Free Republic

Memo to depressed and disgruntled Democrats: Get over it and get on with it. Get over the shock and awe of the Nov. 2 electoral debacle and get on with this realization: The issue is not whatever happened to the Ohio vote. It's not who should be the next honcho at the Democratic National Committee. It's not whether the party should go back to its roots. It's Iraq, stupid. The most divisive debate of the presidential campaign was the festering violence in Iraq. The red staters stood by the president's "stay the course" mantra. The blues argued that Iraq is...

"It's easy for people to say that if they shoot up on heroin the only people they're hurting are themselves. But that's not true. ... Drug abusers destroy their families ... If we legalize these vices, we erode the societal support for prohibitions against crimes such as murder. The erosion of the moral fabric of society is a gradual, insidious process." -- Rush Limbaugh, The Way Things Ought to Be, pp 53-54. As I sifted through hundreds of comments from Rush Limbaugh fans over the last week, some interesting trends emerged. About 50 percent just wanted to call me names....

<p>All right, so a couple "major" polls show the famous thick-necked slab of Austrian meat wielding a dangerous Conan-like lead over quivering not-as-bad-as-you-think Gray Davis.</p> <p>And Schwarzenegger's bouncing around like a Hummer on meth, inflicting that weird maniacal grin and massive blocklike head all over the unsuspecting media, as pretty much the entire population of even slightly aware and intelligent people in California and in fact all over the nation go, oh holy Christ, please dear God no.</p>

<p>THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.</p> <p>Rush Limbaugh's week went from bad to worse today. His name has surfaced in a drug investigation in Florida. According to law enforcement sources, he allegedly bought large amounts of prescription painkillers illegally. This after he quit under pressure as host of ESPN's Sunday NFL countdown for his racially charged remarks.</p>

hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism--"I inherited half my father's friends and all his enemies"--conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than...