I'm beginning to suspect that, over the course of the next few years, we as a nation are going to have live through the rapid collapse of the right-wing media machine. Why? Because these people, if they are lucky, will merely descend into self-parody. If they arent', they damn well may go straight through to madness.
First we get this gem from Newt Gingrich (Hat tip: TPM Cafe). Our strategy for Iraq should now be "victory or death." Because that's what Washington would have done. Or something.
Nevermind that Washington was fighting for his home, his country, and his freedom. Never mind that had he lost he and his troops would have been hung for treason. Never mind all that. Baghdad is the new Trenton, Fallujah the new New Jersey. Or something.
Then, we get this wonderful outburst from Rush Limbaugh:
LIMBAUGH: All right, well, let's just have them. Let's just have the civil wars and let the crumbs crumble and the cookie crumble where -- because I'm fed up with this. The Palestinian situation -- for 50 years we've had the Palestinian situation, and it's not going to be solved until the Limbaugh Doctrine is imposed or tried. And that is, this is a war, and until somebody loses it, it isn't going to stop. And now, you know, we've done everything we can to make Lebanon a democracy, and it's crumbling because Syria keeps killing the popular leaders there. Meanwhile, the Hezbos [Hezbollah] keep expanding their influence in Lebanon.
But what the hell! We're going to bring Syria and Iran in to fix Iraq, why not let them just fix the whole region? If we're heading to civil war -- I mean, everybody comes to us: "You got to fix this and you got to fix that." 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. And then they come on our television show: "[Gibberish] George [gibberish] civil war [gibberish] we gotta do something. Palestinians it's a must, it's a must, we must [gibberish] right now [gibberish] war."Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use -- I just -- sometimes natural force is going to happen. You're going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic -- you're just -- you're just delaying the inevitable.
Josh is dead on with this. Its like watching a 5 year old talk about foreign policy. Things didn't work out? Time to blame everyone else, pick a fight, and then head on home. Let someone else deal with the mess you made. Mom's got cookies and milk waiting for you at home. Or something.
But outrage? No. Pity is more what I'm feeling. Because they are losing their grip, both on their power and on their sanity. Its all coming to an end. And when its over, they will have left behind one hell of a mess for the rest of us to clean up.
13+ million people listen to this man ever day. I can't help but wonder... what % do it for the politics, and what % do it for the entertainment?
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