Steele Cage Death Match

Original Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/03/the-weather-outside-is-frightful.html

By James Wolcott

The weather outside is frightful, but for political junkies the picture-window view couldn't be more frabjous. This morning I heard Don Imus moaning through a hole in his cowboy hat for the umpteenth time that it didn't make sense for Obama to be going after Rush Limbaugh, Imus being too set in his grizzled ways to comprehend the Machiavellian-Sun Tzu-Jedi mind game that's just been played. The result: internecine warfare on the right, with RNC chairman Michael "Not the Man of" Steele and Rush Limbaugh engaged in a weak-assed mortar exchange, David Frum landing some pretty solid punches* against Rush's padded midsection, and rival bloggers firing jockstrap slingshots at each other while Rahm Emanuel relaxes in the Michael Corleone chair of factional strategery, just chillin', babe. Peruse this list of pugilistic highlights courtesy of TBogg:

Steele Takes On Rush Limbaugh: "Ugly," "Incendiary" (VIDEO)

RNC Chair Michael Steele on Limbaugh: ‘Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.’

Throwing Rush Under the Bus

No Apology To Rush Limbaugh From RNC Chair Michael Steele

A Few Words for Michael Steele

Rush Limbaugh Launches Brutal Hit On Michael Steele

Limbaugh Goes to Mat With RNC Chair Steele to Rush: I'm sorry

Steele Bows Down To Limbaugh: ‘No Attempt On My Part To Diminish His Voice Or His Leadership’

There are those who say, It's a mistake giving Rush Limbaugh higher visibility, an even bigger platform, lest he go Incredible Hulk on us. Al Giordano refuses to consort with such worrywart, defensive thinking:

I'm in the camp that views the full court surrogate press over Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" comments regarding President Obama as perhaps the most brilliant political play of 2009 to date. The President, his chief of staff, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, the DNC chairman, unions and others have seized upon those comments and are pounding them from every direction.

And in the video above, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stuck the knife in deeper and twisted it when he said, "maybe the best question, though, is for you to ask individual Republicans whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend. Do they want to see the President's economic agenda fail? You know, I bet there are a number of guests on television throughout the day and maybe into tomorrow who could let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend."

In other words, corner every GOP office holder and surrogate into answering either "yes" or "no" to the question of whether they agree with Limbaugh's desire for the new administration to fail. It puts them in an impossible position. Either say "no" and incur the wrath of Limbaugh and his manifold supporters, or say "yes" and incur the wrath of voters, or run from the question in a way that causes everyone to smell blood in the water and begin circling in for the political kill.

What just happened to new RNC chairman Michael Steele - who when forced to answer that question on live television diminished Limbaugh as a mere "entertainer" and called his schtick "incendiary and ugly," and then had to backpedal when Limbaugh went after him for it (because the GOP donor base includes so many of Limbaugh's 22 million daily listeners) - will and properly should now happen to every one of his allies, up and down the line.

This narrative is going to go on for a while, in large part because in public life you get back what you put in: Limbaugh has, for decades, sought to stigmatize and demonize those with less power than he: single moms, "ugly women" (what Limbaugh says "feminism" is for), African-American political leaders, gays, undocumented immigrants... add up who he has picked on from his microphone demographically and you've got a majority of the American people.

During its Rovian/Fox News heyday, the right tried to make Michael Moore's mug the face of the Democratic Party, hold Democrats responsible for every egregious thing Moore said or did. It only partially succeeded because Moore was too independent an operator to be seamlessly morphed with Al Gore and John Kerry. But Limbaugh bleeds Republican red. He has been glorified and embraced as the perfect Ganesh by Newt Gingrich, CPAC, and the Bush family. He is the face and mouth of the conservative movement. A mouth that has swallowed Michael Steele whole, and has room for plenty more.

*Frum, making with the brass knuckles: "With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence - exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word - we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time."