Top Republican's Groveling Apology to Rush Limbaugh Is a Media Disaster

From AlterNet:

The following evening, on CNN's D.L. Hughley show, Steele attempted to reassert control over the party. When Hughley referred to Limbaugh as "the de facto leader of the Republican Party," Steele shot back, "No, I'm the de facto leader of the Republican Party!" And he mocked Limbaugh as an "entertainer" whose behavior was "incendiary" and "ugly."

Almost as soon as the broadcast ended, a firestorm of criticism erupted on the right-wing blogosphere. "It's not easy watching a black guy stumble around in the dark, but really, I'm trying," wrote Dan Riehl, a marketing manager who hosts the popular conservative blog, RiehlWorldView.com, in posting widely circulated on the right.

While conservative bloggers and radio talkers piled on, Limbaugh lashed out at Steele with a condescending on-air rant, barking at the chairman "to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do." Finding himself under fire from Rush's army of self-proclaimed "Dittoheads," Steele immediately sued for peace. "I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren't what I was thinking," Steele whimpered.

And

But given Limbaugh's well-documented history of racial controversy, and Steele's position as the Republican Party's first African American chairman, his apology is more significant than Gingrey's. Limbaugh has, for example, mocked Obama as a "Halfrican-American" who should "become white;" he has called for a "posthumous Medal of Honor" for the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Earl Ray, and told an African American caller, "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."

More here.

Given the way that racist language is so common among the GOP's core of true-believers, one wonders how the party is able to attract any African Americans at all--everyone's an individual, I suppose, and some of them are obviously deaf, dumb, and blind. At any rate, I'm totally loving this. Drug addict and prostitute user Rush Limbaugh is a cruel and inhuman racist pig, and that makes him the perfect leader for the Republican Party. No, seriously.

A few weeks back, after President Obama had made some sort of negative reference to Limbaugh in a speech, corporate news media pundits roundly criticized him for stooping to the level of a mere radio personality--the idea was that Presidents only make themselves look bad when they do such a thing. The talking heads were wrong as usual. Indeed, between Steele's televised attack on Limbaugh, and the RNC Chairman's later apology for it, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel pressed Obama's position on CBS's Face the Nation, branding Limbaugh as head of the GOP, asserting that if any party loyalist crosses the big fat idiot, he must necessarily apologize later. Sure enough, Steele was licking Limbaugh's nasty asshole within hours.

The point here, from the White House's point of view, is that right-wing psychos like Limbaugh can do nothing but hurt the Republicans at this point, forcing them to adhere to insane conservative positions while alienating pretty much everybody else. And everybody else is around some seventy percent of the country. Treating Limbaugh like he's much more than simply a talk show host is a win-win for President Obama. The more that people perceive Rush as the face of the GOP, the more that people will hate the Republicans.

And I just love it when people hate Republicans. I wonder how much more they'll self-destruct before they turn it around? My bet is that the bottom is far deeper than anyone imagines.

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