I left the GOP, my grandfather and father’s party, 2 years ago because of stuff like this (as well as immigration, spending, and dishonesty) (link):
Limbaugh’s latest attacker: RNC’s Steele
On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.
But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.
“Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats know they lose an argument with the Republican Party on substance so they are building straw men to attack and distract,” said RNC spokesman Alex Conant.
“The feud between radio host Rush Limbaugh and Rahm Emanuel makes great political theater, but it is a sideshow to the important work going on in Washington. RNC Chairman Michael Steele and elected Republicans are focused on fighting for reform and winning elections. The Democrats’ problem is that the American people are growing skeptical of the massive government spending being pushed by Congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi.”
Limbaugh, asked to respond, said he’d save his counter-attack for his listeners.
“I’ll handle it on the radio,” he wrote in an e-mail.
In an interview on CNN with D.L. Hughley, Steele assured that he, not Limbaugh, was in charge of the party before saying that he wanted to put the right-wing talker “into context.”
“Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer,” Steele said. “Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes it’s incendiary, yes it’s ugly.”
Steele’s comments, first noticed by NBC producer Chris Donovan, are sure to rankle Limbaugh in part because they validate the liberal critique of the conservative force: that he’s merely an “entertainer.”
That’s one of the phrases often used by Democrats who seek to diminish Limbaugh. MSNBC’s liberal talk-show host Keith Olbermann, for example, frequently mocks his broadcast adversary as “comedian Rush Limbaugh.”
Steele’s broadside comes as top-level Democrats are working to portray Limbaugh as the face of the GOP and daring anybody in the party to separate themselves from him.
A liberal coalition has aired two ads tying congressional Republicans to Limbaugh and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday that the radio talker is the “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
With Socialism Transition Assistant RNC Chair Mike Duncan leaving, I wondered if maybe we’d get someone shrewd as national chairman, someone I could follow, but without leadership, none will follow. Here’s my advice to Chairman Steele and anyone who wants to be the majority party:
Dear RNC Chairman Michael Steele,
I’m writing today to ask for a correction to something you said, as I believe you misstated the position of the GOP on markets. I used to be a member of the GOP, and come from a family who’s been in the grass-roots of the Republican Party since Lincoln.
You referred to Mr. Rush Limbaugh as “ugly” and an “entertainer” in an interview with CNN’s DL Hughley. To use the ideological left’s ”entertainer” terminology to describe Mr. Limbaugh is quite disparaging to someone who’s made every attempt to bring conservative voters to the polls in federal races for the last several years despite the party’s distasteful stance on various positions such as budget restraint and immigration, and inability to achieve positive change despite majorities in Congress, not to mention the severe failure to produce a viable candidate in the 2008 election.
Clearly you can’t understand that the official position of the party should be that a market (in this case, talk radio) that does no harm to the US Constitution, and runs in a profitable but not illegal, immoral, or unethical way is the business of the seller and buyer. Or, in this case, the position of the Grand Old Party should be that Rush Limbaugh is a valuable member of the Republican party, and those who do not find his views to their liking have the option of tuning in to one of various other markets for opinions.
You see, your comments come at the unfortunate moment when many people (some inside the GOP) are attempting to silence voices like Rush Limbaugh’s. This was an important and teachable moment and you missed the opportunity to stand up for businesses. Your personal opinion does not matter during the time that you serve as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the message of the party is what matters.
What the Democratic Party and it’s trilateral benefactors in the media, academia, and party have to teach us is not to become like a variation of their party on important issues, but to remain disciplined about getting out a message. If the Republican National Committee’s message is “we’re not so bad, we’re just like them only slightly different,” then you will see a quiet majority of Republicans who have beliefs like myself disappear to the sidelines and to alternative parties as spectators watching the party’s tent fold. However, if you choose to stay and courageously fight for the “America Is Open For Business” standard, you will see us armored and ready to battle at your side against huge government, over-regulation, and anti-growth policies.
You really don’t have any time to think about it, time wasted deliberating is just that. The choices you make now will be engraved in the history of this nation. Please show some leadership.
Sincerely,
BadIdeaGuy