Right Wing Nut House

This is starting to get fun. Watching Congressional liberals like Tom Harkin skewer Rush Limbaugh for his “phony soldiers” smear of anti-war troops is a bit like watching Leonardo DiCaprio do Shakespeare; it’s so horrifically bad you just want to sit back and enjoy the actor making an absolute fool of himself.

Of course, Rush should have apologized days ago. If he had, the whole thing would probably have blown over or at least not become the cause celebre of the blogosphere that has seen those on the right falling all over themselves trying to defend the indefensible and those on the left - still smarting from the Moveon.org “Betray-us” ad fiasco that played a huge part in blunting the anti-war pack in Congress from succeeding in destroying Petraeus’s credibility - trying to convince everyone that Rush Limbaugh is an anti-military, unpatriotic, drug addict.

Frank Martin explains the stupidity of the Democrat’s weird attack:

What was once said about “not starting an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel” can also be said about someone who’s voice can be found in every populated area of the western hemisphere for at least 3 straight hours every day.

3 hours a day, 5 days a week, repeated on Saturday and Sunday, with newsletter and website and podcast for a low,low monthly subscription. Democrats seem to have collectively decided in their “moment of triumph” with a whopping 24% approval rating to wander into the idealogical bull ring, not dressed as a matador, but wearing a red union suit, clown shoes and a big red nose, and then bend over while facing the other way and waving at the kids in the front row of the stands.

Right in the path of the charging enraged bull.

Indeed, put that way, Rush really didn’t need to back down and apologize although it would have been the decent thing to do. I know many of you disagree but the fact is, in order to believe Rush’s version of his thought processes, you have to believe he hasn’t spent the last decade and a half lumping people who disagree with him together and tarring them as “unpatriotic” or “un-American.” This is Rush’s shtick and to deny that he has made a career out of doing it is to deny him the air he breathes.

But the liberal reaction to Limbaugh’s smear has been outrageous by any standards. Rush left them an opening they haven’t had in years - to turn the tables on their number one talk radio tormentor and use the exact same calumnious language to hit back. It really does remind me of a ten year old boy on the playground, sticking his tongue out at a bully while saying “So there.”

And in the background of all this is the devout wish of Media Matters and the anti-war left to lash out blindly following what I called at the time “the dumbest, the most spectacularly ignorant political maneuver in modern history.” The Moveon ad not only let Petraeus off the hook politically. It tempered the criticism of Congressional questioners and in the end, actually engineered momentum for the pro-surge crowd.

As recently as week before the ad appeared, most political observers believed that all the momentum was on the anti-war side despite the smattering of good news from Iraq. The ad took the wind out of the sails of the anti-war side, causing their Hill allies to scramble for cover behind a resolution condemning the attack.

The ad backfired so egregiously, damaging the credibility of the New York Times in the process because of the newspaper’s generous discount to Moveon, that it generated sympathy for Petraeus across the country and bolstered his credibility. In fact, the ad did exactly the opposite of what it was originally intended to do; a spectacular failure in the annals of American politics.

These facts have the anti-war crowd all in a lather and seeking to lash out at the first target of opportunity that presented itself. First, they tried a curious smear of the President for his “all the Mandelas are dead” comment - a childish ploy that any 5 year old could see through.

Then it was Bill O’Reilly’s turn to be smeared regarding some “racist” comments he made about going to Harlem. That attempt at revenge fell through when Juan Williams came out and set the record straight. In the world of liberal pandering, the authentic voice of “the other” cannot be challenged. Strike two on the left.

Finally came Limbaugh’s generosity in presenting the anti-war crew with what they believed was a gift horse; the perfect vehicle to get back at their long time nemesis. Except the way they went about it was incredibly stupid.

First of all, what cloakroom genius put Senator Tom Harkin, a man forced to admit that he lied through his teeth about his own military service, out front on this issue? It’s just incomprehensible that the liberals could be that stupid. The only possible explanation is that, like Ted Kennedy’s driving problems and Barney Frank’s male out call caper, Harkin’s admission was so long ago that they figured everyone has forgotten about it.

To top it off, Harkin pandered shamelessly to the vulgarity of the “compassionate” netnuts by bringing up Limbaugh’s battle to overcome addiction:

Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse.

The satisfaction with Harkin on the left after he made that comment was so palpable - and shocking - that you could almost see them rubbing their hands together in glee as one. It never ceases to amaze me that the liberals can continue to brag about how compassionate they are compared to conservatives while throwing out the nastiest, most personal, most vile invective this side of a Britt/K-Fed exchange of emails.

Malkin hits the nail on the head here (although I disagree with her take on the incident in general):

Here is what this phony fiasco is really all about: It’s about the MoveOn.org Democrats trying to save face in the aftermath of the disastrous “General Betray Us” smear. They want their own moment of righteous (or rather, lefteous) indignation, their own empty proof that they really, really, really do support the troops. They want to shift attention away from MoveOn.org, its bully tactics, and its thug brethren at Media Matters. They are making a pathetic attempt to equate the “Betray Us” attack–which was deliberately timed for publication and maximum p.r. damage to our military command when the world was watching our top general in Iraq testifying in Congress–with a radio talk show host’s ruminations about anti-war soldiers who have faked their military records/history.

Bottom-of-the-barrel desperation.

Face it my lefty friends, the Democrats have botched this attack big time. In fact, a move by GOP House members to actually introduce a resolution praising Limbaugh is gaining steam along with Representative Udall’s resolution condemning him. This thing is going to backfire in the Dems faces as once again, liberal lawmakers will be seen as little more than tools carrying water for the far left on the internet.

Only in America.

UPDATE: FROM OUR “MOUTH AGAPE WITH ASTONISHMENT” FILES

I know there is something pithy, snarky, amusing, or just downright nasty I could say about The New Republic weighing in on the Rush Limbaugh matter. Frankly, anything I could add would be superfulous. There is no level of irony that I can think of in literature or life that matches this kind of total obliviousness to self-parody:

I can’t help but find it incredibly karmically satisfying that Rush Limbaugh is getting spoon-fed a little bit of the same bitter medicine Democrats swallowed when MoveOn dared to call someone wearing a military uniform less than honest. Now, what Rush did was worse — he called the many Iraq war veterans who consult with antiwar Democrats “phony troops” — and the outcry against him is less wild: Some press releases, a little play on CNN, and today Harry Reid went on the Senate floor to denounce him, which probably only makes Rush more popular with his listeners. Still, good for Reid. In these difficult days we find our scraps of pleasure where we can.

Bryan at Hot Air tries gamely to rise to this stupendous occasion of monumentally epic hypocrisy:

The phony soldiers fall into three categories: Those who claim to serve but never did; those who claim personal knowledge of US atrocities that never happened and who turn out to have inflated their own service records, if they served at all; and those who use their own military service records either to smear the military themselves or to vouch for others who smear the military and turn out to be liars. TNR’s own Scott Thomas Beauchamp falls into the latter category. TNR’s Eve Fairbanks is not only evidently unaware of how dangerous it is for someone writing for TNR to weigh in on this subject — blowback, indeed — but she’s unaware and probably willfully so that the entire accusation against Rush is false to its roots.

How’s that final report on Beauchamp going, Mr. Foer?

For once, that trite, overused bloggism cliche “You just can’t make this stuff up” is actually one of the more profound things I can write about this.