Limbaugh's Butt--No. 3. How Can Cillizza Be Boring About Limbaugh?

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza's note on Rush Limbaugh's new prominence in American politics is an unbelievable bore. How does he do it? Looking at Limbaugh provides an extremely interesting perspective on political dynamics at the outset of the Obama administration. Plus, Rush Limbaugh might be the single most quotable human being in the United States of America (apart from Ann Coulter perhaps).

Yet Cillizza limits himself to one dull Limbaugh quote and goes on to quote a couple of Republican consultants who are trying very hard not to say anything. Here's one.

"Rush is a double-edged sword, he cuts both ways" said Phil Musser, a Republican consultant and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "Sometimes you love him, sometimes you cringe at his impolitic (he'd say honest) fusillados."

Talk about cringing, I cowered when I saw "impolitic fusillados." Musser must have spent too much time at all-white country clubs while he was growing up.

There are several facts to keep in mind here.

The most important is that Rush Limbaugh is extremely unpopular with the 80% of the population that aren't committed conservatives. Limbaugh knows this as well as anyone. People on the left despise him as a "Big Fat Idiot, (the book that made Al Franken a senator)" but moderates hate him just as much.

The mainstream media was pulling Limbaugh into the national spotlight even before Obama mentioned him. That's because GOP congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have such a weak media presence. Cillizza quotes Haley Barbour retainer Ed Rogers as saying that the Republican leadership has not found "their voice or direction." That's weak, weak, weak! John Boehner doesn't have enough charisma to fill a shot glass. How's he ever going to find his voice?

The same with McConnell.

The emergence of Limbaugh provided Obama and his press secretary Robert Gibbs with the opportunity to tell Boehner and McConnell that they were either "with Obama or with Limbaugh." Because both of those choices are losers for the GOP leadership, Boehner and McConnell were probably trying to figure out how to stand "on the middle ground" for the first time in their lives.

At the end, Cillizza raises the question of whether Limbaugh's new prominence as a "Republican spokesman" is a good thing for the Republican Party.

Why raise the question when the answer is obvious? Having Limbaugh in the mainstream media is horrible for the Republican Party. They wouldn't do any worse if they dug up Saddam Hussein and made him a party spokesman.