Rush Limbaugh Has A Crush On Obama
I know, craziest headline ever. But it’s the truth! Rush Limbaugh not only loves Obama, he’s totally gay for Obama, he probably voted for Obama, and he’s got a shrine to pay homage to Obama.
The truth is that there aren’t enough super-committed Democrats or Republicans in this country — particularly if you con some of the assholes who never vote to the polls — to win an election for a Presidential candidate. A larger truth is that not all of Rush Limbaugh’s listeners agree with him, despite the dittoheads he puts on the air. Liberals are masochists, what can I say? The thing is, Michael Steele was right (and that may be the only time I ever say that): Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. He doesn’t get ratings because he’s smart, or because he gives nuanced and thoughtful policy analysis to Americans hungry for real information and analysis about the issues that affect their lives. He provides commentary — and not particularly insightful commentary at that — packaged in a way that far too many Americans can understand without having to think too hard, because we don’t like to think that much about things bigger than ourselves. David Frum is right about Rush Limbaugh, too, but somewhat wrong in that he doesn’t think many Americans are like Rush:
A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence
Well, with the private plane and women who will fuck him despite his cigars, multiple marriages, drug problems and general assholeness, he might be more aspirational to some Americans.
The thing is, by feeding his ego, by presenting himself as the intellectual (I actually laughed typing that) basis of the Republican Party, the guy with more of a base among the faithful than Michael Steele, Rush is doing for Rush what Rush always does for Rush: making money. By apologizing to Rush for stating the truth — that he’s an entertainer who does what he does for audience, ego and money — Michael Steele marginalized himself in the process of rebuilding. Rush listeners probably wonder what a black guy is doing heading up the RNC anyway, because they have no sense of strategy, no sense of 2010 or 2012, no cares for anything other than rhetoric that makes them feel good about what they already believe and somehow think they can convince the other 280 million Americans to believe (and vote for), too.
The great thing is that the Obama Administration knows full well that Limbaugh might have 20 million listeners, but he doesn’t have 20 million voters and he sure as shit doesn’t appeal to the moderates and independents who help turn states like Virginia blue. And Rush may be anti-intellectual, but he knows it, too. He knows he polls for shit among liberals and centrists. So, if he cared about Republicans winning elections or taking back the White House or anything about the party he professes to be ideologically tied to, he probably wouldn’t be willing to risk their comeback for his own ego and bank account — not that he couldn’t stroke the former and fill the latter even if the Republicans were doing better. So Rush Limbaugh, who isn’t stupid, isn’t just a mad Republican: He’s a closet Obamaniac. He’s gay for Obama. He likes him. He wants socialized medicine, he wants the nationalization of our financial system, he wants everything that Obama wants if for no other reason than he has cynically calculated that all those things will make him a richer, more popular entertainer. May he feud with political Republicans for four more years.