[media id=7159] Something seems strangely off about Rush Limbaugh in his interview with Sean Hannity yesterday on Fox. Of course, there's also the cr
January 22, 2009

Something seems strangely off about Rush Limbaugh in his interview with Sean Hannity yesterday on Fox. Of course, there's also the crazy things he says, such as his further explanation of why he hopes Barack Obama's presidency fails:

Hannity: So this raises this question: You are the leading voice of opposition -- conservative. And have defined conservatives for over two decades. You celebrated your twenty years on the air, by the way, congratulations. Coming off a record ratings year for your.

Bu you are a passionate conservative. You've defined conservatives for many people in this country for years. He [Barack Obama] represents the antithesis in terms of his worldview. So then the question becomes, do you want him to succeed?

Limbaugh: No this -- I am so glad that he asked me that question, that you asked me this question. I'll tell you why.

I am hearing many Republicans say that, 'Well, we want him to succeed.' And, uh, prominent Republicans -- "Yes, we want him -- " They have laid down. They have totally -- they're drinking the kool-aid too. They have no guts to stand up for what their beliefs are, because they're afraid of criticism. They're afraid of being called racists. They're afraid of not having gotten with the program.

Now, success can be defined two ways. I said earlier, I don't know about this guy, I really don't. But I've got my suspicions and they're pretty close to convictions, but we're gonna have to wait to see what he does. Now if he turns out to be a Reagan -- if he adds Reagan to his recipe of FDR and Lincoln, and if he does cut some taxes, if he does not eliminate the Bush tax cuts, I would call that success. So yeah, I would hope he would succeed if he acts like Reagan.

But if he's gonna do FDR, if he's gonna do the New New Deal all over, which we will call here the Raw Deal, why would I want him to succeed? Look, he's my president. The fact that he is historic is irrelevant to me now. That matters not at all. If he is going to enact a far-left agenda -- look, I think it's already decided. Two trillion dollars in stimulus. The growth of government.

I think the intent here is to create as many dependent Americans as possible, looking to government as their hope and salvation. If he gets nationalized health care, I mean, it's over. We're never going to roll that back. That's the end of America as we have known it. Because that's then going to set the stage for everything being government owned, operated or provided.

Why would I want that to succeed? I don't believe in that. I know that's not how this country is going to be great in the future, it's not what made this country great. So I shamelessly say no, I want him to fail if his agenda is a far-left collectivism, some people say socialism. As a conservative, heartfelt, why would I want socialism to succeed?

Hannity: You want your country to succeed, and you believe that his views implemented represent a failure, predictable failure. And conservatism would represent predictable success.

Well, yeah, because conservatism has been such a big stinking success.

See, fellas, there was this thing called an election. And in it, the people decided that conservatism -- conservative governance, conservative politics, conservative belief -- was an Epic Fail. They repudiated it for its manifest failures. And they handed over the keys to someone who's going to try something different.

So of course we understand that you're going to oppose his policies. But his success or failure at this juncture in history means more than just the success or failure of an ideology -- it means the success or failure of the American economy. Rich conservatives like yourselves may be immune from that fact, which gives you the luxury to hope for his failure. But the rest of us -- especially the working class you all like to pretend you represent -- do not.

Limbaugh and Hannity only care about their ideological well-being. The rest of us, in contrast, are focused on our national well-being.

Limbaugh goes completely off the deep end, however, later in the interview when he posits that Obama was elected because of the Librul Media and their death grip on American voters:

See Sean, they've got an investment. He's too big to fail. They wanted him elected because they wanted to reassert their power -- the media here -- in being able to sway public opinion to get the result that they wanted. So they were going to cover up the Jeremiah Wright -- all these things that give indications of radicalism in Obama -- cover that up, portray him as he wants to be portrayed, somebody who's not to be questioned. Somebody who's not to be doubted. We're just supposed to accept and trust, because -- most of these guys came alive and came of age in the Civil Rights battles of the '60s. It defines who they are. They've trained the young drive-bys to look at events through the same prism.

You know racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left. We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds. That we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend forward, backward, whichever. Because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We've got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign.

Oy. Where to begin.

First, I don't exactly recall the mainstream media covering up the Jeremiah Wright thing. In fact, I recall exactly the opposite -- that for about three weeks, they were absolutely obsessed with it. You couldn't turn on a channel without hearing about Wright. But when Obama gave a major speech on race and then repudiated Wright finally, the story withered on the vine. How long exactly did Limbaugh want people to keep beating that dessicated corpse of a horse?

Second, there's no doubt that racism exists on the left, but it seems Limbaugh believes the only kind that remains in America is anti-white racism -- because that's the only kind he sees. The logical conclusion is that he sees the ascension of a black man to the presidency -- the fall of one of the great racial barriers -- as a racist attack on whites, because that's what we've been celebrating this week.

But trying to claim that anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-Arab, or anti-Asian bigotry, all of which have long been immanations of right-wing belief systems, no longer even exists ... well, that's just outright delusional.

Which seems to pretty well describe not just Rush Limbaugh, but the right in general these days.

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