Rush Limbaugh

Rish Limbaugh is an idiot.

No, liberals, not because he makes outlandish statements about Democrats that rarely have even the scent of truth. Rush Limbaugh is an idiot for helping Barack Obama marginalize the Republican Party in it’s hour of need.

Some Obama supporters have worried that the President was foolish in even acknowledging the existence of Radio Rush after the talk-show host said he hoped Obama would fail. They said Obama only gave the Rotund One more attention and therefore more power.

Exactly.

At a time when the Republican Party is in a desperate search for it’s soul — the website GOP USA has a fundraising email out talking about “real Republicans” reclaiming their party — Obama has managed to make Rush Limbaugh the poster boy for the opposition. How do we know it’s worked? Lookie here.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page — widely understood to be somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun — has given over some of its valuable real estate to none other than Rush who uses his column to lambast Obama and the Democrats for their stimulus plan. His major theme is that since Obama “only” won 54% of the vote a real “compromise” would be for the stimulus plan to allow Dems to use 54% of the amount the way they want and 46% the way HE  wants — yes the way Rush Limbaugh, the self-proclaimed heart and soul of the Republican Party, wants. Remind me, did he advocate a similar sharing of power when Al Gore won slightly more votes than George Bush? I digress.

President Obama has surely awoken this Thursday morning with a smile on his face.

In choosing to confront Rush, Obama has found a way to keep the focus on a total doofus who commands great respect from a large audience (13 million weekly) of mainly older white guys who are of diminishing importance in American politics. Obama will never win them over and by stoking the anger of their dittomaster he wins. The rest of America — the majority as of November 2008 — sees Rush for what he is. A very handsomely paid comedian.

And Rush has done Obama even more good by pissing off Republicans. Earlier in the week some House Republicans reacted to Limbaugh’s contention that Obama was more afraid of him than of the Republican leadership. Then Bill Bennett — a dean of the modern Republican Party said on CNN, “The locution ‘I want him to fail’ is not what you say the first week the man’s been inaugurated.”

Obama is playing the oldest game in the book. Divide and conquer. Rush Limbaugh is Obama’s unwitting ally in this and Limbaugh probably wants it that way. His only real goal has always been himself. His ego is unmatched even by his reported $400 million 8-year contract (You read that right).

So for now Limbaugh fills the GOP void and forces Republican lawmakers to hew to his hard-right message (not a single GOP House member voted for the stimulus — whaddya think Rush will have to say about his role in that?) — good news for Rush but probably bad news for Republicans desperately trying to find a new way to appeal to a majority of the American people.

Score round one to Obama.