One popular guy
by digby
I don't think the political establishment understands just how extreme the right wing is. Or how they normalized that level of extremism.
Here's a little quote you might remember from 2002:
Has Tom Daschle lost a couple of screws?
Did the normally mild-mannered senator accuse Rush Limbaugh of inciting violence?
He came pretty darn close. There were cameras there. You can watch the replay.
We can understand that Daschle is down, just having lost his majority leader’s job and absorbed plenty of blame for this month’s Democratic debacle.
What we can’t understand is how the South Dakotan can suggest that a mainstream conservative with a huge radio following is somehow whipping up wackos to threaten Daschle and his family.
Has the senator listened to Rush lately? Sure, he aggressively pokes fun at Democrats and lionizes Republicans, but mainly about policy. He’s so mainstream that those right-wingers Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert had him on their Election Night coverage.
That was Howard Kurtz when he was writing for the Washington Post.
This was what Limbaugh said that had Daschle so up in arms.
Limbaugh: You seek political advantage with the nation at war. There is no greater testament to the depths to which the Democratic Party and liberalism have fallen. You now position yourself, Senator Daschle, to exploit future terrorist attacks for political gain. You are worse, sir, than the ambulance-chasing tort lawyers that make up your chief contributors.
You, sir, are a disgrace. You are a disgrace to patriotism, you are a disgrace to this country, you are a disgrace to the Senate, and you ought to be a disgrace to the Democratic Party but sadly you’re probably a hero among some of them today...
Way to demoralize the troops, Senator! What more do you want to do to destroy this country than what you’ve already tried? [pounding table] It is unconscionable what this man has done! This stuff gets broadcast around the world, Senator.
What do you want your nickname to be? Hanoi Tom? Tokyo Tom? You name it, you can have it apparently. You sit there and pontificate on the fact that we’re not winning the war on terrorism when you and your party have done nothing but try to sabotage it, which you are continuing to do.
This little speech of yours yesterday, and this appearance of yours on television last night, let’s call it what it is. It’s nothing more than an attempt to sabotage the war on terrorism for your own personal and your party’s political gain. This is cheap. And it’s beneath even you. And that’s pretty low.
That's how we got to Donald Trump.
Update: Rush on Trump today. He's standing by him all the way because people are always mean to Republicans and they never defend themselves. He admires Trump's fortitude:
Trump is not following the rules that targets are supposed to follow. Targets are supposed to immediately grovel, apologize, say something like, "You know, it wasn't me. That wasn't me. That's not the real me. That's not who I am. And I forever apologize. I have the utmost respect for Senator McCain, and I really regret saying it, and I don't know that I can go on."
And then everybody cheers that the target has seen the light and is now going to shrink away from public life, never to ever be heard from or seen from again. And that usually means another Republican has been taken out. And again, guiding all of this is the arrogant presumption that the majority American people are as outraged as all these media types are. So we shall see. Not only is Trump not following the rules, he's doubling down on the criticism.
The American people haven't seen something like this in a long time. I'm serious. They have not seen an embattled public figure stand up for himself, double down, and tell everybody to go to hell. What they've seen is an embattled public figure apologize and shrink away.
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