Last week I pondered the relevance and influence of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, and puzzled over how (or whether) to discuss them. Would talking about them grant another small (ok, super tiny) degree of legitimacy? If so, did I maybe *want* this to happen?

Turns out that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had a funny solution: to announce that Rush Limbuagh is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.” He also said that since Limbaugh clearly seeks the failure of President Obama, the administration will try to reach out to other folks within the GOP who are more reasonable and who have our country’s best interests at heart.

Crafty one, that Rahmbo. This is a brilliant move for a couple of reasons:

• Rhetorically, it’s a pretty funny straw man argument. Set up the straw man (Rush as the leader) and then knock him down easily, making the party’s leadership look bad. I’m sure he got some chuckles out of that one.
• Second, it’s actually pretty clever in that it might horrify many, many conservatives who don’t want to be presumed to be dittoheads, and repel centrist independents from the party.

I didn’t take Rahm’s comments too seriously, though. They were good for a laugh, but pretty darn transparent and possibly just something he said for his own amusement. (Though the American labor movement seems to have picked up the ball and run with it.)

But Michael Steele, the actual leader of the Republican Party, appears to be frightened of just what Rahm’s referring to. On Saturday, he’d dismissed Rush as an entertainer and remarked that Limbaugh could be “incendiary” and “ugly”.  If I were in Steele’s position, I’d try to do the same thing: distance the party from Limbaugh.

I wouldn’t, however, backpedal a few days later and say this:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

…

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.”

“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.”

(Limbaugh responded to Steele’s comments here. Doth the Rushbo protest too much?)

What a counterproductive move. Nothing could have better married the concepts of Limbaugh and Leadership like, well, saying the two words in the same sentence - that, and sounding apologetic and frightened about offending Rush.

Seems that the GOP is taking cues from the Democratic party of recent years: try to please everyone and offend no one; give the impression that no one’s at the helm; and by apologizing about your message, have none. I don’t think that’s a winning strategy. One thing people have liked about the GOP since the Reagan years is its unapologetic, firm stance on issues (even if the reality of the policy doesn’t reflect the ideals). Republicans need to figure out what they’re about, and quick, and then recapture the rhetoric if they hope to gain some seats in 2010.

As for me, I’m happy to sit back and enjoy Rush as the de facto leader of the party. He’s in his element right now, and this is where he shines: the opposition party is in power, and he can rail against it all day long. He’s good at being against things; it would just be interesting to see if he could ever be for anything. What would Rush’s policies even look like? (No wonder he’s denying his role as a leader; he doesn’t have vision, just the ability to tear down, and he knows it.)

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Update: and now I’m giggling at Wonkette’s post on the same topic. Her ending sentence? “Anyway, the point is that the rancid megalomaniac Rush Limbaugh now has Michael Steele’s testicles, in a jar.”

I can’t decide.

Sarah Palin & Rush Limbaugh: media whore hog nonthreats, or legitimate conservative voices?

A big part of me wants to dismiss them, refuse to discuss them, will them into obscurity. This part thinks that the type of rhetoric coming out of these two mouths is backward-thinking, divisive, and sensationalist - and that discussing them at all helps legitimize this type of thinking. I’d almost rather ignore them than add to the growing pile of liberal outrage; it seems that arguing against nonsense makes nonsense appear to be a worthwhile position to take (because why bother arguing against it if it’s such nonsense?), and make neocons gleeful that they’re getting under our skins.

The other part of me acknowledges that the more voices we hear, the better, and that the marketplace of ideas works best when everyone can set up shop. I shouldn’t be so smug as to declare another opinion irrational or illegitimate. If I find something particularly repellent or simply wrong, then it’s up to me to say why in a thoughtful way.

And the cynic inside me cheers YES! when I hear ‘pundits’ ask if one of these two is going to be the new face of the GOP.  Media bashing and culturally insensitive remarks might make for entertaining (?) talk radio / interviews, but it’s hard to imagine a mainstream political following for either of their philosophies. So perhaps the more we help El Rushbo and Miss Wasilla in their endeavor to have all eyes (and ears) on them, one of two things could happen: they’ll fade quickly as people tire of their egos, or they’ll become the new faces of the Republican party and we can expect Dems in the White House for the next 16 years.

What do you think? To discuss or not to discuss?

Are you a conservative who was disappointed by the election results but nevertheless harbor no ill will toward the incoming Obama administration?  Are you making an effort to come together and support Obama, to wish him well as he attempts to steer us through troubled waters? If so, you’re a turncoat traitor, according to conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.  El Rushbo thinks that you shouldn’t wish Obama well because liberals didn’t want Bush to succeed in 2001, which was wrong; therefore, conservatives should get their revenge by hoping Obama doesn’t succeed either, because that’s right.

“Why?” Limbaugh demanded. “They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated, the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year and a half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.”