Posted by
AJH on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 6:27:56 AM
“
The Tired War on Rush Limbaugh”
“I could swear that opposing the expansion of big government is what conservatives do.”
Here we go again. Rush Limbaugh is public enemy No. 1.
Liberal bloggers and media chin-strokers are aghast at Limbaugh's statement that he hopes Barack Obama fails.
Well, given what Obama wants to do, I hope he fails too. Of course I want the financial crisis to end -- who doesn't? But Obama's agenda is much more audacious. Pretty much every major news outlet in the country has said as a matter of objective analysis that Obama wants to repeal the legacy of Ronald Reagan and remake the country as a European welfare state. And yet people are shocked that conservatives, Limbaugh included, want Obama to fail in this effort?
[S]ince when did hoping for the failure of ideological agendas you disagree with become unpatriotic? Liberals were hardly treasonous when they hoped for the failure of George W. Bush's Social Security privatization scheme.
Regardless, the war on Limbaugh from the left is a tired rehash. In 1995, Bill Clinton tried to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush. In 2002, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democratic opposition, claimed that Limbaugh's listeners weren't "satisfied just to listen."
Just because the Democrats' shtick is old and often dishonest doesn't mean it's tactically dumb.
The more interesting war on Limbaugh comes from the right. My National Review colleague John Derbyshire has written a thoughtful article for the American Conservative disparaging the "lowbrow conservatism" of talk radio. His brush is a bit too broad at times. Some right-wing talkers, such as Bill Bennett and Dennis Prager, can be almost professorial. Michael Savage, meanwhile, sounds like the orderlies are about to break through the barricaded studio door with sedatives in hand.
Bring back "Firing Line." William F. Buckley Jr., who died almost a year ago, hosted the program for PBS for 33 years. He performed an incalculable service at a time when conservatives were more associated with yahoos than they are today. He demonstrated that intellectual fluency and good manners weren't uniquely liberal qualities. More important, the "Firing Line" debates (models of decorum) demonstrated that conservatives were unafraid to examine their own assumptions or to battle liberal ones.
AJH