Moe Lane

Consider the three-letter acronym that can be formed by that.

Background: our adventure in Libya is apparently the War That Dare Not Speak Its Name.  At least, the White House seems absolutely, completely determined to avoid the ‘war’ word, to the point where administration officials actually used the laugh-out-loud weasel term ‘kinetic military action‘ to describe the situation.  ‘Kinetic’ is definitely the buzzword in play, here: Defense Secretary Gates himself said that if our ad hoc cobbling together of largely unrelated objectives and media-friendly visuals plan works then “the level of kinetic activity should decline.”

You are about to see why Rush Limbaugh has a multimillion dollar talk radio empire that dominates its particular market, and I am an admittedly-amiable and reasonably creative guy blogging from home. Because this is prime stuff here (via Hot Air) coming from Rush:

RUSH: I swear, this is surreal. KMA, kinetic military activity has replaced WTF, (laughing) which is winning the future. I’m sure you thought it was something else. (laughing) Kick my — has replaced what the — Okay, so I guess we’re to assume it’s not a protest anymore. It’s a kinetic assembling action. It’s not a riot. It’s kinetic thuggery action. It’s not a vacation. It’s kinetic leisure action. It’s not golf. It’s kinetic ball striking action. It’s not dancing. It’s kinetic foot action. It’s not sex. It’s kinetic Lewinsky. (laughing) I’m not drunk. I’ve been engaging in kinetic adult beverage action. It’s not an election. It’s kinetic voting action. It’s not radio. It’s kinetic Limbaugh action. Whatever. Kinetic means motion. Military means armed forces. Action means motion. Kinetic action, moving motion. And these are the smartest people in the world.

(more…)

Yeah, I’d watch that.

(pause)

What am I thinking?  That’s an awful name.  Let’s call it… “BubbaRush?”  “RushboBill?” “The East Coast will go up in a blaze of light and heat if those two ever shake hands?” – Nah, that one won’t fit on the weekly Nielsen ratings.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

(Via The Corner) Indeed, Mr. Barone [OOPS! York] we knew that this was coming. Talking head Chris Matthews was instructed to take umbrage at Rush Limbaugh’s use of the term ‘regime’ to refer to this administration:

“…The use of the word ‘regime’ in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus [Limbaugh] to stop using it.”

Matthews didn’t stop there. “I never heard the word ‘regime,’ before, have you?” he said to NBC’s Chuck Todd. “I don’t even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a ‘regime.’”

[snip of numerous examples of the use of the phrase 'Bush regime' in news reporting]

Finally — you knew this was coming — on June 14, 2002, Chris Matthews himself introduced a panel discussion about a letter signed by many prominent leftists condemning the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terror. “Let’s go to the Reverend Al Sharpton,” Matthews said. “Reverend Sharpton, what do you make of this letter and this panoply of the left condemning the Bush regime?”

Oops. Perhaps Joe McCarthy never called the U.S. government a regime, but Chris Matthews did. And a lot of other people did, too. So now we are supposed to believe him when he expresses disgust at Rush Limbaugh doing the same?

(more…)

…she did a call-in interview for the Rush Limbaugh show this morning (Mark Steyn guest-hosting: topic was gay conservative bloggers). Via Little Miss Attila.

I’m going to guess that there may have been just the faintest touch of surreality going on, there: speaking as a former Democrat I have to admit that having Rush merely mention one of my RedState pieces caused me to blink, the first time that it happened…

Moe Lane

For defamation.

Rev. Al Sharpton threatens to sue Rush Limbaugh over Wall Street Journal op-ed

Say you’re sorry, Rush – or the the Rev. Al Sharpton is suing.

The civil rights activist, angered by a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece written by Rush Limbaugh, threatened a defamation lawsuit Saturday against the conversative talk radio host.

“Unless Mr. Limbaugh apologizes and clarifies his statements, attorneys for Rev. Sharpton will move forward with a lawsuit,” said a statement from Sharpton.

(H/T: AoSHQ) What a horrid thought.  I mean, I don’t see how that could possibly work out for Rush Limbaugh at all.  I mean, it’s not like Limbaugh’s both rich and motivated right now, that Sharpton’s spent decades building Limbaugh’s ‘truth’ defense for him, that the ‘public figure’ defense covers what parts the ‘truth’ defense doesn’t, that there aren’t hordes of lawyers who’d love to play discovery on Sharpton, or that there are not more than a few liberals/Democrats out there that would enjoy watching Sharpton get eviscerated in the courts (especially if they can legitimately claim that they had nothing to do with it).  No.  Nothing of the sort would apply, here.

So I hope that this doesn’t go any further.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

This being the one where he wants Rush Limbaugh to, well, die:

So. Is it…

1. The aforementioned wants-Limbaugh-to-die bit?
2. That the only reason that Chris Matthews is trying this is in the hope that going after Limbaugh will boost his ratings?
3. Or that Chris Matthews thinks that Live and Let Die is a great film?

I’m actually going to go with 3). Chris Matthews will undoubtedly coward up and claim the usual ‘it-was-just-a-joke’ defense; and as for getting eyeballs, well, Matthews needs to get them somehow.  But Live and Let Die wasn’t even Roger Moore’s best Bond film; I’ll also be marginally nice and merely note that Matthews’ pick of it may say some very interesting things about how the pundit views African-Americans…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rush Limbaugh drives over Al Gore. Twice.

Which is a sign of professionalism, actually.  As Hot Air’s own commenters note, most of us would have spent a considerably longer time running over the Cubslayer’s cardboard cutout. This makes more thematic sense: hit it once, back up and hit it again to make clear that this was deliberate, then go back to the race. And then wait for the gallant defenders of the helpless cutout start up… and never mind that 3/4ths of the complainers have watched Death Race 2000, cheering.

Although it occurs to me that they might not.  After all, they have a clip now of Rush Limbaugh liking an electric car.  Based on past experience, I believe that this earns him an indulgence from the Online Left on anything up to barratry (naval definition).

Moe Lane

PS: I’ll take electric car advocates seriously when they start talking about how it’s a matter of vital national energy security to muzzle the anti-nuclear power fanatics.

*Stolen from Allahpundit.  I think.

Crossposted to RedState.

That was my wife’s immediate response to my mentioning that Rush Limbaugh responded to Ms. Sykes‘ rather tawdry – and absolutely typical – attack on him by… not commenting on it at all.  Bear in mind that my wife isn’t particularly political, doesn’t listen to talk radio (then again, neither do I), and more or less smiles and nods when I start blathering on and on about this sort of thing.

But she is smart.  Smarter than me, in fact; I had already worked out that Limbaugh has bigger fish to fry, but she connects the dots very quickly, sometimes.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

James Carville is, by the way, a gutless coward.

Via Hot Air, the explicit quote:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

[snip*]

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”

We’ll hold up the inevitable knee-jerk defenses of Carville here – which will probably not start until 8:46 AM tomorrow morning – with a tart comment that hypocrisy is not going to cut it this time. If Carville is to be allowed to use the defense that he merely wished for Bush’s policies to fail, than so should Limbaugh; contrariwise, if Limbaugh’s comments are simply unacceptable, any time, any place, and with no mitigation, then Carville’s must be treated similarly. And Carville is assuredly aware of how that comment would have played out: the way he begged the reporters to not repeat that suddenly-inflammatory statement is diagnostic. So is the way that they covered up Carville’s mess, but never mind that right now. (more…)

…and he thinks that Rush Limbaugh will help him with that.

By now, you’ve probably read Stranahan’s little attempt at self-justification for cheering on the death of American troops (you can read it via Glenn Reynolds, if you must: it’s not worth the direct link to a pro-torture site*) by seeking to associate it to Limbaugh’s often-repeated observation that he wants Obama’s economic plans to fail.

I’d just like to establish this point for the record: no, Stranahan can’t actually do that, and for a very simple reason. Our military personnel have voluntarily given up some of their right to choose their own actions in order to serve the country.  That gives us the collective responsibility to ensure that the choices that we make for them are the right one. It is perfectly acceptable to think that our collective choice was wrong; not so much to work to minimize the chance of it being the right one after all. The antiwar movement chose to do the latter… and those miserable wretches lost anyway, which is why they’re trying to avoid the consequences of their moral failure. Limbaugh and Obama (to use the usual examples), on the other hand, are merely having a policy dispute… and the Right swore no oath signing over our right to choose. We recognize and respect the authority of the President of the United States, but he does not command us in the same way that he commands the troops – and we will not concede the difference.

Particularly when doing so will give cover to people like Stranahan.

Moe Lane

*Repudiated Obama yet, HuffPo? No? Going to support him in 2012? Yes? Then that’s what you are. Deal.

Crossposted to RedState.