Rush is obnoxious
Rush is abhorrent
Rush has become the de-facto leader of the Republican Party. Republican leaders are afraid to criticize Limbaugh, and GOP leaders who were foolish enough to try had to apologize contritely for being critical of Rush. Rush's exalted status inside GOP politics has increasingly made Limbaugh into a symbol of the Republican Party.
A new Pew poll shows Rush is the least liked political pundit in America.
Since Limbaugh's popularity took off in the early Clinton years Rush has been a force pushing the GOP ever rightward. Limbaugh was and is instrumental in radicalizing today's Republican Party.
Over the longer term I think radicalizing the Republican Party will have to result in its being marginalized. I think Limbaugh's incendiary rhetoric helped the Tea Party overreach leaving the Senate in Democratic hands. In the House with the Tea Party calling the shots the GOP has lurched from one blunder to the next with such uncompromising doctrinaire rigidity that it sent public approval of congress plunging to record lows.
I think Limbaugh is helping to steer the Republican Party into taking a hard right leading up a desolate dead end. I think Rush Limbaugh is likely to do more lasting damage to the Republican Party than Richard Nixon did.
For opposition research I have been listening to Rush's show about for about a year now, and have written a series of diaries about Rush's most outrageous excesses. Today Limbaugh had this to say on his show on the controversy he ignited:
They've demonstrated over and over a willingness to say or do anything to advance their agenda. It's what they do. It's what we fight against here every day. But this is the mistake I made. In fighting them on this issue last week, I became like them.
Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke.
The apology to her over the weekend was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do, and in so doing, I became like the people we oppose. I ended up descending to their level. It's important not to be like them, ever, particularly in fighting them. The old saw, you never descend to the level of your opponent or they win. That was my error last week.
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Of course Limbaugh is being completely dishonest. Rush's viscous personal attacks are a mainstay of his show, and are often instantly adopted by his listeners as his visions attack on Sandra Fluke demonstrated when the Right Wing blogesphere took up Rush's Slut accusation turning it into a Slut chorus.
Over the past year I documented some of Limbaugh's other more toxic personal attacks.
Rush Limbaugh accuses Michelle Obama of "Uppityism"
Rush says O.W.S. protesters are paid by "Democrat front groups" & are sex crazed drug fiends
Rush Limbaugh on Obama: "He's a parasite" on Democrats: "a party that are a bunch of parasites"
Rush Limbaugh Calls Teachers & State Workers 'frreeloaders'
Limbaugh also likes to share his paranoid fantasies with his listeners.
A Lord's Resistance Army victim has something to say to Rush Limbaugh
RUSH: "they're keeping Gitmo open. Someday they're going to need a place to put all of us, folks!"
BREAKING: Obama WH Controls Google Search Results steering users to left wing propaganda
Limbaugh on ObamaCare: "shoot the patient in the head and use their organs for transplants"
Rush loves to try his hand at re-writing history too.
Limbaugh now blames Obama's election for the 2008 economic calamity
Rush explains the Financial Crisis for the Ignorant & Gullible
Limbaugh even tells why the Republican Party shouldn't care what the rest of America thinks.
Limbaugh explains why Republicans shouldn't care what most Americans think
Limbaugh should go on acting as the de-facto leader of the Republican Party until their nominee emerges. He is an rotting albatross around the GOP's neck. For that reason I hope Limbaugh continues in that symbolic role until then.