Michelle Obama and Rush Limbaugh: Perfect Together

Michelle Obama (2/19/08): "People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

Rush Limbaugh (6/10/08): "The purpose for doing something like this would not be just to embarrass and harm Bush. This would be a direct assault on the United States and its government."

Perhaps at first read, these comments seem totally dissimilar. But they are not.

America's favorite (recovering?) drug addict, Rush Limbaugh, was referring to a 4/14/08 blog posting by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News in which he asks Barack Obama "whether an Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted torture, or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House." Bunch summarized Obama's lengthy response as "he is at the least open to the possibility of investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House."

That set Limbaugh off and he compared this approach to that of both the Soviets and the Nazis, although omitting the Khmer Rouge, whom Dittoheads may never have heard of. He concluded by conflating George W. Bush ("just to embarrass and harm Bush") with our country ("a direct assault on the United States and its government"). Ironically, this is not unlike a certain potential First Lady whose pride in her country is directly correlated with the political atmosphere.

Even if one has the mistaken notion that the course of domestic politics ought to determine the level of patriotic fervor, presidential politics cannot be the sole criterion. The Democratic Party took control of Congress in 2006-2007; and there are thousands of local and state races throughout the nation which attest to the vibrancy of the American republic. And let's not forget: leaving aside the issue of Florida, the American people were sufficiently aware and sophisticated in 2000 that Mr. Bush failed to carry a majority of the two-party popular vote. The failure there was not with "this country" but with the men and women of the Supreme Court.

The ever-elitist Rush Limbaugh never will concede that the people of this nation are far more, and far better, than George W. Bush. And Michelle O. has a hard time understanding the same- that the test of the greatness of this populace, or even of their government, does not lie in their willingness to make "the change we have been waiting for."