The American Spectator

Gene Car| 3.4.09 @ 1:03PM

If Ms Parker (and Mr Brooks, and Mr Buckley) has actually listened to Governor Sarah Palin, they would also have learned that "spending nonexistent trillions [isn't] quite the way to preceed in an economic crisis". If they has examined her actual record as Governor of Alaska they would have that lesson reinforced.

Mrs. Jackson| 3.4.09 @ 1:10PM

Per" Does Ms. Parker really think that Limbaugh doesn't agree with her that "spending nonexistent trillions [isn't] quite the way to proceed in an economic crisis." So what's her problem?"

Mr. P, do you really want me to answer what Ms. Parker's problem is? It will not be pretty. But it will be 'dishy' which, most amusingly, is how Christopher Buckley always describes Ms. Parker whenever he references her in print these days.

It is clear from Ms. Parker's column she only reads the WaPo and does not listen to Rush. If she actually listened to Rush she would know two things pertinent to her argument.

1. It is President Obama's policies Rush wants to fail. Because policies like "spending nonexistent trillions" is a bad policy for our country to pursue. If you doubt Rush on this you can try it at home by spending 10s of 1000's of (your) nonexistent dollars on a home or credit card. Oh, wait, lots of Americans did exactly this and this is one of the contributing reasons we're in a financial meltdown.

And yes Ms. Parker, sadly for you becuase you threw your support behind the guy, if President Obama's policies do fail, then it is reasonable to conclude historians will conclude his was a failed presidency much they've done with Jimmy Carter's.

2. If Rush had a candidate in the last presidential go around, it was Mitt Romney. True, he didn't publicly throw his support towards him because he felt that was overstepping the bounds of decency as well as manipulating his audience.

Overstepping the bounds of decency and being manipulative, we conservatives have learned the hard way, is something Ms. Parker has no problem doing.

Oh Mr. P, I guess I did tell you what was wrong with Ms. Parker after all.

Wlady Pleszczynski| 3.4.09 @ 1:38PM

Mrs. J., you sure did. Thank you.

BD57| 3.4.09 @ 1:47PM

From outward appearances, Parker's departure from the "reservation" is little more than a case of hurt feelings: some conservatives strongly resented her criticisms of Sarah Palin (selected, by the way, by a nominee who was NOT Limbaugh's - or most conservatives - preferred candidate) and said so.

Believing herself utterly reasonable, those people are by definition narrow minded, intolerant, yadda yadda yadda ... and so, in the name of tolerance and civility, she sets out to make those folks pariahs.

It's really pathetic.

Red Phillips| 3.4.09 @ 2:10PM

Parker is an urban elitist and these folks are becoming increasingly squeamish about associating themselves with the rest of us conservative yahoos out here in fly-over country. She is a female version of David Frum.

Mrs. Jackson, the fact that Rush supported recent convert from liberal Massachusetts Republicanism Romney does not speak well for him. The people who are trying to paint Rush as some sort of doctrinaire true believer are wrong. If Rush was really a true believer he would have supported Ron Paul. Or if he couldn’t get past Paul’s non-interventionism at least Tancredo or Hunter.

ruth| 3.4.09 @ 2:16PM

Parker has been bitten by the green-eyed monster. She was so envious of Palin it was funny. Pathetic hag.

Crusader| 3.4.09 @ 2:17PM

Some questions---

1 - What happens when time runs out and I'm not on board?
2 - Where was this opposition to opposition when GWB was da prez?????
3 - Dims have the presidency, House, & Senate. Why do they need Repubs on board with their goofy crap anyway? Pass it already if its what's best for the country and when it works rake the dummy repubs over the coals. I mean if you're right, you're right, right? When did the Dims all of a sudden need Repub approval to enact their goofiness?????

Mrs. Jackson| 3.4.09 @ 2:32PM

Anytime Mr. P.

Mrs. Jackson| 3.4.09 @ 2:44PM

"Mrs. Jackson, the fact that Rush supported recent convert from liberal Massachusetts Republicanism Romney does not speak well for him. The people who are trying to paint Rush as some sort of doctrinaire true believer are wrong. If Rush was really a true believer he would have supported Ron Paul. Or if he couldn’t get past Paul’s non-interventionism at least Tancredo or Hunter."

I guess the comment hinges on what is a true believer. I'm currently reading R. Emmett Tyrell's A Conservative Crack-Up (1992) and this idea of what is a 'true believer' seems to have been with conservatism since the days of Buckley,Birchers,etal. And it has not always been a pretty question. Who ought to have gotten behind whoever in the last primary go-around is one for the port and cigars for the next 4 years -at least.

What is important now and this must not be lost on us, is that the enemies of the GOP, conservatism, and Rush are trying to destroy conservatism, Rush, and the GOP by misrepresenting Rush, his philosophy(conservatism), and his words and then say he is the leader of the GOP.

We must hang together now and then start killing each other (figuratively) in the next primary season.

Red Phillips| 3.4.09 @ 3:16PM

I understand Mrs. Jackson. As a member of the paleo/alternative right, I don't have much use for Limbaugh or the conservative movement. But I have been on a few other blogs counseling discretion to my fellow paleos and alt righters to be careful in how they frame their condemnations of Rush and the movement lest they be mistaken for moderates or something else instead of the farther right critics that they are. However much problem we may have with Rush and the mainstream conservative movement, we should have a greater problem with moderates like Steele.

But by any reasonable standard Rush is a pragmatic party man. He was critical of McCain until McCain got the nomination then he turned his fire on Obama. He didn’t endorse Chuck Baldwin. He speaks of limited government. He doesn’t speak of Constitutional sized government, and in fact insinuates that those who do are nutty. That is not a true believer. That is a pragmatic, “mainstream" party man.

Thomas| 3.4.09 @ 3:54PM

It is always interesting to see people playing the labeling game. Paleo-this, neo-that, libertarian-pseudoconservative-liberal-communist-fascist-moderate, et al. Interestingly, irregardless of what they call themselves, a startlingly large number of people beleive in the same things:

Lack of government intervention in their personal lives - liberals are the ones who scream the loudest about any government regulations that force them to refrain from doing something that they want to do.

Personal physical security - liberals view this as making everyone as personally helpless as they are, while at the same time demanding that the government guarantee THEIR personal safety at all times.

Infrastructure that works - Watch the phones light up in your local utility when liberals discover that their lights won't come on, that they have to boil their water, that they can't cross the bridge because it is unsafe and have to pedal their bicycles two extra miles to cross the river, and, my personal favorite, their cable is out.

Keeping their own money - liberals, who have no problem with the government taking everyones money to give in causes that they support. But, they scream the loudest when that money is taken and used for cause with which they disagree.

So, the bottom line here is that most people want the same basic things;
Freedom from government interference in their lives, security from physical attack, infrastructure that meets their needs and to keep as much of their hard earned money as they possible can.

See, we're not so different, after all. And a lot of people are going to learn that harsh lesson in the coming months. Wait and see.

ruth| 3.4.09 @ 4:02PM

Nothing like a dangerous outside threat to concentrate the mind (or various repub factions).

james23| 3.4.09 @ 4:26PM

"So what's her [Parker's] problem?" She humiliated herself, and lost a gig at Nat'l Review, by flying into a jealous rage over Sarah Palin. Now she finds herself on the outside looking in. She is a very small person who just can't manage an "I was wrong." That's her problem.

ECM| 3.4.09 @ 8:24PM

"There is still time for Washington Republicans to join some of their colleagues outside the Beltway and become partners in progress."

Translation: we know this is all going to Hell and we need you over here to help take part in the blame so that we can shift ALL of the blame over to you later.

No, thanks.

Marc Jeric| 3.5.09 @ 12:28AM

Rush Limbaugh is invaluable; who else found out the fact that Hillary Clinton, out cattle futures trader par excellence, said "I don't remember" and "I don't recall" 149 times in her 2-hour "testimony" in front of the grand jury. That's once every 48 seconds. And that was our presidential candidate and now our Secretary of State! Go Rush!

ruth| 3.5.09 @ 12:38AM

Marc, I don't know about you, but no way in hell was Hillary 'my' presidential candidate. Maybe she was your's, but she wasn't mine. BTW, good call on the ACORN Brownshirts; I see they're mobilizing them now.

Gene Car| 3.5.09 @ 4:58AM

I would not like to be in Roomey's shoes now. Being endorsed by Ms Parker is like the kiss of death to any true conservative.

Sissy Willis| 3.5.09 @ 9:43AM

Those fuddy-duddy Northeast Corridor Republicans can't "tell the lion from the lamb," as Charles Krauthammer observed presciently last fall.

Betsy Ross| 3.6.09 @ 1:08PM

What I want to know is why someone with Mr. Limbaugh's audience didn't support the true Conservatives that were in the race. Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin. Why did he not get behind them as true Conservatives.

Limbaugh is not a Conservative, as he did eventually support McCain - a liberal neocon if ever there was one.....and as a 45 year former resident of Arizona who left after Mr. McCain's betrayal of Arizona and Arizonans time and again on national security and the border issue, who supported Napolitano as DHS secretary simply because he was afraid he'd lose his Senate seat next year....Limbaugh failed the Conservatives and the Conservative movement when it was needed most. This last election countering the Bush liberalism with support for true Conservative candidates.

Concerned| 3.7.09 @ 7:07PM

I am concerned about all the people who take Rush Limbaugh so seriously. Rush Limbaugh is an ENTERTAINER, plain and simple. He appeals to your emotions more than your intellect. He has masterfully figured out how to stir the pot and knows what many studies have shown and advertising professionals learned long ago, that our brain appeals more to emotion than logic. This is a time where we need to be unified as a country. I am firmly convinced all of us are much more alike (Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians,...) than people like Rush would want us to believe. Let's use history's examples of unifying during difficult times as a model to deal with the present.