One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is to assume that the party in power is winning because it's full of strategic geniuses. Of course, most of the political strategists in DC are "geniuses" in the same way that the penguin and Mr. Freeze were criminal geniuses in the Batman comic books. They'd come up with some needlessly complicated plot, it would work for about 4-5 pages, then Batman would show up and nearly beat them into a coma. It generally works about the same way in politics, too, if you give it a few years.
But, back to our resident "super villains" -- the Democrats in DC. In a stroke of "political genius," they're now aiming all their big guns at Rush Limbaugh. President Government is mentioning him, the Democrats in Congress are attacking him, liberals are running ads.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!
These attacks achieve three things:
#1) They elevate Rush Limbaugh's status and draw more people to his show to see what all the fuss is about -- which is bad for liberals because Rush is very good at what he does. Just to name one example, I am a conservative today in large part because I started listening to Rush Limbaugh in my college years.
#2) They actually make it less likely that the Fairness Doctrine or some other law targeting talk radio will work. After all, if you publicly target Rush Limbaugh, then try to "hush Rush," it would look particularly sleazy.
#3) It wastes an enormous amount of money and energy on a guy who's merely the governor of Florida -- wait, no, he's not. Is he a senator? Ehr...a Congressman? Hmmmm...So, he doesn't hold any elected office? Maybe it's just me, but I would think that actually targeting Republicans whose seats you can take would make more sense than going after a talk show host who will love the attention.
PS: Since the Democrats are treating Rush like the head man in the Republican Party, maybe he should challenge Barack Obama to a debate. Of course, Limbaugh could destroy a hack like Obama in a debate with his eyes closed, so it will never happen, but it might make for some more great publicity for Rush.
John Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Conservative Grapevine, Right Wing News, and Right Wing Video.