Wednesday, January 28, 2009

You come at the king, you best not miss...

People are blogging about this, so I will therefore wade in. From what I understand, a conservative Republican did a little minor Rush Limbaugh bashing, basically saying that he's not elected and he doesn't have any responsibilities, which both seem true to me. But, since Rush is one of the Republican tribe's leaders, he cannot be badmouthed, so said representative apologized. I didn't see any video to verify if his tail was between his legs, or if his hat was firmly in hand, but you get the point.

I'll admit that, while I often talk about intramural conservative politics, largely because I'm totally fascinated by the whole thing and hopefully with some level of insight there is much I don't know. I have noticed that the right tends to be less than willing to depose leaders (and former leaders) who have done them ill. Newt Gingrich would be an example--regardless of his success at helping Republicans win in 1994, he was nothing less than a disaster as Speaker, and was largely responsible at hastening the end of the conservative era, and has been offering an alternating stream of nonsensical and bad advice to Republicans for over a decade now. Limbaugh is similar, and ever since helping Bush get the GOP nomination Rush has championed the same sort of racial and xenophobic sludge that turns off swing voters.

And, despite failing to actually help the Republicans win for the past decade and a half, their influence continues unabated, if not even more intensified. I respect that Republicans like to dance, so to speak, with the girls that brung them, but sooner or later they're going to have to realize that they ought to listen to better leaders. I'm betting on later.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.