I try not to watch Fox (Faux) News. But I was "forced" to do so on early Sunday morning in order to get an update of the news. By the way, don’t watch Fox for news because you really don’t get news. I didn’t watch the show too long, because they were too busy lathering high praise on Rush Limbaugh, and deciding what they wanted to deep fry on the show. Of course, that was after they lathered a lot of praise on themselves, with Clayton Morris , one of the weekend morning hosts, being one of the most self centered people on television. He can’t seem to go one minute without bringing the focus back on himself. He wanted to deep fry his tie, and he must have mentioned this 10 times in one half hour. I don't recall getting any news.
But I digress.
On Saturday, Rush gave a speech at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and put out a rallying call to his fellow Republicans. If I heard correctly, the speech was supposed to last about 20 minutes, but Rush went on for 90 minutes. (That’s the definition of a blowhard in my dictionary.) I listened to part of the coverage of Rush’s speech and all I heard were the rantings of a bitter man whose party lost the big prize in the presidential election. He’s so upset about it that he seems to want the president to fail. He denied this, though, and in his speech, Rush addressed this issue by saying, "This notion that I want the president to fail, this shows you the problem we've got. This is nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it? Why in the world do I want what we just described: rampant government growth, wealth that is not being created yet is being spent? What is in this, what is possibly in this that any of us want to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war of Iraq to fail? Well, They certainly did. And they not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail they proclaimed it a failure.... They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?"
Rush forgets the key fact that President Obama inherited the economic mess that we are in today. He hasn’t even been in office for 60 days. It was the Bush administration that let the economy spin out of control, and the Bush administration that began the bank bailouts. Now with banks even teetering further, taking other industries and jobs with it, there really aren’t any easy choices to make. In Rush’s case, I didn’t hear him offer any alternative plan, and as far as I know, he doesn’t have one except to say that he doesn’t think Obama’s is the right one. Personally, I have some minor issues with the stimulus plan, but I also know that something needs to be done to jump-start the economy, and fast. I don’t profess to be an expert in economics, so at some point I have to have some trust in our leadership that they have a general idea of what they are doing.
If the Republican Party is trying to re-invent itself in order to capture more voters in the next presidential election, people like Rush Limbaugh aren’t the ones to do it. He may very well appeal to a subset of conservatives, but the Limbaugh-style rhetoric isn’t what voters responded to in the last presidential election. Somehow, I think that many Republican leaders also wish that Rush would just zip it for a while. Rush is perfectly free to say what he wants – but he has to remember one thing – the American people are free to tune him right out.
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1 comment:
The thing I hate about politicians and talk heads is that they go on and on about how bad the current situation is, but have know solution on how to change it. It is almost as if some people just have their head in the sand and want to ignore the facts. If I was going to have to talk about politics right now, or Obama, I would say that he is doing what he thinks is best, and since anyone else can't come up with anything better or different, and all they do is complain, then America, and the arguing talk heads should support him. Great post
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