Rush Limbaugh and the Party of “No”

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

While U.S. president Barack Obama is doing his best to turn the American economy around, all that his Republican opponents can come up with, in response to his various efforts, is to say “no.”

Most of them don’t like his proposed budget, are against his stimulus packages and financial bailouts, and find his attempts to reform education and health care too “socialistic.” Their mantra for what ails America is simple: just keep lowering taxes.

The Republicans, badly defeated in the presidential and congressional elections last November, seem bereft of leadership. They are such a rudderless ship that their unofficial spokesman has become, not an elected member of Congress, but a right-wing radio talk show host, a man full of sarcasm, bombast and bile.

Rush Limbaugh, a college dropout – he attended Southeast Missouri State University for two terms – in now the fount of wisdom for the Republicans. Even the chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, worships at his feet.

Limbaugh has been a nationally syndicated radio personality since 1988, and his millions of listeners, the so-called “dittoheads,” lap up his relentless ridicule of “liberals,” by which he means anyone to his left, including Republicans whom he finds too moderate.

In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this past February, Limbaugh stated that he wants Barack Obama “to fail.”

He had earlier explained on his radio program that he didn't want “absorption of as much of the private sector by the U.S. government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work.”

Though many Republicans find this embarrassing, they fear challenging the vitriolic radio showman. Steele, the nominal leader of the party, was forced to apologize after referring to Limbaugh’s show as “incendiary” and “ugly.”

One Republican state party chairman said of Limbaugh, “he is the leader of a niche of the Republican Party that simply opposes anything a Democrat ever comes up with.”

The Democrats, of course, are enjoying this. A mobile billboard paid for by the Democratic National Committee is traveling around in south Florida, where Limbaugh lives, declaring that “Americans Didn't Vote for a Rush to Failure.”

Observing all this (as I taught two courses in American politics this past academic year), it occurred to me that there is an old song that perfectly sums up Limbaugh’s politics. “Whatever it is, I’m Against It” was performed by Groucho Marx in the movie Horse Feathers, in 1932. This would be Rush Limbaugh’s version:

I don’t care what the Dems say,
It makes no difference anyway --
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I’m against it.

Obama’s proposition may be good
But let’s have one thing understood --
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
And even when he’s changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.

I’m opposed to it --
On Republican principles I’m opposed to it!

Chorus: He’s opposed to it!
In fact, in word, in deed,
He’s opposed to it!

For months before his star was born,
I used to yell from night till morn,
Whatever he says, I’m against it!
And I’ve kept yelling since I commenced it,
I’m against it!

Maybe someone reading this article should send a copy to Rush. He’d probably love it.