Who's Rooting For Failure Now?
by digby
Speaking of WATBs, Limbaugh is making a particular ass of himself this week:
We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds. That we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend forward, backward, whichever. Because his father was black, because this is the first black president.
He also said earlier:
So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.
As Think Progress noted earlier, Limbaugh himself repeatedly took liberals to task over the years for allegedly rooting for Bush's failure, but mentioning hypocrisy in terms of conservatives is a useless exercise. They have no sense of shame apparently, so they just ignore such inconsistencies.
Still, Limbaugh's comments are so outrageous that they can't just be ignored. After all, it was only a few years ago that we were treated to non-stop hectoring like this, from the late Tony Snow:
If you root for failure, you’re rooting for American and Iraqi deaths. It’s a bit like the president’s 2002 State of the Union observation — either you’re with us or against us.
I never "rooted for failure" and I can't find a record of anyone who did, certainly not in anything close to the blatant terms that Limbaugh uses. Yet, the right used this false claim as a weapon for years to subdue criticism of Bush and the Iraq war and it worked. The fact that Rush is openly rooting for Obama's failure proves that bipartisanship, at least among the GOP faithful, is a one way street. He is still a hugely influential member of the conservative movement and I think it is unwise not to take him at his word.
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