Angry Left Reacts Positively to Limbaugh's CPAC Speech

Yeah, right. As if Public Enemy No. 1 is allowed to say anything without it being misconstrued, twisted and made out to be a crime against humanity.

By any measure, Mr. Limbaugh hit the ball out of the park. He may have done so for the team that, these days, many people are rooting against. But the ball did land over the fence.

On the other hand, the "drive-by media" - as Mr. Limbaugh aptly refers to his business competition and ideological foes - portrayed a completely different event.

Clearly taking their cues from Mr. Obama - as well as Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid - the Fourth Estate, without the benefit of a Frank Luntz focus group or an instant poll, immediately labeled the speech as "angry" and alienating to "moderate voters."

The netroots, the mainstream media's devious protector from its left flank (e.g., the Huffington Post, Media Matters and the Daily Kos) also opined as if they had witnessed a hate crime.

Anonymous liberal commentators, the rabid pests of the new media, sought out the most popular conservative blogs to flood the zone with familiar Rush Limbaugh slanders. Their goal: To demoralize the right with layer upon layer of media domination. Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver's seat has escaped the left's clutches of pure media dominance.

For years, the radio kin of these underhanded online annoyances - coined by Rush as "seminar callers" - have read their Democratic National Committee-produced scripts to muddy the political waters. Talk-show call screeners will be on double duty this week trying to keep off the air anyone who might try to tear down the post-speech unity and elation.

To put it mildly, most anyone on the left reacted with apoplexy, especially those who didn't bother to watch it. They're always the most well-informed of the Limbaugh haters. Seriously, the Hitler analogies can't be far off now.

I'd disagree with Rahm on this one. Limbaugh is not an intellectual force, he's an anti-intellectual force. He's popular fascism with a multi-syllabic touch. And that is exactly why he's so popular with the GOP. From Sarah Palin, to Bobby Jindal, to Joe-the-Tax-Cheat, the GOP loves its intellectual lightweights. Look at Ann Coulter. Not a stupid woman, by any means, but not very bright either. Her trick is that speaks well. She's the intellectual equivalent of a British accent: Doesn't matter what they say, but with that highfalutin Oxford accent, they could read the phone book and it would sound like Shakespeare.

Rush, Palin, Coulter, Joe-the-Tax-Cheat, and the other most public faces of the GOP offer little more than bread and circus. Which isn't just a criticism of them, it's a criticism of the Republican masses who demand nothing more from their leaders than a pretty face and a touch of fascism.

Isn't that cute? Really worked overtime on that kindergarten-level analysis.

Others liken him to fictional mobsters.

If there's any doubt that the GOP's own Paulie Walnuts is now firmly in command of the Party of Lincoln, the "breaking news" style coverage of Limbaugh's bellow-cose rant dispelled the notion. CNN, for one, went wide - with the kind of uninterrupted live footage usually reserved for Presidents and Popes, followed by a panel of analysts to weigh and consider the import of the speech to this republic of ours. There were other dancers on the stage, to be sure - including Ward Connerly, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly and Karl Rove - but only Limbaugh's hour-long ramble (he went over by 30 minutes) garnered opposition leader status. "As the movement searches for a front-and-center spokesman to provide inspiration and direction, Limbaugh's refusal to tilt toward the center may place him out front in a Republican Party already suffering from a disappearing moderate wing," wrote Tom Schaller in Salon.

Limbaugh is a showbiz talent, and he is taking full advantage of this moment of rudderless, thoughtless spinning in circles by Republicans to seize the stage in full-throated opposition to the overwhelmingly popular new President - and virtually everything he stands for. In rooting publicly for Barack Obama's failure, Limbaugh may be leading the conservative movement to a smaller, fringe-like existence in the halls of power - but it will an existence that he can easily dominate.

These folks still have yet to listen to what Limbaugh has been saying. Yes, he says he wants Obama to fail, just as he would want the opposing quarterback of the team he's rooting against to fail. What is it they cannot grasp about this concept? He's never said he want America to fail, rather he wants Obama's tax-and-grab and reckless spending to fail As do millions of us.

Who wants their political enemies to succeed? Did I somehow misinterpret the raging hatred of George W. Bush for eight years as the left wanthing him to succeed? Of course not, I took it as what it was: The angry left lashing out.

So interpret how you will what Limbaugh had to say Saturday afternoon, but just be sure to do one thing, and you folks on the left all know you will: Tune in today at noon eastern time.

Get those seminar calls ready.