For those who aren’t familiar with the dying newspaper business, it’s critical to remember that editors tend to put the stories they consider most important on page A-1...
In any event, on March 4 The Washington Post featured a front-page (“below the fold” as they say, but still) headline: “GOP Seeks Balance With Conservative Icon Limbaugh.” The story went on to examine the tempest Rush stirred up when he announced -- on Feb. 28 -- that he wants “Barack Obama to fail.” Limbaugh made the front of the Post’s Style section March 4 too, by the way, and was back on the front page on March 6, 2009.
To review: Wednesday’s story was a front-pager looking into a story about an event that happened four days earlier. Compare that to, say Obama’s address to Congress (don’t call it a State of the Union, please) the preceding week. Obama spoke on Tuesday, newspapers fawned over his audacious plans on Wednesday, and that was that. By Saturday -- four days later -- you’d search in vain for a front-page story on Obama’s supposedly ground-shifting speech.
In other words, Limbaugh’s four words seem to have had a greater effect than Obama’s thousands of words did. Interesting, that.
The Post managed to dig up the usual suspects to make the usual ad hominem attacks. “Rush is the bloated face and drug-addled voice of the Republican Party,” former Clinton flack Paul Begala told the paper. “Along with lots of others, I intend to continue to turn up the heat until every alleged Republican either endorses or renounces Rush’s statement that he hopes our president fails.”
Some of the “others” Begala plans to work with include politicians on the public payroll. The Politico newspaper reports that Begala and his fellow attack dog James Carville have daily phone conversations with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual.
I never though that in my lifetime I would see a battle for the soul of America fought between a President and a radio host, and rooting for the radio guy.
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