Maybe Rush Looks So Big Because The Rest Of The Republicans Are So Small

Is Rush the leader of the Republican Party? Well, I’m not sure the Republican Party has a leader right now, but maybe the reason Rush looms so large is that the Republican Party is so small right now.

Rush, who I have been negative about in the last couple posts, is a passionate and articulate man who is espousing a strong and consistent ideology. When you compare this to other potential “leaders” who spend their time in partisan sniping, yelling “tax cuts” like they are invoking some kind of serpent god, and calling democrats socialists (incorrectly I might add), well . . . in the land of the blind, the one eyed Rush is king.

This video clip is interesting for a couple reasons. The first, somewhat off topic, is David Shuster from MSNBC spending five minutes willfully misrepresenting Rush’s “fail” comment to force Ron Paul into answering a question where he either has to answer that A. All Republicans are evil partisans who don’t care about America or B. Obama’s policies are wonderful and all those who oppose them are evil partisans who don’t care about America.

The second interesting thing about this video is Ron Paul’s excellent summary, from about 5:00 on, about why Rush is so important in conservative circles right now. Ron correctly notes that the Republicans have no answers for how they got thumped in the elections and opinion polls, have no strategy to reach out and expand the party, have no strategy to turn ideology into legislation, and have generally lost credibility on their core issues.

In my words: Ron does a very good summary of how Rush looks so big not because he has become more important but rather because the Republican party and its leaders are looking small and becoming less important. I highly recommend the last two minutes or so of this video (not counting Ron’s obsession with the Federal Reserve).

The “see, Ron Paul agrees with me” angle is really what I’m going for in this post, but if you bother to watch the whole clip you can see how David Shuster spins the question he is asking specifically to screw over the Republicans, as the Obama administration has asked the media to do.

David willfully mis-characterizes Rush’s statements about wanting Obama to fail in implementing policies that Rush believes are bad for America into Rush wanting Obama to fail by having the country fall into economic ruin.

Shuster then goes on to present a false alternative, does Ron Paul want to see Obama’s policies succeed and presents these apples and oranges as an “either or” question. Shuster is effectively asking “Do you support Rush’s desire for the United States to fail economically (which is not what Rush said) or do you support Obama’s policies which will lead us to success?” Ron does quite the job of bobbing and weaving against Shuster’s blatantly partisan questioning.

Hat Tip to Red State Eclectic for spotting the video and highlighting MSNBC’s bias.

Update: Liberal Values blogs about a poll showing only 11% of Republicans regard Rush as their party leader but rightfully casts doubt on the way the poll question was worded.