush that we’ll place on a billboard right in his hometown?

We’ll go through all the slogans we get, and the winner will have his or her message appear on the billboard — and receive a free T-shirt featuring the winning slogan.

If Republican leaders aren’t willing to tell Rush, then we will. Americans want President Obama to succeed. Our country’s future depends on it. Rooting for the President’s failure is rooting for our country to fail. … [Because Obama IS America--not you and me.--Ed.]

Thanks,
Jen

Jen O’Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee”

Again, imagine the president putting up a billboard across the street from your house denouncing you. I guess if Rush wants the president to ignore him, he’ll just have to get his own nuke program.

No Left Turns:

Lost financial dreams and vague retirement plans are one thing. But who can summon laughter (nay, even a smile) at the prospect of what lies before us in the face of massive defense cuts of Carter and Clinton proportions? We see before us a world with a host of dangerous tyrants and hostile regimes . . . and our President chooses to engage in guerrilla warfare against which of these beastly personages? Why, Rush Limbaugh of course!

Rush:

They don’t have the guts to admit it, and I do. I’m going further and telling you today it’s not that I want Obama to fail; that’s not it anymore. The president is presiding over economic failure. The president is watching it, doing nothing about it. He’s watching unemployment grow; he’s watching the stock market plummet; he is watching people sign up for unemployment. The president of the United States is doing nothing to stop the downward spiral of this economy. He has no economic recovery plan. The truth is, the president of the United States and Rahm Emanuel, who, remember, said, “Crisis is too great a thing to waste.” What does that mean? They want you suffering, they want you miserable, they want it worse, they want you rejecting conservatism. They want you rejecting capitalism. They want you turning to them in fear and desperation and angst for an immediate fix to the problem. They want you thinking you have no ability to fix your own problems. They think you have and they want you to have no ability to take care of yourself. So as the stock market now approaches minus 2,800 since Obama was elected, the statement today is to speed up the economic recovery, we’re going to focus on health care. Ask yourself how that is going to get you your next job. …

Don’t underestimate the intelligence of this audience or Republicans and conservatives generally. The biggest problem with all of you who live inside the Beltway is you look out over America and you think you see idiocy and unsophisticated people, ignorant people…We don’t care, first and foremost, about the success of the Republican Party. We care about the United States of America and its future, because we cherish it and love it, and we know what it is that made it the greatest nation on earth, and we don’t hear you articulating that you understand that… when you send those fundraising requests out, Mr. Steele, make sure you say, “We want Obama to succeed.” So people understand your compassion. Republicans, conservatives, are sick and tired of being talked down to, sick and tired of being lectured to, and until you show some understanding and respect for who they are, you’re going to have a tough time rebuilding your party. …What happened starting Saturday — actually, CPAC started on Thursday, but what culminated with my speech on Saturday at CPAC was the reawakening of a huge sleeping giant that is ready to rumble, and that is American conservatism…

More Americans live their lives as conservatives than you would believe. They don’t get their paychecks and walk down the street and say, “Hi, you want some of this?” They’ll vote for people who will do it for them, but they’re trying to raise their kids right and make money, save money. They’ve got morality and values, most of them, not all, but most, they may not vote that way, but they live that way. They’re waiting to be awakened and that awakening has started. The pressure is on the Republican Party to be more Democrat Party-like, and too many Republicans in Washington want to make that happen. Well, just the opposite is going to happen. The sleeping conservative giant has been awakened here. It’s a beautiful thing.