Rush Limbaugh

I’ve been meaning to post about Limbaugh ever since he appeared last week on Newsweek‘s cover.
Rush Limbaugh spent the 1990s warning us that government was bad, government was evil, government was going to take away our freedom and destroy our rights. He frankly reminded me at times of the Weather Underground, even though he insisted that all the radical leftists who said the same things he was saying back in the sixties were eeeeevil.
Then W got in the White House and Limbaugh spent eight years explaining that government was going to take away our freedom and anyone who said it was was a filthy stinking rotten cowardly Commie Islamofascist traitor who wanted the terrorists to win. Torture? A fraternity hazing! Spying on Americans? Keeping us safe!
Then Obama got in and suddenly we’re back to Government Is Evil again and Limbaugh announcing that “I hope he fails.” If anyone had said that under Bush, Limbaugh would have been calling for a public horsewhipping (one leftwinger said before the Iraq invasion that he did sort of hope it would fail horribly to discourage more invasions—but given what was at stake, he had to hope it went well. Right wingers held this up as proof of how evil liberals were—though I don’t know if Limbaugh weighs in).
Taking Limbaugh’s opinion of anything seriously is a waste of time (taking him seriously, given the influence he has, is another matter). He’s a Republican mouthpiece who by his own admission would sooner see the president fail than fix things, if it’s not a president he supports.
The fact that he’s the icon of the Republican right says more about them than they probably want to admit.