I'm sure most people thought the rout ended on Election Day. But the past few weeks Obama's team has facilitated a political massacre of historic proportions. After all the dust and fury of the debate over the stimulus bill, Obama ended up getting everything he wanted, with his approval ratings as high as ever. When Obama casually mentioned Rush Limbaugh during a meeting with Republicans, conservatives hurried to the safety of his ample bosom. While the GOP was trying to field new faces like Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal to show voters that the party has changed, the base was rushing to the defense of the party's most ideological and outrageous presence. Rahm Emanuel knowingly told Ryan Lizza that when it came to bipartisanship, “We just have to try. ... We don’t have to succeed.” Obama's bipartisan overtures haven't just seemed sincere, with the most extreme elements of the GOP dominating their public presence, they appear entirely too gracious.
Obama rolled the Blue Dogs at the fiscal summit, rallied the nation around him with his address to Congress, driving conservatives closer and closer to the edge. The last week of CPAC has further damaged the party image, with birthers, racists and other extremists receiving hero's welcomes. The fact that criticism of Limbaugh is verboten within the GOP had cemented Limbaugh's image as the party's leader even before Steele's humiliating capitulation. They say Jedi mind tricks only work on the weak-minded: Emanuel said, "Whenever a Republican criticizes him, they have to run back and apologize to him and say they were misunderstood," and the base set about proving him right, touching off a row that has ended with the chairman of the RNC losing the respect of the rightroots, the talk radio audience, and likely even the candidates who will be seeking his financial and political support.
Worst of all, Steele's apology completely destroys his identity as an independent Republican figure. Steele actually got some positive coverage in the black press immediately after his election, but now he's found himself groveling to a white man who spends his days remarking that the Democratic Party wooing black voters is equivalent to some form of sexual assault. There is absolutely no way for Steele to win any significant amount of black voters over the Republican Party now, having shown himself to be a mere figurehead for the white man behind the golden microphone. Steele looks like a token now more than ever. You can't talk smack on television and then kiss Cartman's ring when everyone starts paying attention.
Michelle Malkin wrote yesterday that by criticizing Limbaugh, Steele had "played right into the Left’s hands." No, Malkin and her ilk have played right into the left's hands by hugging Limbaugh like a life raft, and despite the desperate pleas of the David Frums of the party, they seem to have no idea. The reason the Obama administration is happy to wrap Limbaugh around the GOP's neck isn't because they're afraid of him. It's because everyone outside the GOP base thinks he's repulsive. The conservative base is so consumed in the self-satisfying exercise of hating their political opponents that they've lost all perspective. They're getting their butts kicked, and they don't even know it. Worse, they seem to think they're actually winning the argument.
-- A. Serwer
