Anybody who actually thinks that Rush, himself, is the power behind the GOP propaganda machine is seriously misjudging this sad, little man. Rush only says what he's told to say; what he's told will keep his wallet bulging and his calls returned. After all... this is a man who was fired from a simple DJ job.... a guy who didn't even bother to vote for years... a guy who not only can't keep a single one of his multiple marriages together, but had to resort to on line dating to con some poor gal into tyin' the knot.

No, Mush is a totally fabricated invention of Roger Ailes and the Lee Atwater school of screaming, fake outrage. He doesn't call any shots, he just fronts for those who pull the strings.

... can't ELECT a government on their own, but they sure succeeded in BUYING one for at least 24 years (Ronnie, Bush the elder and bush the small)

At both governing and electoral politics that I can see why they all stick together. After all, sticking together has got them where they are, and....

oh...

never mind.

This is getting to be so ridiculously self destructive to the GOP, that one has to begin to entertain the thought that they've actively decided to commit mass electoral suicide. Certainly there's ONE Republican Representative who realizes what is happening to them, isn't there? Apparently not. This is getting to be as obvious a choreographed fall that it makes the WWF look like a real sporting event.

“I don't belong to an organized party - I'm a Democrat.”

Will Rogers

I'd say you clearly pantsed him.

There was an election last year. The Republicans played to base, as they have so often for the last three decades. That well ran dry in 2006, and became a bottomless, dry, snake filled pit for them in 2008. In spite of all the graveyard whistlin' nonsense about this being a "center right nation", any Republican who is still capable of the slightest bit of self honesty (a contradiction of terms?) has to know that they were crushed by the very people who are behind these ads: the unions, and leftish activist groups like moveon. Thus, if they're being targeted by these groups only a couple months into the current biennium, they'd best do something to at least prop up their "centrist" cred. Nobody expects any of these people to embrace socialism (unless it's for Wall Street bankers), but there's no harm in reminding them of what's in store if they continue to march in lock step to a discredited ideology that has been resoundingly rejected by a significant and growing majority of the electorate.

I'd like to take this opportunity to applaud your absolutely correct analysis of just what the Dick Armeys and Rush Limbaugh's deep psychological problems stem from. My only criticism is that you didn't get nastier. But then, that's a guy's job, eh?

(hahahaha)

keep up the great work. Don't surrender the high ground.

thrashing in a tar pit while an Everest size meteor crashes into their obsolete world.

George Bush KEPT US SAFE....

Democrats want a nanny state....

Good lawd.... it's getting harder and harder to not simply conclude that the Republican party is taking an intentional fall.

For the last couple decades the Oregon Republican party has been following a path that is remarkably similar to what appears to happening to the national party now. They became increasingly partisan, and shrill; moving further to the right with each election cycle. Sloganeering and spectacularly unworkable anti tax/pro expensive, regressive spending on things such as prisons became more and more prominent in the Party's messages and candidates. Finally, as Bushism gained ascendency, the state party became nearly entirely the party of disfunction and obstruction in the state house. They couldn't win, let alone buy a statewide position. Now, they're basically a fringe political group. They didn't even run candidates for some statewide offices. They're in debt to the point of almost having to declare bankruptcy. And they're STILL be run by far fringe evangelicals and lunatic no government uber libertarians.

Oregon wasn't always this way. This is the state that sent Mark Hatfield to the senate year after year... the state that still reveres Tom McCall (both Republicans). And Packwood, yes... even old pervert Packwood - a Republican, sure, but a true moderate.

These people don't exist any more in Oregon and, I'd say the Rs won't come out of the electoral wilderness here until they can find some more statesmen like those names. Any moderation has been totally alienated right out of the party. The same thing is happening to the nationwide party. Their base is shirking both in geographic terms and in sheer numbers. Unless they find something other than PR, I don't think it's going to change.

The Republicans? Having problems running an election?

My goodness! We've never seen anything like this before, have we?

(/snark)

It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for this sad little man. The "high point" of his life is his association with bush the small? Gad! I mean... this guy has a wife and a kid... don't they figure in his "high point" list? What about "family values"? A man crush on a spectacularly failed president trumps your own friggin' family!

sheesh!

BUT... out of power is my favorite thing to call these losers.

So, what's the motivation? That's the only question left. The only asset this pathetic, rump remainder political party had left was its appeal to semi literate, white, southern males who are still stuck in a time warp, refighting the civil war endlessly. I don't see how Steele's selection helps keep those good ol' boys motivated to vote. And the cardboard cutout isn't going to impress any black people. They have a REAL black guy in the White House already.

So... what's the end game for the Fascist Party of Amerikkka™ going to be here?