Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas right now.

-- RUSH LIMBAUGH

Not to worry -- there seems to be no great danger of this "better policy idea" approach catching on anytime soon, but this is a practical suggestion that everyone who wants to heed Limbaugh's words can follow. Yes, this is something you can do every day from the comfort of your own home. You can do this without getting up in the morning. Indeed, you can do this in your sleep, or perhaps even in a vegetative state. The latter would be the most appropriate condition in which to do this, as the higher brain functions will have already ceased, and you will never become aware of just how unsuccessful an approach Limbaugh's recommended course of action really is.

If we want to take it seriously, there are two ways to take Limbaugh’s statement. He is either saying that conservatives cannot possibly come up with better policy ideas, so there’s no point in trying, or he is claiming that policy ideas are entirely irrelevant to all of conventional American politics. If he meant it in the first way, there are two options for conservatives: surrender or wait until Democrats fail and try to pick up the pieces. If he meant it in the second way, this would seem to be an endorsement of an even more intensified use of gimmickry, phony populist rhetoric and symbolic biography politics.

-- DANIEL LARISON

[I]f my teenager called other people the sort of names that Limbaugh does, he would be grounded for months without computer privileges. Limbaugh may never use the word fuck in public, but he's still the most obscene speaker in America.

-- IMPOLITIC

President Limbaugh urged his followers: "Don't treat people as children. Respect their intelligence. Realize that there's a way to persuade people. Sometimes the worst way is to get in their face and point a finger. Set up a set of circumstances where the conclusion is obvious. Let them think they came up with the idea themselves."

Looking forward, his aroused constituents voted their choice for President Limbaugh's successor -- Mitt Romney by 30 percent, with Bobby Jindal at 14, and Sarah Palin tied with Ron Paul at 13.

Forty-four percent wished they had better choices but in their world there are no term limits. Why not Rush Limbaugh as President-for-Life?

-- ROBERT STEIN

Anonymous liberal commentators, the rabid pests of the new media, sought out the most popular conservative blogs to flood the zone with familiar Rush Limbaugh slanders. Their goal: To demoralize the right with layer upon layer of media domination. Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver's seat has escaped the left’s clutches of pure media dominance.

-- BREITBART

Not missing any opportunity to make Rush Limbaugh the figurehead of the GOP, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called the brash talk show host the "voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party" on Sunday.

Appearing on CBS's "Face The Nation," Emanuel brought up Limbaugh without being prompted. Applauding the conservative radio personality for being upfront in his desire to see the president fail, Emanuel went to great lengths to make the case that Limbaugh, more than any other contemporary figure, is the leader of the GOP.

-- SAM STEIN

The more Limbaugh talks, and the more he actively roots against the United States, the more Democrats like Emanuel will be exploiting this for all it's worth.

In 2008, the top priority for Democrats and their allies was tying George W. Bush around the Republican Party's neck. In 2009, Bush has been replaced by a figure that's arguably far more loathsome: a drug-addled shock-jock who's actively rooting for America's decline.

The key difference? In 2008, Bush hid from public view. In 2009, Limbaugh can't wait to jump in front of the cameras and share his twisted ideology with anyone who'll listen. He is, in other words, making the Democrats' job easier.

-- STEVE BENEN

The GOP's fortunes are essentially an inverse function of the Obama administration's fortunes, which is turn depends almost entirely on the state of the world economy. Where Limbaugh is wrong is that he thinks Americans inherently approve of the conservative agenda, and that Republican defeats can only be explained by deviation from the true faith.

-- JONATHAN CHAIT

The Republican party is now a clown car.

The sane, thoughtful conservatives have left it over the years, some prominent ones quite publicly last year, either more openly by stating they are leaving GOP, or a little more carefully, by endorsing Obama for President.

What is left are racist, sexist, homophobic, femiphobic, xenophobic, Creationist, authoritarian, theocratic, cowardly scuzbuckets like Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann, Bobby Jindal, Steve Sailer, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter and Joe the Plumber.

-- COTURNIX

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence -- exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word -- we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

-- DAVID FRUM