Posted on 03/07/2009 8:47:09 PM PST by Delacon
Full disclosure: Rush Limbaugh is a friend and benefactor of this magazine, as he was a friend of its founder. He has sometimes written for us. That friendship has, however, never prevented him from expressing disagreement with our writers when he felt it appropriate, or vice versa. The controversies of recent weeks, largely ginned up by Democrats, provide us with another opportunity to express both our friendship and our occasional disagreement.
The Democrats are trying to place Republicans in a bind by giving them a false choice: They can “kowtow” to Limbaugh, or they can denounce him as outside the realm of legitimate political discourse. If they choose the former course, they will appear weak. If they choose the latter one, they will offend conservatives and cripple their own ability to dissent from liberalism. Republicans should not play this game.
Limbaugh is not the Republican party’s leader, a role for which he would be ill-suited and which he has not expressed interest in filling. (If he were the party’s leader, John McCain would not have been its presidential nominee last year.) His views are not extreme and his manner is not, for that matter, particularly angry. (If people liked listening to partisan thuggery on the airwaves, Al Franken would have been a more successful radio host.) To address some recent smears: He did not compare Obama to Stalin, and he did not say he was rooting against the economy or the country. There are voices in American politics that should be assiduously marginalized and given no respect: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers; the Klan. What is going on here is a scurrilous attempt to place Limbaugh in their company.
The mere fact that Michael Steele, the Republican chairman, criticized Limbaugh was not objectionable. He could have made any number of criticisms without necessitating an apology. But to call Limbaugh’s show “ugly” — and worse, to make no protests while a CNN interviewer compared Republicans to Nazis — was gross. Steele fell right into the Democratic trap: He could either continue to stand by his calumny or give Democrats an opening to describe him as afraid of Limbaugh. In sticking by his remarks, Steele made the right choice, but he should not have placed himself in a position to have to make it.
All of the above said, some of Limbaugh’s recent remarks have struck us as unwise. Reacting to complaints about Bobby Jindal’s response to the State of the Union last week, Limbaugh slighted the importance of delivery — even though his own career is a testament to the importance of expressing ideas well. In his remarks to the Conservative Political Action Committee over the weekend, he said that now was not the time for conservatives to advance “better policy ideas” than those coming from President Obama. On his show he later explained that he meant that Republicans mostly need to fight Obama at the higher level of principle. But the two go hand in hand: When Limbaugh himself, just a few weeks ago, advanced a clever alternative to Obama's stimulus, what was he doing but showing how conservative principles can be applied to improve the American condition?
Limbaugh spoke critically of those who want conservatives to adapt their message to changing times, or to appeal to subsets of the population such as “Wal-Mart voters” or “female independents.” But successful political movements always alter their approaches as circumstances change, even if they maintain the same principles, just as Reagan agreed with the Goldwater of 1964 but did not run on his platform. Reagan also courted the voters who became known as “the Reagan Democrats” — a sociologically identifiable subset of the population. He advocated policies that would benefit middle-income voters and people who had not previously considered themselves Republicans, and explained how they would do so. If today’s Republicans were to do the same thing, would Limbaugh object?
We doubt it. His real concern, it seems to us, is that some people may attempt to water down conservative principles in the name of adaptation and the pursuit of popularity. But that is no reason to neglect the importance of building a popular conservatism that speaks to today’s concerns. It is a task to which Limbaugh can contribute greatly, as he has done for two decades.
The Democrats, meanwhile, think their attacks on Limbaugh are helping them politically. We understand that it is difficult to devise solutions to the financial crisis. But the Democrats won the election, and it is their job to come up with such solutions. We wish they spent as much time on it as they have spent in recent weeks talking about Limbaugh.
And even when he doesn't make a flip remark, the Democrats will pounce. All he has to do is tell a truth that the left doesn't like, and they will pounce.
'Fair' doesn't enter into it.
NR calling that illiterate racist D.L Hughely a “CNN interviewer” is like calling Rosie O’Donnell a “respected social commentator”
LOL! Oh, so very true!!
This was a good, balanced article. They think Rush might be wrong in his pushing conservative principles, because they think he's not looking at the possibility of 'growing' the GOP. I think he's doing JUST that, by encouraging the GOP to get back to the conservatism that won in the 1980's with Reagan. By doing this, Rush believes that MORE people will be able to see that freedom and personal responsibility are GOOD things, for citizens in particular and for the country in general.
It is clear that the Democrats think folks in some states are still pretty conservative, or Rahm Emmanuel wouldn't have gone out looking for conservative Dems to run against squishy Republicans, thus creating a Democrat majority in Congress in 2006.
What has happened to the National Review? The Democrat party has been hoping and praying the controversy surrounding Limbaugh will be prolonged indefinitely... to keep with their desired story line. The National Review article fits the democrats media narrative a little too closely for comfort.
This is article was ordered up by the Democrat party pure and simple.
Rich Lowry, if it hasn’t been said before, you are a putz.
You want to know what is wrong with this country, and specifically conservatives?
We’re losing our moral foundation.
RUSH IS RIGHT.
Principle first. “Government isn’t the answer to our problems, government IS the problem.” - Ronald Reagan, first inaugural address.
We need to stop electing “Republicans” that we wouldn’t trust to babysit our dog. Olympia Snowe, Arlen Spectre, Linsday Graham and John McCain come to mind immediately.
Start Electing CONSERVATIVES, not “republicans”.
The ridiculous deification of talk radio personalities!
I’m not deifying Rush.
But we shouldn’t be using “leader” and Spectre, Graham or McCain in the paragraph. These guys are losers.
That says it all.
Tutn out the lights.
Well, here's where the NR is wrong. This is just a thinly-disguised veil that really means that Republicans must reach out the unwashed center by adopting Dem ideas. Same-old hogwash that is exactly the reason why the GOP is in danger of going the way of the Whigs. Reagan won because of his message. The Reagan Democrats came to him, not the other way around.
NR is trying to straddle the fence. They don't want to rile up the grassroots but then again they have to please the cocktail Republicans.
“It is clear that the Democrats think folks in some states are still pretty conservative, or Rahm Emmanuel wouldn’t have gone out looking for conservative Dems to run against squishy Republicans, thus creating a Democrat majority in Congress in 2006”.
True, which begs the question what should the GOP do to win back voters that went for conservative democrats? And not all the republicans who lost their seats were “squishy”. Rick Santorum comes to mind. So what did Rick do wrong? I don’t exactly know other than he got lumped in with the whole of the republican party that got fat and happy with politics as usual in DC.
National Review has been pretty weak for years.
I think this is a lame effort to escape their effete elite wuss haven status.
I believe that was a major part of that, but you'll remember that in order to defeat Rick Santorum, the Democrats had to recruit a supposedly 'pro-life' Democrat to run against him. Those Catholics who had not voted for pro-abortion Democrats for years, choosing the pro-life Republican instead, now had a candidate for whom they felt they could vote in good conscience, and they did so.
“I believe that was a major part of that, but you’ll remember that in order to defeat Rick Santorum, the Democrats had to recruit a supposedly ‘pro-life’ Democrat to run against him. Those Catholics who had not voted for pro-abortion Democrats for years, choosing the pro-life Republican instead, now had a candidate for whom they felt they could vote in good conscience, and they did so”.
Yes, I should have picked up on that. Santorum was defeated 59% to 41%. This was the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Senator since 1980. I’d like to know of that 18% margin, how many switched sides because they felt they were free to do so over the abortion issue.
That's the kind of poll research on which the GOP needs to spend time and money, because that same scenario was repeated all over the country in 2006.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.