Free Republic

Beginning Sunday, the White House will harness every part of the Democratic Party’s machinery to defend President Obama’s budget and portray Republicans as reflexively political, according to party strategists. A participant in the planning meetings described the push as a successor to Democrats’ message that Rush Limbaugh is the Republican Party leader. “We have exhausted the use of Rush as an attention-getter,” the official said. David Plouffe, manager of Obama’s presidential race, helped design the strategy, which includes the most extensive activation since November of the campaign’s grassroots network. The database—which includes information for at least 10 million donors, supporters...

Did you know that the racism in our country is coming from Rush Limbaugh? That's what HBO's Bill Maher said on Friday's "Real Time." Not just that, but also the people who are buying guns and ammunition since Election Day are doing so "because they're afraid that Obama and his Negro army are going to come and get" them. I kid you not. Such offenses occurred in the following exchange between Maher and his conservative guest Andrew Breitbart (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 2:37):

Forced to the ramparts to defend Rush Limbaugh against spurious, low-down attacks from the Obama White House and assorted Obamedia, conservatives, in their understandable zeal to defend a salient voice of conservatism, are letting the real enemy slip away unnamed. Who would that be? The answer is George W. Bush, whose stealthy political legacy stands as taking what is popularly known as "conservatism" on a disastrously leftward lurch. A shocking statement, maybe. But I came to believe long ago -- at some point after the insipid limpness of former President Bush's theories of world democracy, delivered in his second inaugural...

First, just a word before the following is dismissed by Democratic readers as partisan, or as being from someone who doesn't know what he is talking about. My polling firm, InsiderAdvantage, is non-partisan. It polled the 2008 presidential race for the red-hot political site Politico, and was in a recent speech at Fordham University named by a guru who even D.C. liberals praise as one of the three most accurate national pollsters for the presidential contest. This column isn't about partisanship. It's about strategy. I've only met Rush Limbaugh once. It was back when I was politically active, running Newt...

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn't focus-group his enemies list. Team Obama -- aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House...

Link to Rachel Maddow interview with Meghan McCain on MSNBC (Total Time: 9:59) "...there are people who think we should go back to our conservative roots, become extreme conservatives" (emphasis mine) (1:26) Maddow identified Tim Pawlenty as being on McCain's side. (1:42) "I love the Republican Party and I'm trying to help it." (2:11) "...the poster child for moderate Republicanism..." (Maddow, talking about McCain) (2:44) "I still consider myself a Republican." (emphasis mine) (4:04) "...we're never going to create a dialogue, meet in the middle..." (talking about Republicans appearing on Maddow's show, Maddow appearing on Fox) (4:17) "And I hate...

There's nothing conservative about the boost to WABC radio from Rush Limbaugh's resurgence Rush Limbaugh likes to complain that President Obama is out to destroy the capitalist spirit in America. But so far, life under socialism has been pretty good for the confrontational talk radio star. In the months since the Republican rout left Democrats in charge and conservatives on the run, the outspoken Mr. Limbaugh has become the de facto leader of the opposition—and the only radio personality who gets national attention on a daily basis. Ratings for The Rush Limbaugh Show on its flagship station, WABC-AM, spiked by...

What did the Godfather say? Basically, he said that if Obama's goal was to create a socialist economy in the United States, he wanted him to fail. Let's stop the phony sense of outrage. If you don't agree with The Man on this one then you ought to be looking at emigration laws. Yesterday we learned that this whole "wanting the president to fail" stuff isn't new and isn't by any means exclusive to evil conservatives. We now learn that James Carville, Bill Clinton's attack python, was referring to President Bush in the early years of the Bush administration when...

Setting a world record today for beating a dead horse, the Democratic National Committee will announce they’ve selected an anti-Rush Limbaugh slogan to be placed on a billboard in the radio host’s hometown. The DNC began soliciting slogans a week ago in response to Limbaugh’s well-known statement that he wants President Obama to fail. “If you’re anything like me, then you’ve had the urge to talk back to a right-wing talk radio host more than a few times. Now you can,” reads an email blast from the executive director of the DNC. “Can you help us come up with...

Rush is not the right leader for the Reagan Revolution Phase Two John Mark ReynoldsPolitics 03.04.2009 Rush has enviable radio talent. He reaches out to a big group of people every week and edutains them. He has his reward and needs no further praise. I am not going to let leftists force me to throw Rush under the bus, but they cannot force me to make him the driver either. Suppose you want to see some of his ideas, such as pro-life and small government, win.Suppose you want to see the Reagan Revolution continue or expand to new groups. Rush...

James Carville fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh Wednesday, who earlier in the day took the Democratic strategist to task for saying of President Bush in 2001, "I certainly hope he doesn't succeed." Carville told CNN that unlike Limbaugh, who recently said he wants President Obama to fail, Carville retracted his own missive -- uttered to a group of reporters on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 -- just minutes later, when he learned of the terrorist attacks on America. "Thank God that I had the good sense to realize that the United States was at war and that...

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. bests controversial conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh in a new national poll about the direction of the Republican Party. The Democratic strategy and polling group Democracy Corps found that more Americans prefer Huntsman's moderate approach to Limbaugh's premise that the GOP must move further to the right, 57 percent to 37 percent, according to Politico.com. As the GOP struggles to recover from last November's loss of the White House, Limbaugh is increasingly being seen as the party's leader. He was cheered at the recent annual meeting of the national Conservative Political Action Committee for...

Team Obama, aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House press corps into dropping what they were doing to get Mr. Limbaugh. Was it smart politics and good policy? No. For one thing, it gave the lie to Barack Obama's talk about ending "the political strategy...

EXCERPT: The bad news is that newspapers are dying and comic strips are fading into history. The good news is that the Huffington Post is guaranteed to make you laugh every day. For example, here’s how New Age guru Deepak Chopra opened his article about Rush Limbaugh yesterday. “When Michael Steele, the hapless chairman of the Republican Party, lost his bearings and called Rush Limbaugh’s style ugly and incendiary, everyone knew it was the truth,” the subcontinental sahib said. “But it was a perfect example of an inconvenient truth. The right wing has long used ugly, incendiary speech the way...

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats have been pursuing a strategy of tying elected Republicans to Rush Limbaugh, concocted in hopes of painting Republican opposition to the Administration policy proposals as extremist. ... The conservative radio host, and liberal scourge, reports that his ratings have nearly doubled since Democrats began their campaign to marginalize him. Revenues are up as well. ... Things are so good for him right now, even the White House has to admit its attacks on Limbaugh are becoming "counter-productive." ...

By nearly 2 to 1, Americans view Rush Limbaugh negatively, according to a new Democracy Corps poll that pours gas on an already divisive battle between the conservative talk show host's fans and those of moderate GOP boss Michael Steele. The Democratic poll, provided to Whispers, declares Rush a heavy weight on an already downtrodden GOP. "On virtually every question the great majority of the mainstream rejects Limbaugh's ideas and vision of the Republican Party," said the poll summary, printed below. Of course, many conservatives will question the poll, conducted by a group headed by Clintonites James Carville and Stan...

Best-selling author and former Republican Frank Schaeffer lets Rush Limbaugh and his Republican mates have it at HuffPo, in a piece called, "An Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (from a former Republican)": I have to say, love him or hate him, the Republicans have got to appreciate Schaeffer's helpful inclusion of related content. He's like their own personal AOL Dashboard.....

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to radio host in America, says recent efforts by the White House and Democrats to demonize him are actually helping his show in financial success and personal popularity. "Revenues at the EIB Network in the first quarter of 2009 are up 13 and a half percent over first quarter revenues of 2008," Limbaugh announced this afternoon, "and at our revenue baseline, that is not an insignificant percentage or amount represented by it." He also noted his staff had just finished an analysis of Arbitron listening data for the first few...

The press never reported that Democratic strategist James Carville said he wanted President Bush to fail before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But a feeding frenzy ensued when radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wanted President Obama to fail.

It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz." Now, of course, Mark...