Reply #48: Almost a good point

[gratuitous]

Except that Limbaugh gets his attention anyway. By putting the onus on the minority party Republicans, Obama has rather cleverly left them with two options: (A) admit that Limbaugh is an official spokesman for the Republican party; or (B) distance themselves from Limbaugh and deny that he speaks in any official capacity for the GOP.

For years, Limbaugh and the Republicans have gotten away with using Limbaugh as an unofficial spokesman distributing right wing talking points. Whenever his rantings got taken too seriously, both Limbaugh and the Republican party danced away from controversy, claiming that Limbaugh was "just an entertainer." Limbaugh likes to style himself as the Fourth Branch of the federal government, and it suits the GOP to kiss up to him.

Obama's talking about him because Limbaugh has stated publicly that he hopes Obama fails. In rough terms, Limbaugh is saying that the country can go to hell as long as it benefits him personally. By putting those words on the Republican "brand," Obama is basically turning a right wing talking point back on them: That is, for years, the Republicans conflated opposition to Bush administration policies as treasonous opposition to the United States. Now, Obama says that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if Democrats were hoping for the failure of Republican policies and the downfall of America, then the Republicans can fairly be said to be doing the same thing.

Of course, the Democrats were doing no such thing during the Bush years. We simply pointed out that the inevitable result of the cock-eyed Bush policies was going to be failure, not that we hoped they would fail. Fuzzing up this rather easily distinguishable point was a political gold mine for the Republicans, at least for a while. It surely helped Bush steal his re-election in 2004, when the media chuckleheads couldn't figure this out. But by the time Sarah Palin came along, trying to take this tired old dogma out for a walk, it failed miserably.

Limbaugh is trying to revive the talking point, but its day has probably passed. Obama putting it on the GOP almost surely is the death rattle for this bogus bit of demagoguery.

Does that explain the "why" of it for you in sufficient detail?