DOWNLOAD (43)

PLAY (92)

On Tuesday's O'Reilly Factor, Mike Gallagher -- sold that home yet, Mike? -- and Lars Larson were on to talk about why right-wingers like Newt Gingrich just can't help talking about Rush Limbaugh and drawing his ire and thus feeding into the evil liberals' devious plan to draw attention away from the serious issue of the economy. It was a hoot.

The wankafoolery started really rolling when Gallagher came up with this gem:

Gallagher: Well, I think Newt doesn't like being part of a phony debate that's been set up by the left as to whether or not Rush Limbaugh is the face of the Republican Party. Newt has always been great at defining what Republicans are about, what Republicans are for, and putting Democrats on the defensive. And I think Newt is probably mildly annoyed that a radio host, even one as prominent as Rush, has created so many headlines over all this. And I think both of these men acknowledge that it's a disingenuous debate. It's just something that's been ginned up by the Left to try to fracture the Republican Party even further, and that's just not what Newt is about.

Even O'Reilly seemed skeptical about all this, but all were in eventual agreement that the whole thing was a ridiculous plot by liberals and the Obama administration to distract attention from the economy, which O'Reilly assures us is going to backfire, blah blah blah blah blah.

They're all conveniently forgetting one thing: Limbaugh is precisely relevant to the matter of the economy because he has made himself a major player -- and certainly its most visible one -- in the fight over President Obama's legislative package for getting the economy back on its feet.

Does anyone doubt for a minute that Republicans in both the House and the Senate would have been as significantly lockstep, completely uniformly obstructionist, in voting against the stimulus bill had it not been for Limbaugh, with this troops manning the phone lines to deal rapidly and harshly with any hapless Republicans who might even hint toward straying? Is there any doubt their leverage helped Blue Dogs water the bill down enough to make it potentially short of what's needed?

Trying to pretend Limbaugh is just a sideshow, when in fact he's been a key player in how the economic fix has proceeded -- and particularly in how it's been discussed and shaped -- is a good meme for Republicans. But it also runs aground on the sharp rocks of reality.

Limbaugh has become the most important means of Republicans maintaining their ideological rigidity through hardline party discipline, especially on economic matters. So when liberals go after Limbaugh as the face of the GOP, that's because -- by default -- that's what he is right now. And it's not looking like it will change anytime soon, either; do you see any real potential winners among that crop of Republican politicians right now? (I for one am waiting for them to recruit Glenn Beck to run on the Sarah Palin ticket ...)

So when Obama brought Limbaugh up -- "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done" -- it was precisely in the context of solving the economic mess. And he's right: If Republicans are just listening to Rush and, like him, reflexively rejecting every proposal he offers, and moreover reflexively working for his failure for cold political calculations, then they're not going to be part of getting anything done in the next four years, especially not in terms of getting the economy back up and running.

The public doesn't want the standard old Conservative solutions to these problems -- which is all the GOP has to offer -- and Republicans are going to have to learn to deal with that fact. The only remaining question is whether they're going to be part of the solution, or part of the problem. With Rush, we already have our answer.

This article just highlights how out of touch the Limbaugh National Committee really are:

Nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host Mike Gallagher lamented this morning that his failure to sell his own house, that he recently placed on the market, was due to the psychological effects burdening the wealthy resulting from the class warfare propagated by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Gallagher was attempting to make the case that the economic policies of Democrats in D.C. have driven fear into the rich, which has translated into the wealthy being too scared to spend their money. As a result, wealth is not having the ‘trickle down effect’ on the nation’s working class who rely on the nation's upper class for jobs.

--

"I decided to put my house on the market. Three weeks. And it’s a house – and I’m not bragging – it’s a house with a ‘wow factor.’ You walk into the house and you go, ‘Wow.’ It’s got all the nice little bells and whistles, it’s got the electric shades that go up and down, and the sound system, and the beautiful pool. I’m a lucky guy. Three weeks – not a single phone call."

Dripping with irony, Gallagher, a fierce proponent of ‘individual responsibility,’ recently lambasted home buyers facing foreclosure who had purchased homes they could not afford and were seeking bailout money or to have the federal government intervene and stop foreclosures. Last week, Gallagher highlighted the story of a bus driver who had purchased an $800K home, which is now only worth $600K:

"I dare you to feel sorry for her…how about this, honey? Pay your mortgage!"

In short, Gallagher believes in individual responsibility and the importance of micro-economic behavior when it comes to people who can’t afford their mortgages, but attributes (Democratic) macroeconomic governmental policies for his inability to sell his own house.

Gallagher, by the way, did not mention the listing price of his home on the air.

Maybe people are making responsiblitiy a high priority? Gallagher, not the comedian is complaining becasue his house has been on the market all of three weeks without even telling us what his selling price is. Welcome to the horrors that all of Americans are facing, but at least he isn't in foreclosure.

Again, the hubris that it takes to unapologetically admit to being a propagandist never ceases to amaze me...Wallace's dad must be so proud.

ThinkProgess grabbed this rather astonishing audio from The Mike Gallagher Show, yet another apologist for The. Worst. Presidency. Ever. And in an oh-so-macho pissing contest over who is more favored by the criminals in the White House, Wallace brags to Gallagher:

WALLACE: Let me ask you this, did the Vice President say to you, “thank you so much for defending the president and yes I’m going to be giving you a special exit interview in a couple of weeks?”

GALLAGHER: Did he say all that to you?

WALLACE: Yes.

Apparently, all this gratitude towards Wallace came as Wallace defended the Bush administration, ironically at the premiere of a movie where a real journalist actually did his job when interviewing a president:

Last Monday, at a screening of Ron Howard’s new film “Frost/Nixon,” Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace vociferously defended President Bush against criticism by Howard that Bush has abused the office of the presidency in a way similar to President Richard Nixon. “Richard Nixon’s crimes were committed purely in the interest of his own political gain,” said Wallace. Wallace claimed that it was a “gross misreading of history” to say that Bush abused his power “for pure political self preservation” like Nixon did.[..]

Later in the interview, Wallace said that “a bunch of people” at Cheney’s party thanked him for his comments. “Cheney was genuinely grateful for what I had done, and Ed Gillespie, the senior counselor to the president, was there and genuinely grateful.” Listen to it here:

As ThinkProgress noted earlier this week, the Bush White House did in fact abuse its power for political gain and to maintain control of the government. Beyond politicizing many federal agencies, the Bush team also outed an undercover CIA agent in order to punish a critic and fired nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

I wonder if Wallace thinks he will be viewed as gratefully by the incoming administration or if he'll suddenly remember that his job is not to serve as a public relations flack. Somehow I can't see him being so quick to defend Obama.