Choosing the dragons


Media figures conspire with the White House to pick the face of conservatism
I thought I had covered this, but I can't seem to find it.

Back in January, it came out that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had a daily conference call with James Carville (CNN), Paul Begala, and George Stephanopoulos (ABC). Besides being another example of how Obama keeps using former members of Team Clinton, I thought it also illustrated the press double standard between Democrats and Republicans.

Now I am not claiming that the Republicans are right (pun intended), I just thought that about what would happen if a the Chief of Staff for a Republican White House regularly consulted with conservative news commentators.

Well, it has moved farther than that. It seems that Rush Limbaugh was picked to be the demon.

As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh's CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president's staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even "dangerous," control of the media.

The morning after Limbaugh's CPAC speech, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on CBS News' Face the Nation and told Bob Schieffer that Limbaugh was the "voice of the Republican Party," and that he "hasn't stepped back from" the "hopes for failure" he expressed for Obama's administration.

Watching this, I'm reconsidering the rumors that one reason why the DNC was pushing open primaries in certain states was so the Democrats could control who got the Republican nomination.

There's no way Obama can hope to bring change (pun intended) unless he distracts people with dragons.

Watch carefully because it's all about the theatrics.

Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.

"The administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”

The bigger, the better, agreed Carville. “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said of Limbaugh. “The only If Limbaugh himself were to coin a phrase for it, he might call it Operation Rushbo – an idea that started out simply enough but quickly proved to be deeply resonant by a rapid succession of events, say Democrats inside and outside the West Wing.

The really silly part is that the national GOP leadership is running scared.

This first reaction is disturbing for two reasons: first, given the size of Rush's audience, it's something an RNC chairman should not be so obviously foreign to; second, it's not encouraging when the de facto face of the party accepts so unthinkingly the liberal/media framing of the issue.

One big reason Limbaugh is resonating is because there isn't a Republican/conservative leader on the national level who is willing to make a stand for principle. It's not that Limbaugh is right (and he REALLY ISN'T on a number of things), it's that no politico is willing to cut the size of government, even with the added reason of recession.

"Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?" I don't think so, but I am more than willing to let the two major parties destroy centralized government.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - March 9, 2009 at 01:52 PM  Tag


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