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It is pathetic to see how badly these GOP pundits and politicos twist themselves in knots to disavow any responsibility for the fact that they are driving their party over the cliff, just like they drove the American economy in 2008. Now the putative head of the Republican Party, the man from whom they all take marching orders, the pundit who claims to think with one hand behind his back, is now downplaying his influence and importance. He's just a regular Joe, donchaknow (albeit one with a $400,000,000 paycheck) railing against those ruling elites who have messed up his party...without any input from him at all:

You guys need to start asking yourselves some questions. You pick the candidates and you're getting the candidates that you want. You're getting the issues that you want. I'm not in charge of any Republican Party platform. I'm not in charge of anybody's campaign. I have nothing to say, officially or unofficially, about what the Republican Party does as it tries to win elections. Zilch, zero, nada. I am simply a powerful, influential member of the media commenting on such things. But I can tell you that very little of what I thought should have happened in the campaign, very little of what I thought should have happened actually did. You wouldn't find my fingerprints on much of this at all because not much of it is stuff I would have done had I had the authority or power, which I didn't.

Yeah, right. Poor little powerless Rusty, so misunderstood behind that 24K gold microphone. I'm curious though if those dittoheads who are so vested in the rightness of Limbaugh can wrap their brains around this meek, powerless, unheard man.

But Limbaugh hasn't always felt that he lacked influence in the GOP -- just a few months ago, Limbaugh was asserting his influence by suggesting he had greater authority than most in the Republican establishment. During his August 21 show, Limbaugh urged Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) to withdraw from the Missouri Senate race because of his "legitimate rape" remarks. The next day, Limbaugh guaranteed that if he had explicitly asked Akin to leave, his voice would have swayed the congressman: "Folks, if I had demanded Akin drop out, he'd be gone."

That same day, Limbaugh stated that he hasn't spoken to Romney "in weeks," implying that he had been in communication with him over the course of his campaign.

In 2010, Limbaugh hyped his political prowess by suggesting he hand-delivered a line to Romney and Republicans about Obama's failed policies causing them to await his "next leadership step" to see where he was going to take them. He even suggested that Romney had given him a direct shout-out during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that year.

Later that year, Limbaugh crowned himself "the conservative leader," declaring that "the center of the universe is not the RNC. It's right here." These comments echoed several previous claims that he may be the leader of the Republican Party.

Seems that Rush Limbaugh did pick up something from Mitt Romney after all: That Etch-a-Sketch.