Are Republicans Finally Done Apologizing to Limbaugh?

You have to wonder why Rush Limbaugh holds such an exulted position in the Republican pantheon. Not only did Republicans put him in their top three "least favorite" news personalities in a recent Harris Poll, but he's frequently more trouble than he's worth. Yes, he's the top-rated talk radio host in America. Yes, his audience is nearly entirely Republican. And yes, that audience are proudly "dittoheads" who do whatever Limbaugh tells them to. But all of that means jack. No one listens to talk radio. The local classic rock station probably has a bigger audience than Limbaugh in any given market. In any sane world, he would be nobody. The vast, vast majority of Americans -- and even of Republicans -- don't hang on Rush's every word. In fact, that majority doesn't listen to him at all. Color me perplexed.

Maybe it's Limbaugh's position as a corporate mouthpiece that frightens the GOP. It's not who he speaks to that's important, but who he speaks for. His market share isn't really the result of popularity, it's the result of Clear Channel's desire to get Limbaugh's voice heard. If Rush were left to live or die on ratings, he would've been cancelled long, long ago (as his ratings-dependent TV show was) and talk radio in general would be a dead medium. He's like Glenn Beck before Fox News finally tired of him -- a revenue hole, but useful as a propaganda tool.

Which is why it's hard to get extremely excited by this news:

Politico:

One of the advertisers on Rush Limbaugh’s popular conservative radio show Friday announced that it is pulling its ads in the wake of the host’s controversial “slut” comments this week.

“We don’t condone negative comments directed toward any group. In response, we are currently pulling our ads from Rush with Rush Limbaugh,” the company Sleep Train Mattress Centers announced on its Twitter account early Friday.

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Sarah Palin, Cultural Troll, Strings Out Her 16th Minute of Fame

"Liberals like this? Then I don't."

I think that pretty much sums up the entirety of Sarah Palin's political philosophy. She represents the reactionary nature of modern conservatism, where -- if it weren't for the left -- she'd have no idea what she stood for. She's a policy lightweight and she's fasting in a smorgasbord of information, yet starving for attention.

At her very core, Sarah Palin is what so many rightwing people are -- a troll. And that's why the far right loves her. She is what Ann Coulter was, until Coulter became familiar and boring. These people have the attention span of goldfish and Ann Coulter, once the right's woman of the future, turned out to be the flavor of the month. Sure, she still sells books, but her days on the covers of magazines are over.

What both Palin and Coulter have learned is that the best way to a wingnut's heart is through their hatred. If you can piss liberals off, then you're all right. Policy ideas, actual logical arguments, facts and figures -- who needs them? Just say something that liberals will hate and the wingnuts will love you.

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