By all means, let this bigoted, obnoxious jerk be the face of the GOP. Maybe the American people will continue to realize what they've already begun to awaken to: conservatism is institutionalized greed, with big, steaming dollops of racism and sexism to make it go down easier with Angry White Schmucks.

Ditto, Rush. Looks like Romney might be on the 2012 ticket. Rush would never leave his lucrative career for a government job.

"[Conservatism] is what it is and has been forever," he said. "It is not something you can bend or shape."

Just saw the 1964 film "The Best Man" with Henry Fonda.

The same conservative, racist clowns paraded around in that movie with Rush's talking points.

Latin as a language was something that eventually became something that couldn't be "bent" or "shaped". Meaning something that doesn't evolve. And look where that language is.

They call themselves a movement of ideas, but they know that's a lie, so they fall back the hero worship model.

They call liberals "socialists," but it was their heroes Reagan and baby Bush who spent us into our current mess. Yet they still push Reagan as god and tolerate Bush.

This is why Limbaugh and his peers pull audiences and liberal radio stuggle: it's about the guy on the mic, not what's being said. Just like Bush, they can't take the chance someone will out argue them, making them look weak. The man must look good, no matter the lies needed.

I found it extremely distracting and annoying that wherever you could have written out some tidbit of information, you chose instead to post a link. That may be ok in the world of Livejournal but when you force your reader to choose between either interrupting what they are actually reading every two sentences, or reading without fully understanding your twelve billion references, all that happens is your audience loses interest and gets pissed off.

Stick to blogging until you can learn to actually write.

Those who have listened before heard the same bloviating nonsense as usual, but what I found most interesting is how CNN managed to cut from Limbaugh just as he was making a crude homophobic slur.

I was reminded of the answer CNN gave in the early years of the Bush administration when questioned about the inordinate amount of air time Republicans were getting compared to Democrats. CNN answered that Republicans were in power so they naturally would have the most exposure. Well, we've got a Dem in the Whitehouse and Dems controlling both chambers and we still get over an hour straight with no commercial interruptions of Limbaugh. We still get 75% of the reactions to the stimulus from republicans. Who does CNN think it's kidding?

I can't imagine he impresses many who aren't already ditto-heads.

In the meantime, 80% of Americans approve of the Obama administration, despite Rush Limbaugh's constant unhinged harangues.

So let him talk. He'll marginalize the base even further, while moderates and sane people back away quietly.

"Heard by 20 million people". The same 20 million (actually surely less) bigoted crackpots - out of a country of 300 million, with 130 million voters - over and over and over again.

The last poll I saw gave Limbaugh disapproval numbers near George W. Bush levels.

The Republican party is now the party of those 20 million (actually less) people. And no-one else.

Mouvement, as you correctly show, is masculine. So it would be "mouvement conservatif," not "conservative." Probably still not idiomatic, but at least correct.

was that there was no one espousing a true liberal creed to call him on every conservative canard and revisionist myth he put out on the airwaves. Limbaugh bloviated unopposed by the Democrats of the day, and Gingrich took over Congress in like manner.

President Clinton was a "progressive," i.e. a liberal whose concern was solely and exclusively with the middle class, and had renounced the truths that earlier liberals had stated, namely that (1) government isn't the problem, it's a necessary counterweight to special interests, (2) taxation isn't theft, it's the dues that citizens pay to belong to a civilized society, (3) the so-called free market can be rigged, and (4) the only way to protect the middle class is to create clear ways into the middle class for the poor and uneducated.

The danger that Limbaugh represented in 1994 was that his ideas, as ignorant, fiction-based, and hate-fueled as they were, went unchallenged in the media and the Democratic Party of the time. Even without Obama, who has proven himself a more efficient adversary to conservative orthodoxy than many would have predicted, there is something called liberalism in 2009 that once again dares speak its name.

Otherwise I'm going to have to go throw up.

we've finally found someone stupider than Miss South Carolina. You want to marry this ignorant tub of lard?!! Sweetie, go home, your mommie says your milk and cookies are waiting.

Well said.

I got into a little tiff with another Salon writer a few months back about the blue-links in his articles. My point was simple. If there's something seriously relevant in the linked-to article, then boil it down and work the information into your article. If there isn't, don't send us off in another direction that will take far more time than reading a single, well written sentance of explanation.

As in the early 1960's the Republican Party does not have a figure of national stature and a broad following able to win the presidency.

After the Goldwater debacle of 1964, the Republican Party looked effectively dead. At least the conservative wing did. This was changed utterly with the emergence of Ronald Reagan, those his chances were poo-poohed by the pundits almost until he beat Jimmy Carter by a landslide.

The GOP can re-emerge, but it needs the right person to carry the flag. That is not Rush Limbaugh, though he is certainly a useful voice in the interim.

When the American population discovers the true implications of Obama's policies, the current euphoria will disappear and the Right will have a good chance of returning to power.

I would absolutely love for this fat, cigar smoking drug addict, with a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years, to be elected president that would be the punishment he deserves.

He'd have to put up or shut up at that point. And that would be hilarious.

Rush Limbaugh, the Pigman, is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with America.

"When the light's go out, just give me five minutes alone with this guy. -- Mike Malloy"