The Most Powerful Dittohead In America

Five months after the Republican Party went down to defeat at the polls, we find that George W. Bush had even more power as President than we thought (thanks to documents recently released), John McCain is back at his old job in the Senate, and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol--a new mother--says abstinence doesn't work.

These days, it's more about who controls the soul of the GOP. At the recent CPAC convention in Washington, a straw poll of who conservatives thought would make the best presidential candidate in 2012 was all over the map, with no one getting a majority. Not even our beloved Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

But there is one man Republicans are rallying around, and it's not the party chair Michael Steele (His selection must have been the GOP's way of saying "Hey, we've got black leaders too!"). Instead, it's a rotund man who sits behind his golden microphone making outrageous comments weekdays over 600 radio stations.

His name is Rush Limbaugh. I used to listen to this guy when he started out in syndication, but no longer do because of his pomposity, his bashing of liberals (which has become so effective that they now call themselves progressives), and his condescending attitude toward callers. Limbaugh's run-ins with the law over his alleged misuse of painkillers caused others to take him less seriously. But enough of his acolytes (also known as "dittoheads") still tune in daily to make him the standard in conservative talk radio.

Now Limbaugh has become the defacto head of the GOP, eclipsing Steele and any other party member who gets in his way. It's amusing to watch them kiss his rear end after they dared to cross him. You don't think Rush is enjoying all the attention he's getting?

What's not so amusing is that, with President Barack Obama getting high marks in the polls after one month in office, Limbaugh has been openly rooting for him and his policies to fail. The country is mired in a deep recession and two wars, looking to a new President in hopes of stemming the tide. But the Republicans who complain about the way things are going and try to stop Obama's efforts to improve things? Well, they're the same ones who, over a 25-year period, are the ones whose policies helped create this mess.

The sooner Republicans figure that out, the less they'll have to rely on figureheads and extremist talk show hosts to take back control of Washington.