Stifle, You Dingbats

by digby

I wrote a post the other day in which I mentioned in passing that Democratic strategists have a problem with diarrhea of the mouth and should keep their plans to themselves. I was specifically referring to Carville and Begala obviously running around taking "credit" for the Limbaugh controversy. As usual, the big mouthed Dems have stepped on their own story and screwed the whole thing up.

I don't give a damn what Carville and Begala say about seeing in a poll months ago that Limbaugh was unpopular, this thing was perpetrated by the leadership vacuum in the Republican party, Limbaugh's moronic statement that he wanted Obama to fail in a time of crisis and his outrageous speech a CPAC. Carville and Begala may be going around patting themselves on the back for cooking all that up, but they didn't. The only thing they may have done was get Rahm to jump on board, which was also stupid It happened purely because Rush Limbaugh is and always has been a big, fat, idiot. The White House should have left this to the media and bottom feeders like us to run with, espcially after Rush made a twenty layer cake of himself at that gathering on Saturday. (Rahm is not nearly as sharp as he thinks he is.)

Now we have the whole chattering class worrying themselves into the vapors over whether Obama is ruining his post-partisan mantle and whether or not he's becoming "Clintonian" by demonizing the right like those devils Bill and Hillary Clinton used to do. It's pathetic.

It's not important in the long run. This really is a sideshow. But until Carville and Begala started tooting their own horns, Rush was on the losing end of this among the cognoscenti, which was a good wedge between the villagers and within the Republican party. It's not the be all and end all, but it's useful to have an embarrassing gasbag being kowtowed to by Republican leaders. It made them look like complete wimps, which they are, but really don't know it. Now it's all just "partisanship," everybody's comfortable, and we're back where we started.

This is an ongoing problem among beltway Democrats who can't seem to stop themselves from running to the press every time they have a neat political idea (or want to take credit for something after the fact) and they end up making themselves look unprincipled and manipulative. I've got nothing against playing hardball politics and certgainly nothing against a little bit of Machiavellian manipulation. But please, if you're going to do it, just STFU. At least save it for your memoirs.

Update: Here's Howie Kurtz, fluffing Rush as he's been doing for years. The Villagers just worship anyone who makes that kind of money bloviating about politics and garnering plaudits from all the big important rich Republicans. He's a God in their eyes -- the savviest of media players. A rotund John Galt for the couch potato set.


.