Majority Says Iraq War a Success, Poll Finds

Daily Kos is pumping up the results from the new Wall Street Journal poll, which finds Americans optimistic about the direction of the country, and confident in President Barack Obama's leadership abilities.

But one of the most interesting findings is that a majority says the U.S. was successful in Iraq:

There was widespread approval of Mr. Obama's plans for Iraq, with 80% approving of his move to pull out most U.S. troops within 19 months. Two in three Americans said the U.S. has accomplished as much as can be expected in Iraq, compared with 27% who said more can be done.

And the public is mostly satisfied with the results, with 53% saying the war has been successful, up from 43% in July 2008. Sixteen percent say it is very likely there will be an all-out civil war in Iraq when U.S. troops leave, compared with 40% who thought that in June 2007.

Read the rest of the poll findings here. Most of this is good news from the Democrats, certainly.

But the results on Iraq have to constitute one of the greatest partisan travesties in the history of American foreign policy. I mean think about it: Here we have Daily Kos now boasting about the success of the war on its front page, yet just months before the Bush administration committed to a new counterinsurgency plan in Iraq, Daily Kos was adamantly announcing that the United States had alreadly lost the war, "It's Not Defeat, Dammit!":

STOP TALKING ABOUT "DEFEAT" IN IRAQ. Hear it from your own thereisnospoon. Say it with me slowly, loud and clear.

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Defeat. In. Iraq.

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Victory. In. Iraq.

Get over it. Stop using those words because they are MEANINGLESS.

While I appreciate insightful diaires like L C Johnson's, talking about our "defeat" in Iraq is not only misguided and incoherent, it plays into Republican frames about how "we want America to lose", and how we're "defeatists in the face of the enemy." Which is bullshit - because I, like every other patriotic Democratic American, want America to come out a winner every time.

And it's not just diarists here. The James Baker Commission just came out and Ruled Out Victory in Iraq. Whatever that means.

The reason that terms like "victory" and "defeat" in Iraq are meaningless is because you can't "win" an OCCUPATION. Wars you can win or lose; occupations can only end in withdrawal or annexation.

We can no more "win" or "lose" in Iraq that the British could have "won" or "lost" in India, or the French could have "won" or "lost" in Algeria.

That really has to be the biggest "epic fail" post I've ever read.

And to think, just yesterday Daily Kos was still dissing the deployment, promoting an even more rapid acceleration than the 18-month withdrawal plan President Obama announced this week. The Democratic-left has for the past six years agitated, demonstrated, lobbied, and voted for an American defeat in Iraq. Now websites like Daily Kos - and no doubt the rest of the hard-left cadres of the "party of defeat" - are pumping up such triumphant poll findings as if these are some confirmation of leftist wisdom on the war. This is truly a disgrace.

What can you do, I guess? The most signal achievement of the Bush administration - preventing another Vietnam - has resulted in a strange historical twist of not only helping to elect a Democratic administration in the first place, but in propping up the new aministration in foreign policy as well.

Of course, just in case anything goes wrong - like a new round of terrorist attacks at home - leftists are already preparing talking points to blame Republicans for "intelligence" failures.

In any case, stay tuned ...

And here's a big thanks, irrespective of politics, to America's service personnel in all of wars abroad.)

Jim Cramer: "Obama Destroying Life Saving of Millions"

Nice Deb has video of CNBC's Jim Cramer, who says "I just want some sign that Obama realizes the market is totally falling apart, and that his agenda has a big hand in that happening ..."

It turns out the White House is not digging it, with reference to Cramer's appearance on the Today Show, "White House Knocks Jim Cramer For Calling Obama Budget "Greatest Wealth Destruction By a President":

NBC's Tom Costello, on duty at the White House today, asked press secretary Robert Gibbs about some comments made by his CNBC colleague Jim Cramer. On the Today show this morning, Cramer called Pres. Obama's budget a "radical agenda," adding, "This is the greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a President."

"I'm not entirely sure what he's pointing to to make some of the statements," said Gibbs. "And you can go back and look at any number of statements he's made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the back-up for those are too."

Man, you've got to love this. The Democrats are pushing back against the media now that they've got the power, and the markets are voting no against the big-government power grab.

Allahpundit's got a longer video, plus an analysis of the White House's response - and he ends his post with the damaging quote from Cramer: "This is the greatest wealth destruction I’ve seen by a president."

Watch the whole thing, here. More commentary at Memeorandum.

Progressives to Push Limbaugh as GOP Leader

Today's Los Angeles Times reports that the Democratic National Committe is coordinating a smear campaign against Rush Limbaugh and the GOP:

The Obama White House has begun advancing an aggressive political strategy: persuading the country that real power behind the Republican Party is not the GOP leaders in Congress or at the Republican National Committee, but rather provocative radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh.

President Obama himself, along with top aides and outside Democratic allies, have been pushing the message in unison ....

As the White House works to make Limbaugh the face of the GOP, it is getting some outside assistance.

A tax-exempt group that supports progressive causes - Americans United for Change - is helping finance a TV ad that claims Republican leaders are beholden to the radio host. The ad closes with Limbaugh saying, "I want him to fail."

The quote was part of a comment in which Limbaugh said of Obama: "If his agenda is a far-left collectivism -- some people say socialism - as a conservative heartfelt, deeply, why would I want socialism to succeed?"

Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said the group had discussed the ad campaign with the Democratic National Committee. Woodhouse is joining the DNC next week as its communications director. Asked if the White House was notified about the ad, Woodhouse said: "They certainly are aware - I'm sure they're aware of what we're doing."

The website for Americans United for Change is here, via Memeorandum.

The Democrats better keep doubling-up their efforts. All of this progressive coordination is taking place just as a movement of Barack Obama "buyer's remorse" is kicking in. See, "Obama’s Sorry Cultists."

Fats Limbaugh Trailer Trash, or Who is John Galt?

Before I boggle readers' minds with TBogg's post and thread on conservative trailer-park trash, let me preface with this letter to the editor at today's Los Angeles Times, from Kay Santos of Diamond Bar:

I have employed about 50 people during the last 20 years, and my family's taxable income is about $300,000. In order to avoid paying a higher percentage of taxes on all of my income, I will decrease output, lay off some staff and still end up keeping the same amount.

I have no incentive to hire people or expand my business, because the more I make, the more President Obama will take to expand government. This discourages expansion of the private sector. It will backfire with disastrous consequences for all.

It is repulsive that Obama is being allowed to take this country backward by pickpocketing the very people who run the private sector through their energy, money and creativity.

I'm frankly surprised that the editorial mandarins at the Times let Ms. Santos' comments get through. We don't have enough common sense these days when it comes to the brutalizing policies of today's collectivist left, and God forbid the likes of Ms. Santos to spoil the zeitgeist.

Which brings me back to the infamous demonic ridicule machine, TBogg of Firedoglake, and his fever-swamp snark-offering du jour, "You're in the High Rent District." It turns out TBogg's done a little excavation at Michelle Malkin's comment threads, and he's comes up with what appear to be some beauties from the "high percentage of these high-earning go-getting producers" who habituate the place:

Approximately 2% of the American households make more than $250,000 a year and (you may find this hard to believe) a very high percentage of these high-earning go-getting producers spend their days commenting over at Michelle Malkin's place... when they're not busy flying their Lear jets up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun.

TBogg's Darwinized (or "Galticized", be that as it may) a surviving selection of the best of the best of alleged "trailer-park" commentary at Makin's, so be sure to read the whole post.

What's interesting from my perspective - as an evil "BusHitler" battalion commander of the blogospheric right - are the comments from TBogg's own thread.

Here's this one, from "Moondancer":

The notion of the two-percenters as victims is gonna be a hard sell, but not as hard as the Fats Limbaugh trailer trash as patriots.

And this one, from "Crosstimbers":

They should leave a map for their descendants, so that a thousand years from now, when the nation returns to 1980’s sanity, the offspring can find the hidden cache of Mary Kay products and pick up the life intended by the founders, as if nothing happended.

How about one more, from "Thingwarbler":

If those are the “successful entrepreneurs” who need to be rewarded with mucho moolah for all their brilliant contributions to the capitalist society, then we are well and truly fucked. If, on the other hand, they’re really just the 22nd Gardening & Homeschooling Brigade of the 101st Keyboarders, then it all makes so much more sense.

Well, that's a pretty good sample from the progressive muck, but who knew that some of these folks were previously pulling down "five-figures"?

Of course, over at the academic blog Crooked Timber, political scientist Henry Farrell, of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, reflects a bit on the emerging revolt of the John Galt-ers:

I understand that “Dr. Helen” was at C-PAC, putting forward a strong case for ‘going Galt’ on a farm till the nasty Democrats go away. Wasn’t clear whether the world would be denied the intellectual fruits of the Instapundit as part of a package deal or not.

I guess Henry's not a fan of Glenn Reynolds or Pajamas Media, so I guess that's going to scuttle my chances of being included in the esteemed directory of political science bloggers over at The Monkey Cage, where Henry's a co-blogger. I guess "Randian Warmongers!", or at least old-fashioned neocons, need not apply.

See also, "Going John Galt."

**********

UPDATE: Malkin-a-lanche!: "Letter of the day: Disgusted in Diamond Bar."

Terrorism in Pakistan: Follow Up to Mumbai?

The New York Times is reporting that the murders today of eight members of Sri Lanka's national cricket team have all the markings of a Mumbai-style terrorist attack:

A dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan national cricket team and its police escort in a brazen commando-style operation in the city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing six police officers and wounding at least six cricketers before fleeing in motorized rickshaws, the Lahore police chief and a Sri Lankan official said.

The attackers ambushed a bus carrying the cricket team, using assault rifles, grenades and anti-tank missiles. Some Pakistani officials likened the audacity of the assault to the attacks in Mumbai, India, in November.

Two bystanders were also killed and six officers were wounded, according to the police.

The attack struck not only a major Pakistani city but also the country’s most popular sport — a game followed with near-obsessive fascination by many in the region. “Cricketers have never been attacked in Pakistan despite what the situation has been in the country,” Rashid Latif, a former Pakistan cricket captain, told Reuters. “Today is a black day for Pakistan cricket and a black day for Pakistan.”

For a nation seething with conflict between the authorities and militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and accused by some of its neighbors of harboring terrorists, the blow to Pakistan’s international prestige and self-image from Tuesday’s attack seemed likely to be profound and enduring — certainly, as far as its sporting ties to the rest of the world were concerned ....

Two Sri Lankan players — Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana — were being treated for bullet wounds in a hospital but were in stable condition, said a spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission. Team captain Mahela Jayawardene and four other players sustained minor injuries, and British assistant coach Paul Farbrace and Ahsan Raza, an umpire, were also injured, The A.P. said. The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, described the shooting as a terrorist attack, and said there were similarities with the bloody assaults in Mumbai, India, in November.

“They had heavy weapons,” said Mr. Taseer, as he arrived at the scene. “These were the same methods and the same sort of people as hit Mumbai.”

At least 163 people died in Mumbai when a squad of militants, many of them in their 20s and trained as commandos, attacked targets across the city. Senior members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group active in Kashmir, have been arrested by Pakistan in connection with the attacks.

There's more at the link.

See also the debate, at the video, on Pakistan's border militants from Sunday's panel discussion on Fareed Zakaria's GPS. Fawaz Gerges couldn't get far enough away from the notion that the Taliban sponsors and practices terror, with a rebuttal from Christopher Hitchens.

**********

Related: See Hitchens', "Don't Say a Word: A U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith," via Memeorandum.

Internal Battles on the Right

I've forgotten the exact essay by now, but sometime back I wrote that I wasn't going to battle against fellow conservatives. As an early McCain supporter last year, I'm still seeing sore wounds from some of my fellow partisans who were zinged repeatedly in my posts (or let's just say that Ed Morrissey's not linking to my blog, not to mention Mike's America).

I mention this in light of my comments yesterday, in "Rush Limbaugh: Leader of the Republican Party?," and some of the responses therein.

So let me be clear: I'm not criticizing Rush Limbaugh. I watched his speech to CPAC on Saturday and I was getting my own "rush" of adrenaline, endorphine, or some other "right-on" chemical-emotional reaction while listening to the guy. The big "El Rushbo" hit all the right notes, chumming the waters of both left and right as no other contemporary commentator can do. My only point, and this would seem uncontroversial, is that Limbaugh is by no means the leader of the GOP, which should be clear from the title of my entry. On the other hand, it's pretty much a slam dunk that Limbaughs' the leader of today's conservative movement. He's consistently opposed big government and concessions to the "bipartisan" Titanic that's gotten us into so much trouble these last few years.

Oh sure, I criticized Rush last year and his supporters as "Rushbots" because some of the attacks on McCain's campaign were dishonest and frankly irrational.

But I'm not criticizing Rush today. Conservative have really no time to be creating internal enemies. I'm not so naive to say that we won't have our battles, but the faster a "new right" consensus emerges that amounts to something of a guiding agenda for the movement, the better off we'll be.

Jonah Goldberg hits on this today in his essay, "The Tired War on Rush Limbaugh." I thought the piece was pretty unoriginal at first, considering how Goldberg was going off on the Democrats and their attacks on conservative talk radio as "the font of all evil." Really? Folks need to look no farther than the continuing debate on the "Fairness Doctrine" to understand that the rising tide of tea-party conservatism is the biggest threat to the left's totalitarian agenda - and thank God for that!

So I was pleased when Goldberg turned his focus to the political right, where the real challenges to a Republican revival are located:

The more interesting war on Limbaugh comes from the right. My National Review colleague John Derbyshire has written a thoughtful article for the American Conservative disparaging the "lowbrow conservatism" of talk radio. His brush is a bit too broad at times. Some right-wing talkers, such as Bill Bennett and Dennis Prager, can be almost professorial. Michael Savage, meanwhile, sounds like the orderlies are about to break through the barricades with straitjacket in hand. Derbyshire is nonetheless right that conservatism is top-heavy with talk-radio talent, giving the impression the right is deficient in other areas and adding to the shrillness of public discourse.

Another point of attack comes from "reformist" conservative writers, such as blogger Ross Douthat of the Atlantic and former Bush speechwriter David Frum. They argue that conservatism is too attached to talk-show platitudes and Reagan kitsch. They want conservatives and Republicans to become more entrepreneurial, less reflexively opposed to government action. Hence, the New Reformers object to Limbaugh's role as an enforcer of ideological conformity. What's good for Limbaugh, many of them argue, guarantees that the GOP will become a powerless rump party only for conservative true believers.

I'm dubious about that, but I do have a suggestion that would help on both fronts. Bring back "Firing Line." William F. Buckley Jr., who died almost exactly a year ago, hosted the program for PBS for 33 years. He performed an incalculable service at a time when conservatives were more associated with yahoos than they are today. He demonstrated that intellectual fluency and good manners weren't uniquely liberal qualities. More important, the "Firing Line" debates (models of decorum) demonstrated that conservatives were unafraid to examine their own assumptions or to battle liberal ones.

Now, again, let me indicate right away where I stand on this, since I might be seen as more on the intellectual side of things (and hence a soft and squishy conservative like David Brooks, David Frum, or Ross Douthat). Recall that I'm neoconservative, and that means I take tradition and values as key to any sustainable outlook for the right. I also see foreign policy as not just another issue within the party platform, but as a problem that defines the identity of someone who claims to stand up for American values. Hence, while I'll engage the Brooks' or Douthats, I'll have no truck with folks like Daniel Larison who might as well be Democrats.

Conservatives need to ask themselves about the big picture: What do we want? Getting back in power is important, but should we acquiesce to what many recognize is likely a permanent expansion of the welfare-entitlement state? Folks decry the notion of "moderation," but how do we define that? Is former President Bush a "moderate" because he grew the government under his watch? As the Wall Street Journal has pointed out many times, the costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq account for much of the increase in government spending as a percentage of GDP, and while the administration okay'd the expansion of Medicare, Bush spent all of 2005 campaigning for Social Security reform which would have sought to move the country toward privatization, and hence a shift toward shrinking governmental dependence and fostering an "ownership" society.

I don't have all the answers to these questions, but I do know that conservatives won't have to worry about the Democrats as long as we're looking to slit each other's throats.

Here's what Paul Ibrahim has to say about moderates:

It is non-conservative Republicans who have gotten the party to where it is today. It is the massive spending and government enlargement that have forced a significant part of the base to abandon the GOP. It is the pork projects and the related corruption of “moderates” that have dragged down the Republican brand. The people who have decidedly not been the downfall of the Republican Party are its conservatives.

So, let's talk more about this. What is a non-conservative Republican? Is it a neocon "warmonger" like me, or a "soft intellectual" like David Brooks? Or is it a wonkish Harvard graduate like Ross Douthat?

I know where my loyalties lie, and that's with regular folks and bedrock values. In contrast, the Democratic Party is out to destroy this country, and when Rush Limbaugh said he wanted that nihilist agenda to fail, I said "hallelujah"!

We need more people to speak clearly like this, but we also need more people to welcome truthsayers like Geert Wilders into the spotlight as well. And apparently, that wasn't happening at CPAC.

So let's get it together. We have to speak truth to this leftist agenda, both home and abroad. By all means, yes, let's debate and refiine our ideas, but we should never forget that conservatism is what's going to save this country, and what the "next right" agenda requires is a little more attention to defining conservatism in the age of Obama. We should be perfectly happy to go back to Goldwater's ideas to do it, but we should also remember that even the "wisdom of the ages" gets an update now and then.

Update on Obama's Class War

Readers may have paid a little more than passing attention to this "debate" I've been having with Dr. Hussein Biobrain. I put the scare quotes up there since there's really no debating this guy. You can make the most rigorous argument, something with which no one in her right mind would disagree, and Dr. Hussein will come back with some unhinged rant only a hopeless denialist would offer.

That's the case once again with the latest post on this exchange, "Again with the Class Warfare." There's no need to even cite any passages, because this is the kind of guy who will invent a new reality upon every entry, since he lacks the dignity or integrity to simply admit that someone's offered a more powerful chain of logic. Folks who read Dr. Hussein will shake their heads, especially since the blather that's proposed is offered as "serious" Democratic Party talking points.

Here I'll just link to David Brooks' essay this morning, "A Moderate Manifesto," and his passage on the class warfare agenda being foisted by President Obama and his extreme, take-no-prisoners fiscal policy:

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

Keep in mind that this is coming from Brooks, who was recently critical of Bobby Jindal and the GOP rebuttal to Obama's presidential address. Note too that Brooks is not loved by Rush Limbaugh and heartland conservatives, so it'd be hard to attack Brooks' identification of Democratic class warfare as pure "winguttery."

Nope, the fact is that Democratic class warfare is a self-evident truth that even moderate "intellectual" conservatives have no problem attacking. But stayed tuned for another iteration of denialism from the freak Dr. Hussein.

More at Memeorandum.

Update on Darcy Burner's Epic Fail for Netroots

Last November, just four days after the election, I published, "Bachmann and Burner: Epic Electoral Fail for Netroots."

Combining the defeat of Democratic House candidate Darcy Burner in Washington State, with the reelection of embattled GOP congresswoman Michelle Bachmann in Minnesota, I argued that "Together, the reelection of Bachmann and defeat of Burner mark a startling defeat for the 2008 netroots campaigns of Daily Kos, Firedoglake, Open Left, and their "Blue America" coalition of Internet activists ..."

Some of the lefty commenters at the post scoffed at the notion of an "epic fail" for the netroots, but as Eli Sanders notes in his, "Anatomy of a Netroots Failure," the defeat of Darcy Burner's campaign last year was "biggest failure of the cycle":

To understand how invested online activists were in the campaign of Darcy Burner -- the bright, tech-savvy, and ultimately failed candidate for Congress in Washington state's 8th Congressional District -- consider what happened in February of last year, when the University of Washington's student newspaper, not normally a major player in national politics, published excerpts of an interview with Burner campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik.

Speaking to a student reporter about the nationwide army of liberal bloggers and online activists who have become a force at all levels of politics in recent years, Kaushik said: "They're not at the point yet where they can really swing a race. Part of my job is making sure people know the blogosphere is not the campaign."

Impolitic words in this Internet era, certainly. But as it turned out, he was partly correct. Despite their many successes in 2008, liberal bloggers and members of the online "netroots" could not, in fact, swing this particular race to a candidate who had become a barometer of their clout. They now openly lament Burner's defeat as their biggest failure of the cycle.

Still, back in February 2008, to suggest that such an outcome might be possible -- and to suggest, by extension, that there might be a ceiling of netroots influence at all -- was highly taboo. Kaushik was quickly made to understand that the second part of his statement (that his job was to distance the Burner campaign from the blogosphere) was absolutely incorrect. In a post titled "Loyalty," published in near-immediate response to the appearance of Kaushik's quotations in the student newspaper, Jane Hamsher, of the influential national blog Firedoglake, reminded the campaign that liberal blogs had helped Burner raise nearly $125,000 in the primary. Now, in her opinion, the campaign was biting the online hand that fed it. "I can't think of another contributor who would raise that much money and get repaid like this," she wrote, calling for Kaushik's head. "They need to ditch this clown."

Hundreds of commenters chimed in, many agreeing, and by the next day, the Burner campaign had released a statement distancing itself from Kaushik's words. A copy of the statement now closes that particular Firedoglake comment thread: "We are truly sorry that a part-time political consultant associated with this campaign said things to a college student which reflects poorly on Darcy and her campaign. Please know that they do not reflect her views."

The chastised Kaushik stayed on with the campaign, but the lesson was clear: Attention, and deference, must be paid.

God, isn't that classic of the totalitarian left. This Kaushik dude spoke the truth, and the netroots hordes practically lynched him.

Read the rest of the article here.

This is just sweet schadenfreude for me, considering how high the lefties were last November. The damned nihilists had been trying to get Burner elected for almost four years. Big time bloggers were walking precincts in her district to put her over the top, and she still lost. In turn, Michelle Bachmann was excoriated for merely suggesting that the media take a close look at the contingent of socialist members of Congress, and the big netroots blogs raised something close to $1 million for Bachmann's challenger, and they still lost.

The 2008 election was a monumental victory for the left, but it sure felt good to see two of the most intense netroots campaigns crash-and-burn in what is now even recognized over on the dark side as a genuine "epic fail."

About that Shortage of Ammunition...

My friend Jan has an interesting post on the shortage of ammunition for firearms, "Ammunition Shortage Nationwide." The post links to Bob Owens at Pajamas Media who notes that:

The 2008 elections that saw the Democratic Party extend their power in both houses of Congress and saw Barack Obama elected president made gun owners very nervous, and with good reason.

We have a president that has favored gun bans and who desires to reinstate the horribly flawed 1994 assault weapons ban authored by our rather dim vice president. We also have radically anti-gun majority leaders in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and a Congress quite willing to pass massive, bloated laws without even bothering to read the contents. Fears of encroachment are certainly warranted ....

Individual shooters are stockpiling thousands of rounds of ammunition because of fears of future punitive taxation or outright bans of certain kinds of ammunition.

It's hardly just public worries about gun rights and public stocks, however. Folks are frankly getting ready to protect themselves for when all hell breaks loose around here.

For example, check out Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, "Not The Kind of CHANGE! They Had HOPEd! For":

There’s a very good reason that the Magic Marxist Messiah & His Mental Midget Moronic Minions™ are shaking in their recycled plastic wannabe jackboots— They see this kind of response to their New New Deal Stalinist 5-Year Plan.

TALLAHASSEE — People in Florida are fearful of the economic future, and one way they are coping is by buying guns.

It’s not just the “economic future” that has people “fearful“, our good lil’ journaljizmer. There’s a little thing called “personal liberty” that’s being buried faster than Vince Foster’s body.

The state office that issues concealed weapons permits is buried under a backlog of 95,000 applications, and doesn’t have enough money in its budget to do the job. A legislative budget panel is being asked to approve a midyear budget transfer of nearly $4 million to catch up to the demand for permits.

Now there’s some “HOPE!” that you can take to the bank, right there. Dictatorships absolutely hate an armed citizenry and they’ll use every ruse and justification (“It’s For The Chillllllrenz!”, being the meme d’ jour.) to make damned sure that The People don’t have the means to defend and rid themselves of their overlords.

There's more at the link.

I'll have more later ...

Rush Limbaugh: Leader of the Republican Party?

I remember back in the mid-1990s, when I was a loyal Democrat working my way through graduate school, my father-in-law used to send me Rush Limbaugh books and newsletters. I'm pretty sure I had a copy of The Way Things Ought to Be or some other tome that I never read. I didn't listen to talk radio, and I wasn't that interested in grassroots partisan mobilization, on either side of the political spectrum.

That said, I've never underestimated Limbaugh's appeal to the average folks who populate the conservative base. Those who watched Limbaugh's speech at CPAC on Saturday witnessed the man's brutal ability to inflame the raw emotions of right-wing partisans. As they say, Limbaugh's an entertainer and his first constituency is his own brand.

In any case, Thomas Schaller offers an analysis of Limbaugh as the now putative head of the GOP, in "Rush Limbaugh is the Leader of the Republican Party." While it's true that Limbaugh's generating the most attention right now (by channeling the raw grievances of the conservative base), Schaller makes a point worth noting as we move forward:

Those in the GOP who worry about Limbaugh's outsize influence, and about the tightening grip the conservative elements he represents have on the Republican Party, fear that Limbaugh will become the face of a party that's now lacking in leaders of national stature. (AFSCME and Americans United for Change recently capitalized on this fear with a TV commercial depicting Limbaugh as the person congressional Republicans follow.) But the fear is a bit belated. Limbaugh is no newcomer to national politics. He was named an honorary member of the House Republican Caucus after the GOP's 1994 takeover of Congress. Last year, he signed a new $400 million contract to continue his radio show, which is heard by as many as 20 million listeners per week on 600-plus stations, through 2016. While talk radio has declined as political junkies move online, Limbaugh has managed to retain his audience. And those Republican pols who cross Limbaugh publicly may have to make abject and equally public apologies.

I remember last year Limbaugh generated tremendous attention in attacking GOP nominee John McCain. We're still hearing the notion that the Republicans didn't have a conservative in the race, or not at least until Sarah Palin was picked as running-mate, to the delight of the dittoheads. Such disgruntlement is not going away. Take a look at Wordsmith's post, "Purging the Party to Win Future Elections?," for a case in point.

On a more macro level, I doubt this week's events are going to have as big effect on the Republican Party than what happens with the economy and with the policy effectiveness of the Democratic agenda.

Rush Limbaugh's going to keep doing what he does best: throw slabs of juicy red meat to the hungry crowds. How well his message is received, or is modeled, by the larger conservative party infrastructure is what matters. Other top Republicans, especially the hopefuls for the party's nomination in 2012, will generate more interest as the actual prospect of winning elections concentrates minds and clarifies policy programs. As that happens, a genuine leader will emerge, and one hopes that whoever that is has as much charisma as an overweight, cigar-chomping radio personality with knack for stirring up publicity.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Added: See Reihan Salam, "Sugar Rush":

Limbaugh is enraged by the likes of David Brooks and David Frum and Jim Manzi and Ramesh Ponnuru, conservatives who consort with the liberal enemy. Though all of these writers and thinkers disagree amongst themselves about a great deal, they share a basic belief that the party needs to do more than just promise tax cuts we can't afford. And they recognize that a healthy political movement is always open to new ideas, and to questioning old convictions."

Mainstream Democratic Socialism

Readers of this blog probably realized long ago that I rarely refer to today's Democrats as "liberals." That's simply because they're not. The Democratic-left today has approached "radical" terroritory, if we refer to the traditional left-right ideological continuum, where those farthest to the left of the spectrum genuinely advocate radical, revolutionary change.

I'm routinely ridiculed by leftists who think this is all funny "wingnutterry": There's no such thing as "socialists" or "postmodern nihilists," is the usual refrain. I pretty much ignore these denials, since I teach political ideologies and these terms are not controversial in the academic literature. But just as "liberal" became a term of harsh derision during the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives have begun using "socialist" as a mainstream attack on Democratic partisans pushing for big government spendathons, anything-goes free-love values in the social sphere, and terrorist appeasement in foreign policy.

In any case, the New York Times has a piece today discussing the changes in poltical labels, " ‘Socialism!’ Boo, Hiss, Repeat":

It seems that “socialist” has supplanted “liberal” as the go-to slur among much of a conservative world confronting a one-two-three punch of bank bailouts, budget blowouts and stimulus bills. Right-leaning bloggers and talk radio hosts are wearing out the brickbat. Senate and House Republicans have been tripping over their podiums to invoke it. The S-bomb has become as surefire a red-meat line at conservative gatherings as “Clinton” was in the 1990s and “Pelosi” is today.

Jonathan Singer, at MyDD, interprets the shifting attack nomenclature as signaling the rehabilitation of liberalism:

I don't think we're necessarily going to see a massive shift in the ideological identification of the electorate just yet, as the reluctance of many Democrats to call themselves Liberals is still palpable. That said, this does have the feel of the beginning of a new era, one in which Democrats aren't afraid to admit that they are Democrats, or that they are liberal - and, more importantly, that the party doesn't reflexively allow the Republicans to set the ground rules for the important political battles.

Not so fast.

Remember the little debate we had a few months back over the notion of a "center-right nation"? Leftist cringed at the idea that American political culture is individualist, egalitarian, and Tocquevillian. But those who push for a "neo-progressive" program of "universal" healthcare, tax "fairness," and smart "regulation" are today's statist mandarins who have mainstreamed Marx's theories of class struggle into a hip postmodern ideology of anti-American multiculturalism and social-leveling big government. Such ideologues excoriate regular folks, everyday Americans, as "black helicopter" conspiracists and hyper-patriotic "one-worlder" freaks.

The fact is that today's Democratic-left are indeed socialists of varying degrees of radicalism. Some would simply prefer the U.S. adopt the European social welfare-model of statist dirigisme. Some, of course, can't speed up the anti-imperialist revolution fast enough. The problem is that "moderate" Democrats don't marginalize their truly revolutionary cadres.

Indeed, President Barack Obama has asked a coalition of hardline leftist organizations to mobilize for his political agenda. Moreover, if the American univsersity is the repository of society's values and the locus of investment in the nation's survival in liberty and freedom, the outing of the "mainstreaming" of socialist ideological nihilism and anti-Americanism can't come soon enough.

Janeane Garofalo on Conservatives

I just visited John Hitchcock's post at Common Sense Political Thought, "Liberals Are Racists." Our good friend dove into the fever swamps of the left and came up a bit mucked. I know how it works, as I've crossed over to the nihilist zone many times.

In any case, it seems the creepiness never ends when it comes to leftists "psychoanalyizing" conservatives, as we have here with this video of Janeane Garofalo, on Keith Olbermann's show, talking about Rush Limbaugh and the GOP:

Others Blogging:

Rhymes With Right, "The Arrogance of the White Liberal."

Democrat = Socialist, "Our Country is Founded on a Sham ..."

The Great Illuminator, "Please Janine Garofalo, Tell Me What You Think ... I am Dying To Know!"

Olbermann Watch, "Red Eye Reams Olbermann, Garafalo for Racist Comments!"

On Death and Healthcare

Virginia Postrel's essay on the cancer drug Herceptin should be required reading for anyone who's advocating a single-payer national health care system. This is one of those stories that once it sinks in, your body starts to shudder at the thought of your own potential death from state-rationed medical care. Postrel's breast cancer was expected to be early-stage, small, and cured by routine treatment. But when an MRI revealed a much more dreadful escalation of the disease, the miracle of modern drugs - in the American system of medical innovation and provision - saved her life:

Starting in the late 1990s, oncologists had used Herceptin to extend the lives of patients whose HER2-positive cancers were advanced and metastatic, buying them months, and in some cases years, of life. Then, in May 2005, reports of clinical trials on patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer electrified the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting. Herceptin halved the chances of cancer recurrence: from one in six to one in 12 after two years. No one knew what would happen after five or 10 years, but the preliminary results were, to quote a New England Journal of Medicine editorial, “stunning.”

For breast cancer that hasn’t spread elsewhere in the body, Herceptin offers the possibility of a cure. It enhances chemotherapy, encourages the immune system to attack cancer cells, and hinders those cells from reproducing. A year of the drug, with one dose every three weeks (or, for some patients, along with weekly chemotherapy), is now the international standard of care for patients with cancers like mine. So, along with chemotherapy, another round of surgery, and seven and a half weeks of daily radiation, that’s what I got. The Herceptin treatments cost my insurer about $60,000. A year later, I have no evidence of disease and, though it’s still early, I have hope of staying that way indefinitely.

Not everyone in similarly rich countries is so lucky—something to remember the next time you hear a call to “tame runaway medical spending.” Consider New Zealand. There, a government agency called Pharmac evaluates the efficacy of new drugs, decides which drugs are cost-effective, and negotiates the prices to be paid by the national health-care system. These functions are separate in most countries, but thanks to this integrated approach, Pharmac has indeed tamed the national drug budget. New Zealand spent $303 per capita on drugs in 2006, compared with $843 in the United States. Unfortunately for patients, Pharmac gets those impressive results by saying no to new treatments. New Zealand “is a good tourist destination, but options for cancer treatment are not so attractive there right now,” Richard Isaacs, an oncologist in Palmerston North, on New Zealand’s North Island, told me in October.

A more centralized U.S. health-care system might reap some one-time administrative savings, but over the long term, cutting costs requires the kinds of controls that make Americans hate managed care. You have to deny patients some of the things they want, including cancer drugs that are promising but expensive.

Be sure to read the whole thing, here.

"Frightening" is a good one-word description of the left's calls for socialized medicine.

Maybe that's why President Barack Obama is looking to suspend the Senate's filibuster rule for the upcoming healthcare vote. Knowing that he wouldn't be getting 60 senators voting on socializing American medicine, the administration's moved once again to rely on authoritarianism and stealth to ram through changes adverse to the American public interest.

**********

UPDATE: Welcome Pundit and Pundette readers! Come on down: "Hope Your Loins Are Girded."

Pundette's got some good stuff over there, so have a look around!

Will Conservatives Abandon the War on Terror?

This blog has always specialized in foreign policy and international relations, and for a time I wrote almost exclusively about the Iraq war. Lately, of course, I've been having a lot of debates here with the nihilist lefties and so forth, but as folks can see in my recent essay on theories of patriarchical cultures and interstate war, foreign policy analysis remains front and center.

I mention all of this after reading Patrick Poole's essay on the Conservative Political Action Conference at Pajamas Media, "Was CPAC an Epic Fail?"

Poole opens with a discussion of how the meeting's tremendous enthusiasm masked a lost opportunity for new thinking, which I discussed previously (and see Rick Moran's thoughts on this, which generated some pushback). But Poole's discussion of Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders' attendance at the convention should set off some alarm bells:

That the conservative movement has slid into complete irrelevancy was demonstrated by the absence of any ideas — nay, any discussion whatsoever — of several of the most pressing political issues of our day. As fellow blogger Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugged observed, there was not a single panel on the War on Terror, the growing threats to free speech, or the cultural jihad underway in the West.

What should have been one of the most important events of this year’s CPAC, the appearance by Dutch parliamentarian and anti-jihad activist Geert Wilders, was relegated to the opposite side of the hotel, divorced from all of the other conference proceedings. There were no official announcements that this event would even be taking place (none that I heard at least), and when trying to locate the room in which it would be held, not a single CPAC staffer could tell me where. And this event only happened because David Horowitz, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Andy Bostom personally shelled out the money to make it happen.

Now CPAC organizers would no doubt respond that they could not fit Wilders into the schedule on such short notice. But I have no doubt that if Bristol Palin had suddenly come available to address CPAC on the virtues of teen pregnancy, David Keene and the American Conservative Union would no doubt have moved heaven and earth to make room in the schedule for her. But they could not accommodate a man who lives under constant death threats by a long list of Islamic terrorist organizations.

Honestly, I don’t know much about Geert Wilders’ politics. I only met the man briefly, and I heard his stump speech twice on Friday. But anyone who has a stack of fatwas calling for his death because of his willingness to speak out against the global jihad is going to receive my support, regardless of any politically incorrect view he may or may not hold.

From my limited perspective, all Geert Wilders has done is hold a mirror up to reflect back the ugly racism and advocacy of violence that are the staple of the most prominent and authoritative officials in Islam. For that he has earned nothing but enmity from the avowed enemies of the West. But it wasn’t enough to earn him a speaking spot on this year’s CPAC schedule.

I've written about Geert Wilders a couple of times of late (video here). But don't forget Melanie Phillips' recent piece, "Britain Capitulates to Terror," or Phyllis Chesler's, "A Dutch Hero Comes to Warn Us, Seek Our Support. The Incomparable Geert Wilders, MP, in New York City."

Pamela Geller discusses her experience at CPAC as well in "Squandering CPAC."

Patrick Poole embellishes upon the drum I have been beating all week, that despite the urgent need for bold leadership CPAC is bereft of vision, integrity, leadership. At what I am hearing is the largest gathering of CPAC attendees ever (my cabbie said 9,000), there was nothing concerning the most critical issues of our day. The people who attended desperately need educating on a vast range of issues that threaten American sovereignty and basic human freedoms. There was nary a mention of the greatest threat to the West - the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference).

Shameful. The only moment that was inspiring and dead on balls was John Bolton's speech.

I'm not sure of Poole's ideological identification. But Pamela's post points us to the disconnect between neoconservative priorities and conservative electoral ambitions. There is a disconnect between the need to combat the scourge of Islamist radicalism - and hence to fulfill America's responsiblities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the recurring hot spots of contemporary evil (from Madrid to Mumbai) - and the interests of Beltway conservatives who seem to focus on partisan-electoral moderation exclusively, as if truly existential issues of national security and preservation of cultures should be minimal to the conservative agenda. (Note how some suggest that those who discuss these issues are not serious policy-makers but "controversialists".)

Much of the Democratic election last year was about Bush fatigue. And much of that fatigue was based in the problematic nature of maintaining public support for costly foreign wars whose origins are found not insubstantially in the preservation of Western ideals and institutions. Armies are not marching across Europe and Asia today as they were in the 1930s and 1940s when the United States entered the war to preserve the balance of power and prevent the victory of totalitarianism over freedom.

That conflict, War War II, was the "good war." Americans tend not to look at wars the same way today. A far off, abstract threat of Islamist ideology is less immediate than, say, the threat of kamikaze attacks of an earlier age. Why these modes of warfare should be seen as separate and discrete is puzzling, because the same fanaticism that drove young Japanese fighter to sacrifice their lives for a code of honor is not unlike the fanatical militants around the world today who would die in much greater numbers if the movements and states they represent had greater capabilities.

As it is, the horror of Madrid or Mumbai subsides within weeks after the hellish scenes of death fade from the nightly news. Americans are worried about collapsing banks and laid off workers, and they've elected a party to power in Washington that for the first time in American history has sought to bring about the defeat on the battlefield of America's own soldiers. The new Democratic administration is Washington is now winding down the war in Iraq in what by all measures is a precipitous withdrawal that puts in jeopardy the signature military victory of the Bush administration's last two years in office. Note here, that while top foreign-policy pundit Fareed Zakaria inveighs on the importance of "Learning to Live With Radical Islam," the Islamic American community sees "Obama as Muslim," that is to say he's their "Muslim President"!

I guess that helps explain why as a society we refuse to recognize and condemn "moderate" Muslim beheadings as ritual honor killing, at precisely the same time Islamists worldwide "are plotting to destroy us."

The "tea party movement" that folks are talking about might serve as an instructive case in the disconnect between party insiders/convention-goers and the rank-and-file patriots who are out and about, in freezing weather, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

I mean no disrespect to those involved on both sides of this debate, but it's disheartening that the driving vision of moral clarity in foreign policy this last eight years seems to be dissipating in an remarkable acceptance of creeping Islamization and political correctness, amid frequent calls for ideological moderation as the path back to power.

Populism and the Peace Movement

Dana at Common Sense Political Thought has responded with a thoughtful essay to my earlier post, "Long Beach ANSWER Cell Mobilizes for March 21st Protest."

In "American Power Versus Populism," Dana notes that, " Dr. Douglas tends to post a lot about the behavior of our enemies in the Islamic world ... [but in his comments on the antiwar movement] it seems to me that he may have overthought the problem ..."

I may have, depending how we look at it. But let's review a bit more of Dana's essay, where he responds to my suggestion that the hardline leftist rallies and demonstrations against the "occupation" can't really be all about ending the wars abroad:

Why can’t it be all about “bringing the troops home now?” That President Obama has set a combat troops withdrawal date eighteen months into the future doesn’t mean that our friends on the left will somehow be satisfied with that; they want the troops home now!

Nor do I think that the anti-war movement has taken what he has called it’s “latest direction.” Rather, the anti-war movement, even in the 1960s, was very much a movement against the notions of power, very opposed to the idea that some people have more mower — and money — than others. From this came the simplistic notion that, in any conflict, the side perceived to have the most power is invariably the “bad guy” ....

Domestically, our friends on the left, and, unfortunately, too many people in the middle as well, see the wealthy and “corporations” as the enemy, as people and institutions which have to be brought to heel and made to pay more and more, this even though most Americans who have jobs are employed by, you guessed it, corporations!

It’s really as simple as the notions of populism, a discourse which supports “the people” versus “the elites.” Scholars have attempted all sorts of explanations concerning the origins, philosophy and strength of populism, but it seems to me to be less a philosophy than a catchall for simply envy and resentment; “He has more money than we do, so he must have cheated us somehow.”

The populist notion, which we can date back at least as far as the legends of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, has not always led to the best of results. Due to a constant e-mail group dispute with a lady whom I considered to be an out-and-out anti-Semite — Art and Yorkshire know to whom I refer — I decided to read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf last year. People expect the book to be filled with anti-Semitism and racism, and it is, but through much of the book der Führer uses a populist methodology: not only are the Germans the greatest people and greatest culture in the world, but they have been unfairly cheated of their birthright and oppressed by the undeserving elites, the democratic powers of England and France, and, of course, by the Jews. Even the supposedly Jewish notion of the equality of man is but a lie by people temporarily in advantage to keep down those who really ought to be the leaders of mankind.

The problem with populism is that it is a know-nothing philosophy, assuming it could be dignified with the name philosophy. It is an us-against-them demagoguery, and the kinds or rational and realistic arguments Dr Douglas brings to the table concerning the attitudes and behavior of, say, the Palestinians really mean little or nothing: the populist both supports and identifies with the oppressed little guy, the side with less power, because he is the little guy, the guy with less power, and that is a feeling which occurs on a simplistic and emotional level.

This is an excellent discussion, and the truth is Dana and I don't really disagree all that much about the ultimate agenda of today's hardline leftist coalition.

I'd only add a couple of points, especially on populism as it relates to ideology.

Populism in the United States has never really been revolutionary. Some of the greatest outbursts of populism have resulted from a breakdown of effective governmental performance and popular disgust at the absence of clear choices between the parties. Teddy Roosevelt's probably the most important populist in the sense of rousing enough voters to nearly shatter the two-party consensus in 1912. More recently, Ross Perot very well could have won the White House had he not badly miscalculated by withdrawing prematurely from the presidential race in 1992. Other populists, of course, have tapped into some of the more irrationalist or racist strains of American politics (Ron Paul).

I'm pushing fifty, so I was still a kid during the Vietnam-era protest movement. But my understanding of it has primarily been one of antiwar activism within a period of social-cultural revolutionary change, for example, with the civil rights and women's liberation movements. To the extent that some groups at the time were genuinely radical, in the politics of the New Left and campus radicalism, much of this stuff literally died out by the time I was in high school. In the 1990s there was very little going for traditional "antiwar" groups, and in fact there was hardly any anti-government agitation during the Clinton years.

I was at UCSB throughout the period, and the idea of protests against things like the airwar over Kosovo was practically unheard of. People on the left were generally pleased with the Democrats in power, and to the extent that there were demands for a more "progressive" agenda, it was more of nuisance multiculturalism and political correctness. Indeed, today's radical left is pretty much a direct response to the Bush adminstration's policies and the ascent of conservative power in Washington. International ANSWER, the neo-Stalinist protest organization, formed just three days after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

So, from my own perspective, while it's true that there's certainly much "anti-establishment" politics to the radicalism of the Vietnam generation, the changes in culture, environmentalism, academics, and "free-and-easy" lifestyles are a largely a function of the activism of the 1960s protest generation.

I've been on a college campus, as a student or a professor, continuously since 1986. With the exception of some anti-nuclear activity in the late-1980s (some of my friends were going to the nuclear ranges in New Mexico to protest, as well as the Gulf War demonstrations), my sense is that this past few years has seen the emergence of a critical mass of anarchist-revolutionary activity on the scale of world-historical importance. Perhaps the "Battle of Seattle" anti-globalization protest in 1999 was the harbinger, but today's protest generation is more than just "bring the troops home." This is an anti-Semitic kill-the-Jews culture that seems unprecedented, and even unreal to me.

So, I'm not so much disagreeing with Dana than elaborating a bit more as to where I'm coming from and why I see a qualitative change to the type of radical-left activism at home and around the world today.

By the way, be sure to read John Tierney's essay along these lines, making the case for a new stage of the "peace" movement, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?"

The irony of the modern “peace” movement is that it has very little to do with peace— either as a moral concept or as a political ideal. Peace is a tactical ideal for movement organizers: it serves as political leverage against U.S. policymakers, and it is an ideological response to the perceived failures of American society. The leaders of anti-war groups are modern-day Leninists.

This last notion of today's activists as neo-Lenists (or neo-Stalinists, as I refer to them, given their totalitarianism), is particularly troubling to me, since as a professor on a campus that boasts a local cell of the ANSWER network, I see the world communist movement up close and personal. Rather than educating students into the dominant traditions of Anglo-Protestantism and the American political culture of egalitarianism and individualism, today's leftist academics glorify tyrants and murderers while privileging an ideology of anti-Americanism. Students are shortchanged, and the political, cultural, and economic destruction of this nation continues apace.

Today's Democratic-leftists love it, although they don't always admit what their real agenda is. Indeed, they often align themselves with the extremist anti-Israel factions of today's antiwar right.

If in that sense these folks are "populists," perhaps Dana's approach to all of this is pretty close to mine after all.

Generally Speaking, Do You Consider Yourself ...

... a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?

That's the question pollsters ask respondents to determine party identification. The New York Times has a big piece up on this, "Ailing G.O.P. Risks Losing a Generation," and check the graphic for the numbers on party identification today: "The Party Identification Gap."

There's a lot of talk lately about Republicans losing young voters (they're more liberal, etc., etc.). But this part from the Times on the importance of personality is telling:

Ronald Reagan’s presidency underscores the power of a popular incumbent to win over young voters. When he was elected in 1980, only 20 percent of young Americans identified as Republicans. By 1989, the number had grown to 37 percent, a significant factor in the expansion of the Republican Party during those years.

Geez, youth identification toward the GOP grew 17 percent in eight years. That's prettty phenomenal. Right now the Democrats have a 14 point lead among youth voters, but as we've had years of "BusHitler" demonization, it's frankly not unreasonable to suggest that President Obama's near his peak popularity with the younger cohort at the moment.

Certainly we'll know more about trends in party identification over the next couple of years, but a charismatic and popular field of Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012 may help tamp down youth enthusiasm for the Dems, especially as the necessary tax increases to pay for the "generational" debt Obama's foisting off onto America's youth starts hitting youngsters in their pocketbooks. (But, hey, maybe it's all about being in on the "gay thing," so who knows?)

**********

Having said all of this, Meagan McCain recently argued that Republicans have a "crippling technology disconnect" between the party and young voters. Conservatives can get hip, right?

Rush Limbaugh at CPAC - UPDATED!

Here's the live stream of Rush Limbaugh at CPAC:

While listening to him on Fox, I checked around the net, and Digby's going crazy at these "wingnuts."

God, Rush is good, and man does he tell it like it is ... Whoo hoo!

See also, "Romney Picked as 2012 GOP Front-Runner," via Memeorandum.

**********

UPDATE: Fox News has a report, "Limbaugh Rallies Conservatives to Fight Democrats, Find 'Right Candidate'."

Here's a brief video clip of Rush, from Think Progress (they think it's funny):

I'm looking for a copy of the complete speech and will update when it's available.

**********

UPDATE II: Okay, here's part one of the full set of videos at Hot Air: "Limbaugh Brings Down the House at CPAC":

The full transcript is at Limbaugh's page, but see also, "Rush Rouses CPAC Faithful," via Memeorandum.