rogues' gallery

UPDATE, 3/11/08

Tuesday night (March 4) was a good night for Rush Limbaugh. "I want Hillary to stay in this," he said on Fox News, because "I want the Democrats to lose. They're in the midst of tearing themselves apart right now. It is fascinating to watch, and it's all going to stop if Hillary loses."

Limbaugh was interviewed Feb. 29 by Laura Ingraham, guest-hosting on the Bill O'Reilly show on the Fox News Channel.
"If Obama is the nominee, we are doomed, " Limbaugh said on Feb. 6 to a Republican caller to his radio program.

On Fox News, Limbaugh listed "another reason why we need Hillary to stay in:" the Clinton campaign can attack Obama in ways the Republicans cannot. "Who was it that first used Obama's middle name of Hussein? It was not us. It was [Clinton supporter] Bob Kerrey, over and over again, former Democrat Senator of Nebraska."

"Who was it that talked about Obama not just using drugs, as he admitted in his book, but maybe even selling them and dealing them? It was [Bill] Shaheen, Clinton's co-chair in New Hampshire."

Limbaugh's assumption here is that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. "We want the Clinton campaign to keep pumping out these pictures of Obama dressed up as Bin Laden," he said on Feb. 26. "If Hillary loses this thing, all of that's going to come to a screeching halt. We want all the disruption in that party as possible. . . . We need to keep chaos alive."

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Here are a few of the upstanding Republicans (nominal Conservatives) who have advocated that Republicans in open primaries vote for Clinton, rather than McCain, in recent elections: Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and Sean Hannity. They all despise Clinton enough that they'd like to have the distinct honor of taking her down themselves, rather than letting the Democrats do it. Other Reagan democrat types who don't like either Clinton or Obama have followed suit, fueled by scores of websites conflating Obama with terrorist Osama bin Laden. Coulter has even said she'd campaign actively for Hillary; somehow, I have a feeling that's one phone call that the Clinton camp won't be returning.

Eleanor Clift, noted news analyst, said on NPR's "On Point" this morning that even Karl Rove doesn't approve of such tactics. But Coulter, Hannity, and Limbaugh (who even refers to himself as an "entertainer", although his listenership seems to be under the impression that he's a dynamic journalist) seem all too happy to persist.

The unspoken sentiment here is that none of these media giants are too happy about McCain, whom they feel isn't conservative enough. But they profoundly failed at influencing their audience to vote for Romney, Huckabee, etc., so now they're projecting their 3rd grade sour grapes mentality onto the Democrats.

Way to go, Team Neocon! You've helped to keep Sen. Clinton's campaign on life support for another couple of weeks, and bought Sen. McCain more time to kick back and host barbecues at his place (for the press corps; isn't that a bit of a conflict of interest?).