Limbaugh’s last words

On Jan. 16, Rush Limbaugh made a daring statement. On a recent episode of his radio show, in response to a request from a national print outlet to express his hope for the Obama Presidency in 400 words, Limbaugh stated quite blatantly, “I don’t need 400 words. I need four: I hope he fails.”

Public backlash was the minimum sentence I expected for his poor taste. I know that this discussion is slightly outdated, but I also know that among my many liberal peers, such dramatic, sensationalistic pessimism against Obama’s administration is greatly unwelcome. When someone hopes the President fails, that same person also transitively hopes that the entire nation fails, and looking at our current economic and diplomatic state, such outrageous comments are quite threatening and outright unpatriotic. Now I know that for the past eight years, Democrats have been relishing in their unending opposition to the Bush administration, but never have I (at the very least) ever prayed that Bush failed at his policies. I want this country to assert itself as a genuine global, non-imperial power. I want this country to be successful in all the right ways, but asking for the administration to fail would bring me drastically farther from that goal. I’ve disapproved of Bush’s initiatives, and I’ve lived in fiery contempt of his policies that DID fail, but Limbaugh has indeed crossed a line.

He’s a razored-mouthed conservative. I get it. He didn’t vote Obama-Biden. I get it. He definitely doesn’t support the path that the new administration is taking. I get it. And not many people do. President Obama has gotten off to a shaky, less than the glorious start he projected to have throughout his campaign. But the fact of the matter is, he is our president, and he’s doing what it takes to fix the mess that Bush left behind in office. I most likely am not the only one to believe that Obama couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune time and couldn’t have arrived at a worse time. Let’s face it, his $838 billion stimulus isn’t going to help substantially and neither is the trillion dollar bailout, but those are the only options we have at this point. Obama is doing what the temper of the times is telling him to do, and we cannot blame him. We cannot doubt him, or we will never get out of this muck.

What I found oustanding about this whole Limbaugh-Obama situation is that Limbaugh has yet again made an ass of himself. Reagan deemed him as his Republican son, the shining light of the Conservative movement, that same movement that values its existence and its constituents as the only genuine American populace. “Those flaming liberals are screwing up this country.” You’ve heard that enough, haven’t you? Well, that hardly tops what Limbaugh’s been throwing out there.

He continued in his Republican propaganda, “what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here.”

This is utterly unwarranted and extremely inaccurate. And, might I add, a bit hypocritical on his part. Both political parties possess their fair shares of ups and downs, of hits and misses. Though I do believe that the US’s most prosperous epochs were under Democratic reign. To attribute the downfall of the US to Democrats is simply unfair and simply ignorant. Simply, well Republican.

If I do recall correctly, some of our most hailed presidents were Democratic. Let’s rewind to post-Depression America, an economic environment that closley resembles the one today. President Franklin D. Roosevelt administered a new economic initiative that was ill received by numerous political hot shots who argued that the New Deal would make the US a borderline socialist regime. Nevertheless, the multitude of fiscal programs and economic organizations actually ushered in a new era, one that, compounded with FDR’s comforting fireside chats, instilled an air of reassurance and optimism in the minds of millions of depressed citizens. And then, in the 1960’s, LBJ offered a new shiny America. My journalism professor, Bob Mann, will concede on one point in this political dynasty, and that is that LBJ’s only downfall (which, i don’t deny, was a pretty big fall) was Vietnam. He didn’t get us in, but he didn’t get us out either. However, the War in Vietnam cannot completely brush aside the great policies he did enact or discredit his legitimacy as a president. He provided a great thrust for the Civil Rights Movement, ushering in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Great Society.

And finally, Bill Clinton. Clinton left undoubtedly left office with the longest boom in US history still intact. He left behind an unparalleled legacy of a huge budget surplus. Any hope of this happening again, probably won’t exist in Obama’s days, but we can hope that he’ll provide his successor with an economy stable enough to achieve prosperity again.

So, while this isn’t the most legitimate evaluation of the country’s Democratic legacy, it does ring in some degree of truth, in that it probably reflects the attitudes of most downtrodden Democrats, who just want the liberal-bashing to cease…for good. Rush Limbaugh is an example of what is wrong with politics these days. He’s patriotic while being completely unpatriotic. I guess he values this country when someone of his own kind takes office. Or maybe he loves this country so much that he would submit himself to such extreme pessimism and prejudice to salvage the “virtue” of this dying nation. Either way, he’s the wrong man to represent conservative politics.

“Coach” Bob Mann told the class something at the beginning of this semester that I believe encompasses the political bitterness that has existed through the years. He said to us that the reason why he chose to be a Democrat (minus the policy agenda), was because he couldn’t stand to stand among a political party that based its entire platform on de-legitimizing and breaking down the other side. Republicans blow up minor scandals and criticize endlessly. But you hardly hear Democrats engaging in such sophomoric hit-trading. Remember when Laura Bush killed a guy? Yeah, I was shocked too. No one else knew. That’s because the Republicans tried to cover it up and the Democrats had more respect to dig up old dirt.

Anyways, I guess the moral of today’s post is more of one of my wishes. While I wish that “I hope he fails” are Limbaugh’s last words, I know nothing could shut him up. What I mean is….he needs to go. For good.