Frum: Limbaugh "cannot be allowed to be the public face" of conservative movement
March 02, 2009 1:10 pm ET by Jamison Foser
David Frum writes:
Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.
But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise - and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.
Whenever CNN manages to find two Democrats who disagree about where to go for lunch, it breaks out the "DEMS IN DISARRAY" chyron and goes wall-to-wall with the idea of the Democratic Party in turmoil.
Just sayin'.
The GOP is not in turmoil, the GOP's pet is only doing what is does best. Let's keep this straight, the CPAC is just conservative media's circus-like attempt to be relevant.
Conservative media depends on conflating issues and fomenting nonexistent turmoil to sell media advertisement. It's a business! Murdoch certainly loses money in the print media (ruining good papers in the process) but the radio and television conservative media is printing money. Rush is happy to flout his increased leverage while it lasts.
But he knows he is best as an outsider railing against "the Democrat party" and liberals. When it suits him, he will turn on the GOP establishment for not being conservative enough (notice how he threw MCain under the bus in his "first national address" at CPAC for being too "moderate"), pronounce himself the watch dog for true conservatives, denounce the GOP leaders (of which he will deny he is one) and go back to leading his minions as he has in the past.
He makes the big bucks because he delivers patrons, not because he knows anything about conservative values (notice in his speech how he promotes conservative values but never defines them beyond his remarkably lame "we love people" announcement. Sounds a little 1960 radical to me (was he a flower child?).
Wow, what a jerk Frum is in making the comparison to Jesse. How many state presidential primary victories has Limbaugh chalked up, exactly?
Maybe the GOP will have a shot again when they get even a sliver of a clue on the structural racism thing. Doesn't look like they're headed that direction any time soon though.