Rush Limbaugh a born-again (-again) deficit hawk

Since it's pretty much a given universal law that Americans will only vote for Republicans or Democratics, and since the Democratics are currently on top, with no place to go but down, Republicans are concerning themselves with the inevitable recovery of their fortunes.
Science proves that soon, very soon, Republicans will recover their majesty and the Democratics will get yet another turn at hand-wringing impotently from the sidelines of irrelevance.
President Obama took the unusual step Tuesday in going to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans from both houses. The move is practically unheard of, for an ascendant leader to go, uninvited, to meet with his vanquished foes. This appears to be a style peculiar to Obama, recalling his pilgrimage to call on Hillary at her house after he beat her in the Democratic primaries last year.
It's a strange and indecorous tactic that can't help but put his enemies on unsure footing.
While Washington Republicans concern themselves with how to respond to this gesture, watching for the shifting knife no doubt hidden in his other hand, the real Republican leadership – the mover and shaker and framer of opinion to the Republican party faithful for two decades, Rush Limbaugh – is busy planning the recovery.
In many ways both Rush and America find themselves exactly where they were in 1993. We have an all-Democratic Congress and White House, with a left-over Republican Supreme Court. Those were good days for Rush, an era that saw his ingeniously created media niche transformed into an empire.
From a position of being unable to affect any legislation, he and the Republicans enjoyed the ability to find fault with Clinton and Congress' actions without having to show any results at all. Rush had established his bona fides as a (relative) conservative by endorsing Pat Buchannan against a sitting Republican president just months before.
His voice was largely responsible for the grand success of the Gingrich revolution that swept Republicans to victory in both houses – a feat that had seemed impossible for decades. Gingrich achieved his victory by paying calculated lip-service to conservative ideals, but Limbaugh provided both the megaphone and the foot soldiers to make it happen.
He was there to call attention to Clinton's many ill conceived stunts and pet issues when the TV media were determined to ignore them. He was there to cry "socialism" and "economic ruin" and alert the voters that the Democratic federals did not share their values.
He seems to be expecting that to happen again.
Earlier this month, Rush spoke at length with Fox News' Sean Hannity about the inevitable Obama collapse and the American people's coming to their senses.
"I listen to these wizards of smart on our side go on these cable networks and say, 'yeah, well, the problem is that Limbaugh and Hannity are moving the party too much to the right.' And Colin Powell says, 'Yeah, the Republican Party should stop listening to Limbaugh,'" Rush complained. Of course, he says, that's nonsense. The problem is the country has not been faithful to his party. They have been seduced by the pied pipers of tax-and-spend Democratics.
It is possible, I suppose, that he simply cannot see how he (and Republican philosophy) has changed. He has no memory of his own (legitimate) complaints about Clinton's abuses of power: the illegal wiretapping, use of FBI files and IRS audits as political weapons, the launch of a dazzling array of foreign attacks without Congressional approval seemingly to divert attention from his own legal, moral and ethical issues.
No, in Rush's mind those things are only wrong when Democratics do them. For Republicans to use dirty tactics merely constitutes "doing what needs to be done to defeat the Islamofacists."
Now, amusingly, after many years of supporting Bush's runaway spending spree as being good and right for America, Rush is a born-again (-again) deficit hawk.
"We're looking at a trillion-dollar deficit this year even before a stimulus package," he told Hannity. "I don't know where we're getting the money for this. … It wasn't six months ago that the Democrats were out ripping Bush for deficit spending."
Isn't he fabulous, ladies and gentlemen? Let's give him a round of applause.
On the departing president, Rush seems to be under the same misconception about the president's oath of office that Bush labored under; that it says something about "defending the "Mer'can people" and, what's more, that that's the paramount part of the oath.
"Bush? He's a decent man," said Rush. "You're president of the United States, 9/11 happens. You take the oath of office, defend and protect the Constitution and the people. Obviously they had to focus exclusively on that. … (B)ut he's a good man. He's not hated by people."
It's true; the voters will never elect anyone but Democratics and Republicans. A thousand years from now the pendulum of American politics will still be swinging nauseatingly back and forth. That's the immutable Will of God, apparently. The only question is, when will the Republicans get their next turn up to bat?
Everywhere the rotten neo-cons are being canned. The New York Times has fired Bill Kristol. America has fired George Bush. Now it's time for Republicans to fire Rush Limbaugh. It's time to get back to pretending to champion conservative values and constitutionalism; the deception that secured every Republican victory in living memory.