By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET  “Rush”
Think of it.
The person that would chose to identify himself with this crashing, jarring adjective would be a person more naturally aligned with the showmanship of Barnum & Bailey than with the thoughtful commentary of, say, McNeill/Lehrer.
Which is why I didn’t consider Rush calling a young lady a “slut” reason enough to be up in arms.
When Rush is not attempting to offend and provoke, he is committing a form of carnival malpractice. That is his venue and his point….to shock, inflame, and thrust through his enemy….but we forget
Rush is not really a gladiator. He is more of a vaudevillian. He is like an immobile and aging warrior who has become a form of public curiosity by his knack for squeezing all of his internal frustrations to the pointy tip of his tongue. We want to watch and hear what that looks and sounds like. So we watch Rush, the secluded man in a cage, so it seems, talk to himself on his jerky webcam. And gladly pay. It is the “Bearded Lady” except instead of a physical oddity breaching the bounds of human decency it is the “Shouting Man” who seems almost crazed at times and who with his eruptive personal pronouncements against perceived enemies breaches the bounds of human decency in a different way.
R ush is like The Fool in King Lear, who babbles and observes and talks incessantly to himself but is listened to by others as a form entertainment. But in this modern Act some in our society have confused The Fool for Lear. Rush is not the king. He is the king’s fool. A court jester. And so he can be relied upon to say foolish things…as fools and court jesters are want to do. And to do so with regularity and alacrity.
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John Y. Brown, III: On Rush Limbaugh
By Zac Byer, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 9:00 AM ET  Good morning, and welcome to Super Tuesday! As Mitt Romney continues his quest to win the look-alike contest with the guy in the Levitra commercials — I mean, win the Republican nomination — here is your prix fixe menu for one of politicos’ favorite days of the year…
Appetizer: Anti-incumbent sentiment is at an all-time high. If you took high school civics, you know that incumbents have a 90+% re-election rate. In 2012, however, nearly 50% say they would vote out their congressman, and Congress’ approval rating is 9% (I bet Gaddafi had a higher approval rating). We won’t see turnover like that, of course, but there’s fear on Capitol Hill of a “Vote Them All Out” groundswell propagated by someone like Donald Trump. What do House Republicans have going for them, even though they could give back the congressional majority they won on the Tea Party wave in 2010? We’ve found Nancy Pelosi’s unfavorability numbers are 15 points higher than John Boehner’s. Not that people are pleased with Boehner, but tell them that Pelosi may become Speaker again, and they shudder. Look for a recycling of the anti-Pelosi videos and images from the best ads of 2010.
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Zac Byer’s Prix Fixe Politics: Super Tuesday Special
By Artur Davis, on Tue Mar 6, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET  I’ve written previously about the challenges Barack Obama and other liberals have in building a communitarian case for their politics. I share William Galston’s perspective that the strains and dislocation in our society are at odds with the ideal of mutual obligation, and would add that a number of liberal-approved policies have contributed to that polarization. It’s worth pondering though, whether today’s conservatives do much better.
The short answer is that they don’t and often don’t try. At worst, most of the right fears that communitarian rhetoric is a cover for imposing an elite set of values over theirs, and for redistributionist tax and spend policies. To the extent there are conservative sympathizers (a Ross Douthat comes to mind), theirs is an enthusiasm for a localized brand of community, that relies on the vigor of private associations and faith based institutions. It’s a long way from the canvass Mario Cuomo was painting about a national “family”, or Obama’s contemporary efforts to draw from the unifying experience of the military or the mobilization of resources to build our national infrastructure.
On one hand, the conservative skepticism makes perfect sense. At a visceral level, the political right realizes that the cohesiveness liberals are invoking has pretty one-sided policy aims: realigning the tax burden, reaffirming the vitality of entitlements, and growing government’s reach into the economy, from capital markets to health-care to the energy sector. Conservatives also sense that liberals are not exactly agnostic in their viewpoints about the social values of a national “community”—it’s a pro-choice, pro gay marriage sensibility that openly distrusts any argument that incorporates, references, or elevates tradition or overt faith. Conservatives are quick to puncture the contradiction of embracing community while rolling eyeballs over some of its most conventional elements.
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Artur Davis: Conservatives and Community
By Krystal Ball, on Mon Mar 5, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET  Rush Limbaugh issued an apology this weekend for calling Sandra Fluke a prostitute and a slut after she testified before Congress on women’s health care. This “apology” occurs after three days of Limbaugh slut shaming Ms. Fluke, insulting her parents and saying that Fluke should make a pornographic movie for his titillation.
On the fourth day, after a public outcry and the loss of at least six national sponsorships due to BoycottRush.organd similar efforts, Mr. Limbaugh now regrets his choice of words. This was too little, way too late. Especially since Mr. Limbaugh has a long history of offensive and vulgar comments.
No business should associate itself with such a pattern of repeated, reckless, personal abuse. If Rush wants to continue to have the opportunity to demean women in the future, that is his right. Good companies have many opportunities to promote their businesses without having to subsidize the denigration of women. Sandra Fluke wasn’t the first woman to be smeared by Rush Limbaugh, but she needs to be the last.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from The Huffington Post)
By RP Staff, on Fri Mar 2, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET From The Huffington Post:
Martin Bashir said he was left speechless on Thursday after hearing what he called “idiotic comments” made by Rush Limbaugh about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who was denied the right to speak at acontroversial Republican hearing on contraception.
Limbaugh, who called Fluke a “slut”during his Wednesday radio show, doubled down on his comments on Thursday.
“So, Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis. Here’s the deal. If we’re going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch,” Limbaugh said.
Bashir reread what he called Limbaugh’s ludicrous thoughts and asked his panel to comment. Democratic strategist Krystal Ball called Limbaugh “despicable,” “disgusting,” and a “loathsome individual.” She also defended Fluke and said Limbaugh was trying to shame her.
Click here to read the full article from The Huffington Post
By RP Staff, on Fri Mar 2, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET From Mediate.com:
Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s tumultuous tenure as head of the national GOP was marked by his tendency toward outspokenness, a tendency that earned him little reward. Since he become a contributor for MSNBC almost a year ago, however, that tendency has become an asset. Although still a strong critic of President Obama, the Chairman isn’t afraid to tell uncomfortable truths about his own party. In part two of our exclusive interview, Chairman Steele discusses one such truth: the Republican Party’s rocky relationship with racial politics.
One of the more remarkable moments of Michael Steele’s stint as RNC chairman was his stunning admission that, by virtue of the decades-long, race-based Southern Strategy, his party had given black voters very little reason to vote for them.
Click here to read the full piece from Mediaite.com.
By RP Staff, on Thu Mar 1, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET The RP is criss-crossing the country for No Labels’ effort to encourage Congressman to pass “No Budget, No Pay” legislation.
OK, he is doing his country-crossing in his office, on the phone.
Here’s his latest radio interview on one of Missouri’s most influential radio talk shows, Missouri Viewpoints with Mike Ferguson.
Click here to learn more about “No Budget, No Pay.”
Click here to take action — with easy links to your Congressmen
By Artur Davis, on Thu Mar 1, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET William Galston has been writing with authority about communitarian politics since I was an adolescent, and his recent essay in New Republic may be the best thing written yet on the strengths and defects of Barack Obama’s rhetorical embrace of “community”. It’s a window, for reasons intentional and unintentional, into why modern liberals have struggled so much with building a broad case for their most cherished reforms.
As Galston observes, communitarian language has deep roots in American civic tradition, from the pilgrim John Winthrop’s “shining city on a hill”, a biblical phrase that he reshaped into a clarion call for shared sacrifice and mutuality; to Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism and its paen to heroic civic vigor; to Mario Cuomo’s 1984 Democratic keynote address, which elegantly describes “the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound to one another.” The same strains have surfaced prominently in Obama’s best recent efforts—including the Osawatomie, Kansas “inequality” speech in December, and the State of the Union.
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Artur Davis: Can Obama Sell the Idea of Community?
By RP Staff, on Wed Feb 29, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
While we were public servants, our constituents counted on us to represent them well in Washington. It was our job to deliver to the best of our abilities.
Unfortunately, both today and while we were in office, Congress has simply been unable to deliver on one of its most fundamental responsibilities — passing, on time, the spending bills necessary to fund and run the government.
It has been more than 1,000 days since Congress last passed a budget on time, and well over a decade since it did so with all appropriations bills.
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Evan Bayh & George Voinovich: No Budget, No Pay
By Jeff Smith, on Tue Feb 28, 2012 at 1:15 PM ET In several well-read pieces here at The Recovering Politician, former Missouri State Senator (and contributing RP) Jeff Smith has analyzed the impact of redistricting on his one-time political rival Congressman Russ Carnahan, and then predicted that Carnahan would ultimately choose to challenge his fellow Democratic Congressman William Lacy Clay.
Turns out, Jeff was right. Here’s an excerpt from Real Clear Politics, “Carnahan Files for Congressional Seat.”
Scores of hopeful candidates turned out Tuesday to file for political offices in Missouri, including a pair of incumbent St. Louis congressman now poised to square off in a Democratic primary, despite legal uncertainty over the district boundaries.
The candidacy filing period for the 2012 elections kicked off as planned, even though Missouri still lacks a final map for the state Senate districts and the Missouri Supreme Court has yet to rule on challenges to the state and U.S. House districts.
The first to file Tuesday was Democratic U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan of St. Louis, whose 3rd District was carved up and re-assigned to surrounding districts under a reapportionment plan enacted by the Republican-led state Legislature after the 2010 census. Until Tuesday, Carnahan has steadfastly affirmed he would run again in 2012 but had remained silent about in which district he would run _ hoping the Supreme Court would toss out the new map and order a do-over on the boundaries.
Carnahan filed to run in the 1st District in St. Louis, which currently is held by Democratic U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay. Not too far behind Carnahan in line, Clay also filed to run for re-election Tuesday, setting up a battle in the August primaries that both congressmen declared they could win.
Read the full piece from Real Clear Politics here.
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ush is like The Fool in King Lear, who babbles and observes and talks incessantly to himself but is listened to by others as a form entertainment. But in this modern Act some in our society have confused The Fool for Lear. Rush is not the king. He is the king’s fool. A court jester. And so he can be relied upon to say foolish things…as fools and court jesters are want to do. And to do so with regularity and alacrity. 
