The curious case of Rush Limbaugh

In a previous post, we linked to an article that detailed a plan hatched by James Carville, Paul Begala and White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel to peg talk show host, Rush Limbaugh as the face of the Republican Party. (Quick aside: the Republicans had their chance to anoint a standard-bearer if indeed a standard-bearer is required for a political ideology. They had their chance but blew it by placing this guy, a man with an A+ rating on B-Daddy’s Freedom Coalition Agenda, on the bottom half of the career achievement ticket back in ’96. Well played. Well played.)

We saw the manifestation of this plan, first, when the President called on congressional Republicans to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh with respect to porkulus.

The upside of this stunt would be to take advantage of Rush’s high negatives that were discovered in polling Carville did. The downside, in part, would be for the President took look downright silly and petty by calling out someone who’s on the radio, which he did.

The lesson was apparently learned as the job of tagging Rush as the face of the Republican party then fell to Obama’s lap dogs in the media.

So far, so good, right? Free pub for Rush and a distractable moment for the electorate in lieu of examining porkulus, the budget or a possible sellout to Russia on missile defense over Iran.

Rush upped the ante yesterday, calling on the President to appear on his show for a debate. Hmmm…. We know Carville had to have anticipated this, no? But Rush made an offer the President has to refuse, right? He can’t possibly go on his show, can he?

For those of you out there, though, brushing this off saying “Of course he’s not going to go. Don’t be silly – he’s the President.”, fair enough, but remember who called out who first and remember who its been that is in the inner ring that has been orchestrating this stunt.

It would appear the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner a bit. Rush can now feel free to play the “innocent victim” in all this claiming he wants to right the situation by merely having the two principals sit down for a chat… and at the same time send the figurative man in the chicken suit to follow the President around. And Rush played this pretty shrewdly as well, giving Obama some wiggle room, as he dismissed accepting Emanuel or Carville but allowing for Biden or Geithner as a stand-in.

If you want to go after a high profile figure to score political points and/or to push your agenda you are going to have to expect that person, who has been engaged in a 20+ year running spat with one high profile figure or another, to make you an offer you cannot accept.

Your move, guys.