The Bard of Lard

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Conservative jaw-flapper Rush Limbaugh has been all over the news for the past few weeks. He got the publicity ball rolling when he stated that he hoped the Obama administration failed, and then, after near unanimous criticism, even from members of his own party, he repeated and expanded on his scurrilous statement at a national conference of conservatives. One blogger compared the remark to a passenger on board the Titanic saying that he didn’t like the Captain and hoped that he would steer the ship into an iceberg.

But the White House countered Rush’s silly piece of bombast with a move so crafty and cunning that it would impress a Chess Grand Master. President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, went on a Sunday talk show and make a reference to Rush being the intellectual force of the Republican Party. Newly elected Republican Party Chair Michael Steele felt obliged to weigh in by remarking that Rush was an entertainer, and not a political leader – and with that bit of truth, the intra-party fracas was on!

Would the GOP officials line up behind the party chair, a man who supposedly was elected to show the newer, more inclusive face of the party, or would they jump behind a vitriolic loudmouth who is viewed favorably by less than a fifth of the population – a group that is the total embodiment of the party’s racist, hate-mongering old face? Well, Republicans are nothing if not persistent in their failings. Everybody that was anybody in the Grand Old Party lined up behind their pet buffoon, leaving the embattled Chairman Steele with few viable options but to apologize to the party’s “intellectual” leader.

Limbaugh, who apparently lives by that old axiom that all publicity is good publicity, took advantage of the national press’s sudden focus on him and issued a challenge to President Obama to show up in his studios for a debate – without teleprompters – a not-so-veiled accusation that the brightest person to occupy the Presidency in the last couple of generations could not stand up to Limbaugh’s fierce intellect without cue cards. The President, whose positive poll ratings are over three times greater than those of Limbaugh, ignored the bait.

So where has this world-class narcissist focused his attentions this week? Unbelievably, Rush has turned his noise on the ailing Senator Edward Kennedy, stating with the assurance of someone who has a direct line to God, that Kennedy will be dead by the time Obama’s health care package is passed into law. Hopefully the Lion of the Senate will take that as a personal challenge and strive to outlive the drug-addled radio clown.

America may not be perfect, but it is certainly better than Rush Limbaugh!