When Rahm Emanuel, James Carville and Paul Begala, the Democrat Axis of Evil, crafted a plan to make Rush Limbaugh the center of a negative PR campaign, some in the Republican elite took the bait and responded by attacking Rush.  Rahm Emanuel must have felt 5 feet tall when his strategy of fomenting dissent on the right was implemented by new style conservatives like David Frum of newmajority.com.  Frum wrote a Rush bashing piece titled “Why Rush is Wrong“ in Newsweek that serves no useful purpose other than to continue for one more week a debate between the new style conservatives (compassionate conservatives) versus the traditional conservatives.  Let me say this about Rahm “Diminutive Chief of Staff for President Obama” Emanuel - I hope he fails notwithstanding the useful idiots on the right who want to continue a campaign to minimize the influence Rush Limbaugh has on politics.

Frum quotes then criticizes Rush:

I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “OK, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words. I need four: I hope he fails.” … See, here’s the point: everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff: “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here … I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

Notice that Limbaugh did not say: “I hope the administration’s liberal plans fail.” Or (better): “I know the administration’s liberal plans will fail.” Or (best): “I fear that this administration’s liberal plans will fail, as liberal plans usually do.” If it had been phrased that way, nobody could have used Limbaugh’s words to misrepresent conservatives as clueless, indifferent or gleeful in the face of the most painful economic crisis in a generation. But then, if it had been phrased that way, nobody would have quoted his words at all—and as Limbaugh himself said, being “headlined” was the point of the exercise. If it had been phrased that way, Limbaugh’s face would not now be adorning the covers of magazines. He phrased his hope in a way that drew maximum attention to himself, offered maximum benefit to the administration and did maximum harm to the party he claims to support.

Does Frum really think that the voters are stupid?  How does anything Rush says to his listeners hurt the Republican Party?  People have been listening to Rush for years and Rush did not cause Frum’s former employer, President George W. Bush, to lose any elections.  Frum tags Rush with the blame for polling data that indicates “more than half of those who left (the Republican Party in the last election) stated that the GOP had become too extreme.”  The GOP has become extremely unpopular during the Bush years, but I don’t know how you can blame Rush for this perception.  I am sure that the tag of extremism comes from the actual policies put forth by politicians, not what Rush Limbaugh says on the radio.

Conservatives believe in small government, low taxes, pro-family policies and a strong national defense.  David Frum has a new road for Republicans to follow that modulates SoCons and hugs trees.  Frum alleges that

We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison—modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive: McCain’s only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania’s most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he’s pro-choice.

We need an environmental message. You don’t have to accept Al Gore’s predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We are rightly mistrustful of liberal environmentalist disrespect for property rights. But property owners also care about property values, about conservation, and as a party of property owners we should be taking those values more seriously.

Frum claims a “new consensus” on gay issues.  Has he not noticed that so called gay marriage was rejected by the same voters in liberal California that embraced President Obama’s campaign?  Frum wrote on February 4, 2007 in NRO that “I have advocated precisely the kind of carbon tax that the Guardian and the UN favor. (Although unlike the enviros, I want to cut other taxes in exactly equal proportion.)”  The purpose of a carbon tax is to socially engineer a shift from carbon based fuels to alternative fuels.  It will hurt our economy.  Furthermore for Frum to trust the government to hike carbon taxes and “cut other taxes in exactly equal proportion” is a horribly naive idea.  Does anbody believe the federal government will not use the opportunity to impose a carbon tax to increase revenues for the federal government?

The bottom line is that Obama’s “Mini Me” Rahm Emanuel has succeeded because David Frum and his posse of New Majority, New Right, and Grand New Party types will not turn down an opportunity to claim that the traditional conservatism of Ronald Reagan should be tossed to the gutter for a Republicanism that supports liberal ideals, including but not limited to using the government to regulate carbon emissions and urging state governments to be friendlier to gay marriage.

Rush is a very popular talk show host and I look forward to his show this week.  If we are still talking about Rush as party leader next week then the 2 and a half liberal men who are engineering an anti-Rush campaign will have won.