The Progress Report wrote:
Breaking Free From Rush
Rush Limbaugh
From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 9:03 AM
To: tomc2322
Subject: Breaking Free From Rush
HOPING FOR FAILURE: Limbaugh’s recent comment saying that he hopes Obama fails as president is deeply hypocritical. Conservatives long claimed that any criticism of President Bush’s policies was evidence that liberals “want[ed] Bush to fail.” For example, during the debate over Iraq, perhaps the most frequent right-wing talking point was that liberals wanted to “surrender.” This straw man argument, of course, had no basis in reality. Yet today, with a progressive at the country’s helm, Limbaugh is perfectly content saying that he wants the President to fail at reviving the economy.The comment also underscores just how radical Limbaugh is. Even fellow conservative talk radio host Bill Bennett hinted at disagreement, stating, “The locution ‘I want him to fail‘ is not what you say the first week the man’s been inaugurated.” Limbaugh also remarked last week, “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.
The sooner we realize that Rush Limbaugh is no longer relevant the sooner we can get about the business of post-partisanship and move into a period of hatchet burying. Rush doesn’t seem to get it. We on the left never stated that we wanted Bush to fail. Through all of our protesting of the Bush regime all we did was to bear witness to Bush’s own failures. We did not have a hand in any of it. The last two elections have proved that Republicanism and Rush Limbaugh are no longer the pillars that they seemed to be. Republicanism is dying a very public death and that puts Rush on a sinking ship.
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