One could very easily do a post every day highlighting the incoherent insanity on Rush Limbaugh’s daily radio show, but some days are clearly worse than others. Yesterday’s tirade on the Middle East, for example, was truly special.
On the November 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to claims made by King Abdullah II of Jordan on the November 26 edition of ABC’s This Week that “we could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands,” Rush Limbaugh said: “[W]ell, let’s just have them. Let’s just have the civil wars … because I’m just fed up with this.” Limbaugh then asserted: “Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them.”
Additionally, Limbaugh claimed: “[E]verbody comes to us. … So we go and try to fix it and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start.”
Sure, we’ve seen sandwiches smarter than Limbaugh, and it’s hard to take anything he says too seriously — after all, just a couple of weeks ago he admitted to lying to his listeners when it suits his political agenda — but yesterday’s harangue was fascinating. If it’s indicative of where far-right activists are going, Limbaugh’s tirade may even hint at a problem for the GOP’s foreign policy.
For about three years now, the right has tried to seize the moral high ground on the Middle East. Dems, they say, want to maintain an old-fashioned sense of stability and containment that leaves millions in the Muslim world without liberal democracies. Meanwhile, Republicans, the argument goes, are true freedom lovers — they’re willing to invade countries under false pretenses to spread democracy at the barrel of a gun. They’ll achieve peace through war, in a bloody, costly, modern-day humanitarian crusade.
Except their idea didn’t work. And now, at least as far as Limbaugh is concerned, maybe delivering the divine gift of freedom to the Middle East isn’t nearly as compelling as watching the entire region implode.
Josh Marshall captured this perfectly.
I know we’re supposed to get really outraged over this sort of thing and bent out of shape. But why exactly? These guys — really the whole movement — are so pitiful, such utterly pathetic whiners and fools, it’s hard to treat them as anything but spoiled children.
‘We’ll bring democracy to the world because liberty isn’t the property of one culture or civilization but God’s gift to mankind. But if these friggin’ towel-heads won’t get with the program, then, well, just nuke’em.’
It’s like talking to a five year old with behavior problems. And this is Russert’s interlocutor, represents the mindset of those who still control the executive branch.
Of course, Limbaugh’s call for civil wars (notice the plural) in the Middle East will be denounced by none of his conservative colleagues, and this won’t have any effect on Dick Cheney making regular appearances on his show, singing his praises.
One other thought: the “let’s just have the civil wars” line was breathtaking, but I don’t want the other part of the quote to be overlooked. Limbaugh whined, “[E]verbody comes to us. … So we go and try to fix it and our own people, Democrats and the left in our country do their best to sabotage our efforts, and then we get blamed for trying to clean up the messes that these people start.”
The five-year-old complainer at his most pathetic. We invaded Iraq because Iraqis came to us. The war is a disaster because Dems sabotaged the administration. We didn’t create a nightmare in Iraq; “these people” did.
The mind reels.